bookshelf

SNOWFLAKES IN THE SUN

Name: SNOWFLAKES IN THE SUN
Author: Jean Buffong
ISBN: 0-7043-4423-8

by Jean Buffong ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 1, 1997

bookshelf

Mostly painful reminiscences of British life—as offered round the dinner table and out on the porch in a Caribbean setting more vivid than the anecdotes shared there. Grenadian author Buffong (Under the Silk Cotton Tree, 1993) does luminously evoke the close ties among people on Grenada, with the balmy climate and warm sea (always close enough for a swim) contrasting violently with Aunt Sarah's and Uncle Dolphus's tales of life in England. The couple never felt warm there, even in summer, were subjected to crude racial prejudice and endured demeaning jobs, like cleaning latrines, were paid lower wages for the same work whites did, and suffered frequent insults or unprovoked attacks. Though tempted often to leave, the two met and married over there, then stayed on until they were eligible for a pension and had saved enough money to buy a piece of land back home. Now in their 70s, they raise animals and grow vegetables, selling the surplus in town. But the past's pain is still alive and real. Their stories, often interrupted by comments from neighbors and relatives, are recorded by Dorothy, Aunt Sarah's favorite niece, who, intrigued by the elderly couple's experiences abroad, spends most of her time with them. Dorothy, like the other listeners, is fascinated with England, the place where so many islanders go in hopes of a better life. But the tales they hear describe a hard cold place where the neighbors don't greet one another and the ``people didn't laugh at all and when they laugh it never sounded like a laugh and the sun never felt like the `real sun.' '' Not riveting stuff, but the very ordinariness is the appeal—in reminisences that are able to comfort and also sustain families when they get together. A quiet amble down memory lane that instructs as well as entertains—gently, a little.

Pub Date: April 1, 1997

ISBN: 0-7043-4423-8

Page Count: 180

Publisher: Women’s Press/Trafalgar

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 1997

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

bookshelf

CARRIE

by Stephen King ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 8, 1974

King handles his first novel with considerable accomplishment and very little hokum—it's only too easy to believe that these...

bookshelf

Figuratively and literally shattering moments of hoRRRRRipilication in Chamberlain, Maine where stones fly from the sky rather than from the hands of the villagers (as they did in "The Lottery," although the latter are equal to other forms of persecution).

All beginning when Carrie White discovers a gift with telekinetic powers (later established as a genetic fact), after she menstruates in full ignorance of the process and thinks she is bleeding to death while the other monsters in the high school locker room bait and bully her mercilessly. Carrie is the only child of a fundamentalist freak mother who has brought her up with a concept of sin which no blood of the Lamb can wash clean. In addition to a sympathetic principal and gym teacher, there's one girl who wishes to atone and turns her date for the spring ball over to Carrie who for the first time is happy, beautiful and acknowledged as such. But there will be hell to pay for this success—not only her mother but two youngsters who douse her in buckets of fresh-killed pig blood so that Carrie once again uses her "wild talent," flexes her mind and a complete catastrophe (explosion and an uncontrolled fire) virtually destroys the town.

King handles his first novel with considerable accomplishment and very little hokum—it's only too easy to believe that these youngsters who once ate peanut butter now scrawl "Carrie White eats shit." But as they still say around here, "Sit a spell and collect yourself."

Pub Date: April 8, 1974

ISBN: 0385086954

Page Count: 216

Publisher: Doubleday

Review Posted Online: Sept. 26, 2011

Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 1974

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

- BOOK REVIEW
OTHER WORLDS THAN THESE
by Stephen King & Peter Straub

- BOOK REVIEW
NEVER FLINCH
by Stephen King

- BOOK REVIEW
YOU LIKE IT DARKER
by Stephen King

- PERSPECTIVES
Appreciations: Carrie Turns 40

- SEEN & HEARD
Stephen King Used ‘Carrie’ Advance To Support Mom

- BOOK TO SCREEN
New ‘Carrie’ Series in the Works at Amazon

bookshelf

TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD

by Harper Lee ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 11, 1960

bookshelf

A first novel, this is also a first person account of Scout's (Jean Louise) recall of the years that led to the ending of a mystery, the breaking of her brother Jem's elbow, the death of her father's enemy — and the close of childhood years. A widower, Atticus raises his children with legal dispassion and paternal intelligence, and is ably abetted by Calpurnia, the colored cook, while the Alabama town of Maycomb, in the 1930's, remains aloof to their divergence from its tribal patterns. Scout and Jem, with their summer-time companion, Dill, find their paths free from interference — but not from dangers; their curiosity about the imprisoned Boo, whose miserable past is incorporated in their play, results in a tentative friendliness; their fears of Atticus' lack of distinction is dissipated when he shoots a mad dog; his defense of a Negro accused of raping a white girl, Mayella Ewell, is followed with avid interest and turns the rabble whites against him. Scout is the means of averting an attack on Atticus but when he loses the case it is Boo who saves Jem and Scout by killing Mayella's father when he attempts to murder them. The shadows of a beginning for black-white understanding, the persistent fight that Scout carries on against school, Jem's emergence into adulthood, Calpurnia's quiet power, and all the incidents touching on the children's "growing outward" have an attractive starchiness that keeps this southern picture pert and provocative. There is much advance interest in this book; it has been selected by the Literary Guild and Reader's Digest; it should win many friends.