Gibson has created a larger-than-life character in Harry Christmas—who is many things but not Santa Claus, thank you very...
This book is part thriller, part farce, part Don Quixote, and has plenty of excellent writing.
Harry Christmas is drunk and on the run. He intends to bury a book of poetry on the beach in his late wife’s homeland of Venezuela as a loving last act for his Emily. But he's also running from his fiancee's deranged stepson, since he just ripped off the money she deposited in a joint bank account for their future life together. Not surprisingly, he's finally running from himself. Gibson has created an antihero of significant proportions: 58 years old, a quick wit and intellect addled by booze, bloated and raging against The Rot—“that corroding plasma of infantilisation”—which translates to anything and everything Harry sees wrong with the world. He is, in fact, running on empty. After skipping out of an elegant Caracas hotel, he takes up with Judith Lamb, an eccentric Englishwoman who sculpts penises, lying his way into her home and her bed by posing as the British author Harry Strong, whom she adores. Life with Judith is like paradise for Harry, and he even manages a running battle with her suspicious daughter, who shows up unexpectedly, but he has to go on the run again when William Slade, the maniacal avenger, appears hot on his trail. As Harry runs, bad things happen to people who trust his lies, and as he finds his wife’s hometown and falls in love with a magnificent character named Lola Rosa, disaster looms again. Judith describes the Harry she knows as “a pompous old sod but he’s got a good heart.” Her daughter pictures him as “a selfish, self-satisfied, wholly unlikable wanker.” Lola Rosa sums up a third perspective: "Aloe Vera is a special plant. If you have enemies, if someone hate you, the Aloe Vera absorb the bad energy. Since you come these two [plants] have died.” Take your pick of Harry Christmas.
Gibson has created a larger-than-life character in Harry Christmas—who is many things but not Santa Claus, thank you very much.Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-63450-609-0
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Skyhorse Publishing
Review Posted Online: June 14, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2015
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.
A violent surfacing of adolescence (which has little in common with Tarkington's earlier, broadly comic, Seventeen) has a compulsive impact.
"Nobody big except me" is the dream world of Holden Caulfield and his first person story is down to the basic, drab English of the pre-collegiate. For Holden is now being bounced from fancy prep, and, after a vicious evening with hall- and roommates, heads for New York to try to keep his latest failure from his parents. He tries to have a wild evening (all he does is pay the check), is terrorized by the hotel elevator man and his on-call whore, has a date with a girl he likes—and hates, sees his 10 year old sister, Phoebe. He also visits a sympathetic English teacher after trying on a drunken session, and when he keeps his date with Phoebe, who turns up with her suitcase to join him on his flight, he heads home to a hospital siege. This is tender and true, and impossible, in its picture of the old hells of young boys, the lonesomeness and tentative attempts to be mature and secure, the awful block between youth and being grown-up, the fright and sickness that humans and their behavior cause the challenging, the dramatization of the big bang. It is a sorry little worm's view of the off-beat of adult pressure, of contemporary strictures and conformity, of sentiment….
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.Pub Date: June 15, 1951
ISBN: 0316769177
Page Count: -
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1951
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
APPRECIATIONS
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.
Sisters work together to solve a child-abandonment case.
Ellie and Julia Cates have never been close. Julia is shy and brainy; Ellie gets by on charm and looks. Their differences must be tossed aside when a traumatized young girl wanders in from the forest into their hometown in Washington. The sisters’ professional skills are put to the test. Julia is a world-renowned child psychologist who has lost her edge. She is reeling from a case that went publicly sour. Though she was cleared of all wrongdoing, Julia’s name was tarnished, forcing her to shutter her Beverly Hills practice. Ellie Barton is the local police chief in Rain Valley, who’s never faced a tougher case. This is her chance to prove she is more than just a fading homecoming queen, but a scarcity of clues and a reluctant victim make locating the girl’s parents nearly impossible. Ellie places an SOS call to her sister; she needs an expert to rehabilitate this wild-child who has been living outside of civilization for years. Confronted with her professional demons, Julia once again has the opportunity to display her talents and salvage her reputation. Hannah (The Things We Do for Love, 2004, etc.) is at her best when writing from the girl’s perspective. The feral wolf-child keeps the reader interested long after the other, transparent characters have grown tiresome. Hannah’s torturously over-written romance passages are stale, but there are surprises in store as the sisters set about unearthing Alice’s past and creating a home for her.
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.Pub Date: March 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-345-46752-3
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2005
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