Ball may or may not explain himself in the end, but there’s no denying the fascination his aberrant storytelling inspires.
“Jesse Ball” investigates a series of disappearances, a wrongful conviction and a love story in modern-day Osaka, Japan.
“I am trying to relate to you a tragedy.” So begins the fourth novel from Ball (The Curfew, 2011, etc.), who makes readers’ heads spin yet again with a darker but more tempered version of his strange, almost whimsical multimedia creations. It’s worth remembering that the author started as a poet, and he is as interested in visual mediums as he is in narrative ones. It’s also worth remembering, even as the author says this work of fiction is partially based on fact, that Ball has been known to teach classes on the art of lying. This somewhat noirish thriller has more in common with Ball’s uncommon thriller Samedi the Deafness (2007) than his more recent experimentations. It starts with a lost bet over a card game. A young man named Oda Sotatsu makes his living buying and selling thread in the village near Sakai. But young Sotatsu fell in with a bad character, Sato Kakuzo, and a girl named Jito Joo. In premise, it sounds simple. “He and Kakuzo made a wager,” Ball writes. “The wager was that the loser, whoever he was, would sign a confession. Kakuzo had brought the confession. He set it out on the table. The loser would sign it, and Joo would bring it to the police station.” For this mistake, Sotatsu is convicted of the “Narito Disappearances,” the alleged murders of eight elderly people. Ball projects himself into the story as a journalist, which allows him to build his novel from a whirling collage of court transcripts, family interviews, photographs, and confessions both false and true. Through it all, Sotatsu keeps his silence, while Ball delves into the mystery of Jita Joo’s role in this tragedy.
Ball may or may not explain himself in the end, but there’s no denying the fascination his aberrant storytelling inspires.Pub Date: Jan. 28, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-307-90848-3
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Pantheon
Review Posted Online: Oct. 20, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2013
PROFILES
This ran in the S.E.P. and resulted in more demands for the story in book form than ever recorded. Well, here it is and it is a honey. Imagine ten people, not knowing each other, not knowing why they were invited on a certain island house-party, not knowing their hosts. Then imagine them dead, one by one, until none remained alive, nor any clue to the murderer. Grand suspense, a unique trick, expertly handled.
Pub Date: Feb. 21, 1939
ISBN: 0062073478
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Dodd, Mead
Review Posted Online: Sept. 20, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1939
SEEN & HEARD
This is historical adventure on a grand scale, right up there with the works of Conn Iggulden and Minette Walters.
Plenty of gore from days of yore fills the 12th entry in Cornwell’s The Last Kingdom series (War of the Wolf, 2018, etc.).
The pagan warlord Uhtred of Bebbanburg narrates his 10th-century adventures, during which he hacks people apart so that kingdoms might be stitched together. He is known to some as the Godless or the Wicked, a reputation he enjoys. Edward, King of Wessex, Mercia, and East Anglia is gravely ill, and Uhtred pledges an oath to likely heir Æthelstan to kill two rivals, Æthelhelm and “his rotten nephew,” Ælfweard, when the king dies. Uhtred’s wife, Eadith, wants him to break that oath, but he cannot live with the dishonor of being an oathbreaker. The tale seems to begin in the middle, as though the reader had just turned the last page in the 11th book—and yet it stands alone quite well. Uhtred travels the coast and the river Temes in the good ship Spearhafoc, powered by 40 rowers struggling against tides and currents. He and his men fight furious battles, and he lustily impales foes with his favorite sword, Serpent-Breath. “I don’t kill the helpless,” though, which is one of his few limits. So, early in the story, when a man calling himself “God’s chosen one” declares “We were sent to kill you,” readers may chuckle and say yeah, right. But Uhtred faces true challenges such as Waormund, “lord Æthelhelm’s beast.” Immense bloodletting aside, Cornwell paints vivid images of the filth in the Temes and in cities like Lundene. This is mainly manly fare, of course. Few women are active characters. The queen needs rescuing, and “when queens call for help, warriors go to war.” The action is believable if often gruesome and loathsome, and it never lets up for long.
This is historical adventure on a grand scale, right up there with the works of Conn Iggulden and Minette Walters.Pub Date: Nov. 26, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-06-256321-7
Page Count: 336
Publisher: HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Sept. 1, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2019
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