From the pseudonymous de Mers (author of ``fifteen previous novels, several of which were bought for Hollywood''): a gripping, sometimes thoughtful hardcover debut about the Second Coming, though not one to make Catholics happy. De Mers makes the disheartening choice to cross a seemingly serious work like, say, Lloyd C. Douglas's The Robe with Richard Condon's The Manchurian Candidate. Here, in Tennessee backcountry, a huge cloud and lightning transfigure the sky as perhaps a hundred fieldworkers and others witness the slowly floating descent of Jesus from heaven. Soon Jehsu, simply dressed, cures a sick horse, heals a lame man, walks out of a locked jail cell, fills an empty shrimp boat with an overflowing catch, and begins his second ministry with two shrimp fishermen and a streetcorner Bible thumper good for drawing crowds. Then he raises the dead daughter of vastly respected televangelist Don Bagley. Bagley sees that he has been chosen to reveal Jesus to the multitudes, which he does at a tremendous outdoor rally where Jehsu preaches against the Latin bureaucracy that has usurped his name. In Rome, the Vatican is under fire as American Catholics leave the church in droves to join with Jehsu down among the southern fundamentalists. A Sicilian priest is dispatched to assemble a hit team to end this false miracle worker's crusade. Meanwhile, in Greenwich Village, Father Brian Sheridan, a priest of wavering faith who's been given a year off to find himself again, joins with beautiful freelance journalist Marie Olivier to track down the heavies promoting the ``fake Jesus.'' The reader, however, is not certain that Jehsu isn't who he says he is, since he sure spins a golden message, aside from his anticlericalism. The heart faints, though, as the story shades into car-chase action and loony Pulp Fiction hit men. A bag of pearls for a thriller audience. But Hollywood should let this cup pass.
Pub Date: March 11, 1996
ISBN: 0-525-94097-9
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Dutton
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 1996
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
Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.
Coelho is a Brazilian writer with four books to his credit. Following Diary of a Magus (1992—not reviewed) came this book, published in Brazil in 1988: it's an interdenominational, transcendental, inspirational fable—in other words, a bag of wind.
The story is about a youth empowered to follow his dream. Santiago is an Andalusian shepherd boy who learns through a dream of a treasure in the Egyptian pyramids. An old man, the king of Salem, the first of various spiritual guides, tells the boy that he has discovered his destiny: "to realize one's destiny is a person's only real obligation." So Santiago sells his sheep, sails to Tangier, is tricked out of his money, regains it through hard work, crosses the desert with a caravan, stops at an oasis long enough to fall in love, escapes from warring tribesmen by performing a miracle, reaches the pyramids, and eventually gets both the gold and the girl. Along the way he meets an Englishman who describes the Soul of the World; the desert woman Fatima, who teaches him the Language of the World; and an alchemist who says, "Listen to your heart" A message clings like ivy to every encounter; everyone, but everyone, has to put in their two cents' worth, from the crystal merchant to the camel driver ("concentrate always on the present, you'll be a happy man"). The absence of characterization and overall blandness suggest authorship by a committee of self-improvement pundits—a far cry from Saint- Exupery's The Little Prince: that flagship of the genre was a genuine charmer because it clearly derived from a quirky, individual sensibility.
Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.Pub Date: July 1, 1993
ISBN: 0-06-250217-4
Page Count: 192
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1993
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
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