A superb magical tribute to fathers, sons, and those who love them.
A supernatural thriller about a priest, his wayward son, and the voodoo sorcerer who could exploit their secret.
The Caribbean fishing town of La Croix has seen a decrease in tourism lately. This summer, a monstrous storm approaches, bringing unbearable humidity. While the older generation sees the storm in terms of angry spirits and evil omens, the young people don’t believe in magic. Jaime—son of Panon, a respected priest—only wants to work, raise money, and move to America, where riches and modernity await. He wants nothing to do with his father’s profession. The rift between father and son widens when the government is overthrown and Jaime risks his life as cheap labor during the new government’s reconstruction. Because Panon carries a secret regarding Jaime’s birth, he’s afraid to ask his patron spirit, Dela Luamba, for help. He goes instead to the new sorcerer of La Croix, Bougné, who has moved into the jungle shack of Uzoma, the previous sorcerer, who died under suspicious circumstances. Will the enchanted contents of a wooden box help Panon bring Jaime back into the fold—or is something darker afoot, better fought with a touch of ordinary magic? Author Thibeault (co-author: Recommend This!, 2014, etc.) beats a steady, foreboding drum in this unique supernatural thriller. He concocts a sinister atmosphere early on, during the government coup: “flashes of light in the distance...merged into a single glow, as if the world itself burned.” The spirit Dela Luamba brings some humor to the tale in snarky missives between chapters and in communion with Panon: “You’re such a good dancer. And you have a sexy ass.” Thibeault deftly explores both the father’s and son’s perspectives, including Jaime’s frustration with magic: “People danced and shook when they should have been discussing the matters at hand.” The story’s latter half is a claustrophobic jungle crawl punctuated by scenes of voodoo horror. In the end, the ordinary magic steering Thibeault’s incredible narrative is Dela Luamba’s to vouch for.
A superb magical tribute to fathers, sons, and those who love them.Pub Date: March 21, 2015
ISBN: 978-1935893349
Page Count: 354
Publisher: Dime Novel Books
Review Posted Online: May 11, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2015
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with...
Talk-show queen takes tumble as millions jeer.
Nora Bridges is a wildly popular radio spokesperson for family-first virtues, but her loyal listeners don't know that she walked out on her husband and teenaged daughters years ago and didn't look back. Now that a former lover has sold racy pix of naked Nora and horny himself to a national tabloid, her estranged daughter Ruby, an unsuccessful stand-up comic in Los Angeles, has been approached to pen a tell-all. Greedy for the fat fee she's been promised, Ruby agrees and heads for the San Juan Islands, eager to get reacquainted with the mom she plans to betray. Once in the family homestead, nasty Ruby alternately sulks and glares at her mother, who is temporarily wheelchair-bound as a result of a post-scandal car crash. Uncaring, Ruby begins writing her side of the story when she's not strolling on the beach with former sweetheart Dean Sloan, the son of wealthy socialites who basically ignored him and his gay brother Eric. Eric, now dying of cancer and also in a wheelchair, has returned to the island. This dismal threesome catch up on old times, recalling their childhood idylls on the island. After Ruby's perfect big sister Caroline shows up, there's another round of heartfelt talk. Nora gradually reveals the truth about her unloving husband and her late father's alcoholism, which led her to seek the approval of others at the cost of her own peace of mind. And so on. Ruby is aghast to discover that she doesn't know everything after all, but Dean offers her subdued comfort. Happy endings await almost everyone—except for readers of this nobly preachy snifflefest.
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with syrupy platitudes about life and love.Pub Date: March 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-609-60737-5
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2001
Britisher Swift's sixth novel (Ever After, 1992 etc.) and fourth to appear here is a slow-to-start but then captivating tale of English working-class families in the four decades following WW II. When Jack Dodds dies suddenly of cancer after years of running a butcher shop in London, he leaves a strange request—namely, that his ashes be scattered off Margate pier into the sea. And who could better be suited to fulfill this wish than his three oldest drinking buddies—insurance man Ray, vegetable seller Lenny, and undertaker Vic, all of whom, like Jack himself, fought also as soldiers or sailors in the long-ago world war. Swift's narrative start, with its potential for the melodramatic, is developed instead with an economy, heart, and eye that release (through the characters' own voices, one after another) the story's humanity and depth instead of its schmaltz. The jokes may be weak and self- conscious when the three old friends meet at their local pub in the company of the urn holding Jack's ashes; but once the group gets on the road, in an expensive car driven by Jack's adoptive son, Vince, the story starts gradually to move forward, cohere, and deepen. The reader learns in time why it is that no wife comes along, why three marriages out of three broke apart, and why Vince always hated his stepfather Jack and still does—or so he thinks. There will be stories of innocent youth, suffering wives, early loves, lost daughters, secret affairs, and old antagonisms—including a fistfight over the dead on an English hilltop, and a strewing of Jack's ashes into roiling seawaves that will draw up feelings perhaps unexpectedly strong. Without affectation, Swift listens closely to the lives that are his subject and creates a songbook of voices part lyric, part epic, part working-class social realism—with, in all, the ring to it of the honest, human, and true.
Pub Date: April 5, 1996
ISBN: 0-679-41224-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 1996
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