A son raised by two talented lesbians—Claire the photographer and Theo the gourmet chef and caterer—narrates this solid first novel. Much of the premise tends toward the unbelievable, particularly two women finding a way to practice artificial insemination in 1965 (the year Willy is born) and the narrator later running away from home and living with the homeless under the streets. Most often, however, the excellent writing carries off these implausible events. Then, too, since the adult Willy (now the father of twins) narrates the tale, it's possible that he may be relating a child's-eye view containing as much fantasy as fact. Either way, episodes like the story of Claire (his non-biological mother) using a bicycle to get a jar of donated sperm across town before it dies is a sufficiently captivating image. The same holds true for descriptions of the circle of eccentric, supportive friends surrounding Claire, Theo, and Willy. Rounding out this community are their two sets of parents: Theo's bizarre, free- spirited folks, who live in a trailer in Broken Arrow, Okla.; and Claire's uptight, Upper East Side mother and father. As for Willy, the most striking thing about him is his normality, since even in NYC his living arrangement was unusual—``In 1972 there were no picture books entitled Heather Has Two Mommies or Daddy's Roommate,'' he notes—and his elementary school days were less than peaceful, as he was taunted by classmates at the posh McCall School. Willy's candid voice is refreshing: While the details are occasionally precious, their narrator never is, and the story he tells moves steadily toward the inevitable family conflict that reflects the dissension growing between Theo and Claire as they discover that they have different ways of dealing with Willy's mistreatment at the hands of his peers. The fantasy and mythic weight of a fairy tale, undermined occasionally by cuteness.
Pub Date: June 1, 1995
ISBN: 0-312-13126-7
Page Count: 336
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 1995
This book sings with the terrible silence of dead civilizations in which once there was valor.
Written with quiet dignity that builds to a climax of tragic force, this book about the dissolution of an African tribe, its traditions, and values, represents a welcome departure from the familiar "Me, white brother" genre.
Written by a Nigerian African trained in missionary schools, this novel tells quietly the story of a brave man, Okonkwo, whose life has absolute validity in terms of his culture, and who exercises his prerogative as a warrior, father, and husband with unflinching single mindedness. But into the complex Nigerian village filters the teachings of strangers, teachings so alien to the tribe, that resistance is impossible. One must distinguish a force to be able to oppose it, and to most, the talk of Christian salvation is no more than the babbling of incoherent children. Still, with his guns and persistence, the white man, amoeba-like, gradually absorbs the native culture and in despair, Okonkwo, unable to withstand the corrosion of what he, alone, understands to be the life force of his people, hangs himself. In the formlessness of the dying culture, it is the missionary who takes note of the event, reminding himself to give Okonkwo's gesture a line or two in his work, The Pacification of the Primitive Tribes of the Lower Niger.
This book sings with the terrible silence of dead civilizations in which once there was valor.Pub Date: Jan. 23, 1958
ISBN: 0385474547
Page Count: 207
Publisher: McDowell, Obolensky
Review Posted Online: April 23, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 1958
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Miller makes Homer pertinent to women facing 21st-century monsters.
A retelling of ancient Greek lore gives exhilarating voice to a witch.
“Monsters are a boon for gods. Imagine all the prayers.” So says Circe, a sly, petulant, and finally commanding voice that narrates the entirety of Miller’s dazzling second novel. The writer returns to Homer, the wellspring that led her to an Orange Prize for The Song of Achilles (2012). This time, she dips into The Odyssey for the legend of Circe, a nymph who turns Odysseus’ crew of men into pigs. The novel, with its distinctive feminist tang, starts with the sentence: “When I was born, the name for what I was did not exist.” Readers will relish following the puzzle of this unpromising daughter of the sun god Helios and his wife, Perse, who had negligible use for their child. It takes banishment to the island Aeaea for Circe to sense her calling as a sorceress: “I will not be like a bird bred in a cage, I thought, too dull to fly even when the door stands open. I stepped into those woods and my life began.” This lonely, scorned figure learns herbs and potions, surrounds herself with lions, and, in a heart-stopping chapter, outwits the monster Scylla to propel Daedalus and his boat to safety. She makes lovers of Hermes and then two mortal men. She midwifes the birth of the Minotaur on Crete and performs her own C-section. And as she grows in power, she muses that “not even Odysseus could talk his way past [her] witchcraft. He had talked his way past the witch instead.” Circe’s fascination with mortals becomes the book’s marrow and delivers its thrilling ending. All the while, the supernatural sits intriguingly alongside “the tonic of ordinary things.” A few passages coil toward melodrama, and one inelegant line after a rape seems jarringly modern, but the spell holds fast. Expect Miller’s readership to mushroom like one of Circe’s spells.
Miller makes Homer pertinent to women facing 21st-century monsters.Pub Date: April 10, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-316-55634-7
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Jan. 22, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2018
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