A sure-handed narrative led by a hapless but resilient adventurer.
High jinks ensue in this picaresque novel when an author sets out ’round the world to shepherd his short story through several translations.
Novelist Story introduces readers to middle-aged Charles Abel Baker, who, like Story, is a writer and former professor of Russian history. Bored and stuck in his life, Charles desperately needs a project, an adventure. He decides to take a short story and have it translated through 10 different languages, then back into English to see whether at the end, à la a game of Telephone, it is even remotely like the original. He tries to interest high-powered publisher Derek Wainscot in the project and is rebuffed. But then Wainscot steals the idea himself, and that means deploying shady operatives to follow Charles and frustrate his plans whenever possible. But an old friend of Charles’, Jonathan Belknap, a retired CIA agent, smells a rat and deploys his own crew against Wainscot’s. The result is a merry, yearlong chase around the globe. Early on, Charles meets Svetlana Novgorodtseva, and love blossoms, fades, blossoms again. An unlikely adventurer, Charles gets out of one impossibly tight spot after another, sometimes by his own devices, sometimes thanks to Belknap’s long arm. There is more, much more, and it moves fast. Story is impressively inventive, and though this yarn is a zany one sure to induce a few grins, it’s not quite a gut-busting affair, especially when, for instance, a drug lord makes a point by executing a young kid in front of Charles. That hardly rates a guffaw. Still, the amusing spy-vs.-spy business involves old hands with handles like “Pig” and “Smilin’ Jack,” and Story is adept at the quick surprise and the odd plot twist. Short and punchy chapters feature background rumination about the beauty of words and the mysteries of translations.
A sure-handed narrative led by a hapless but resilient adventurer.Pub Date: April 21, 2015
ISBN: 978-0986238208
Page Count: 396
Publisher: Blue Mile Books
Review Posted Online: June 2, 2015
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles...
Sisters in and out of love.
Meghann Dontess is a high-powered matrimonial lawyer in Seattle who prefers sex with strangers to emotional intimacy: a strategy bound to backfire sooner or later, warns her tough-talking shrink. It’s advice Meghann decides to ignore, along with the memories of her difficult childhood, neglectful mother, and younger sister. Though she managed to reunite Claire with Sam Cavenaugh (her father but not Meghann’s) when her mother abandoned both girls long ago, Meghann still feels guilty that her sister’s life doesn’t measure up, at least on her terms. Never married, Claire ekes out a living running a country campground with her dad and is raising her six-year-old daughter on her own. When she falls in love for the first time with an up-and-coming country musician, Meghann is appalled: Bobby Austin is a three-time loser at marriage—how on earth can Claire be so blind? Bobby’s blunt explanation doesn’t exactly satisfy the concerned big sister, who busies herself planning Claire’s dream wedding anyway. And, to relieve the stress, she beds various guys she picks up in bars, including Dr. Joe Wyatt, a neurosurgeon turned homeless drifter after the demise of his beloved wife Diane (whom he euthanized). When Claire’s awful headache turns out to be a kind of brain tumor known among neurologists as a “terminator,” Joe rallies. Turns out that Claire had befriended his wife on her deathbed, and now in turn he must try to save her. Is it too late? Will Meghann find true love at last?
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles (Distant Shores, 2002, etc.). Kudos for skipping the snifflefest this time around.Pub Date: May 1, 2003
ISBN: 0-345-45073-6
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2003
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.
Pub Date: July 11, 1960
ISBN: 0060935464
Page Count: 323
Publisher: Lippincott
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1960
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SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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