A political satire wanders off course after a promising start.
A small city mayoral race takes some strange turns when a freakish creature dominates the race.
Former journalist Gray Davenport’s life is about as exciting as his nondescript name. Campaign consultant to a perennial also-ran who's floundering again in a three-man race for mayor of Grand River, a pollution-drenched West Coast city whose government is controlled by a cabal of shadowy businessmen, pulling the strings from the local gated community, he’s drowning in self-pity, not least because his marriage to an aspiring (if untalented) artist, fond of Jackson Pollock–like paint splatters, is crumbling. When Reason Wilder, an 8-foot-tall candidate who bears a striking resemblance to a famous 19th-century literary monster, captures the imagination of Grand River’s citizens, with his vaguely populist claims to offer “A way of the people. A way that reflects us all,” Gray sets out to unravel the mystery behind his appeal. That effort (and Gray’s emotional life) is complicated after the alluring Breeze Wellington, a marketing expert with a previous life as a porn star, appears in town and thrusts herself into a campaign that’s soon noteworthy for its deception and betrayal. Ponepinto’s (Curtain Calls, 2015) style doesn’t lack wit or an apt turn of phrase capable of evoking an audible chuckle, as when he describes the “astrologically-themed downtown grid” of Grand River that produces a street named “Cancer Boulevard,” but those talents only carry this uneven novel so far. There are sufficient twists to keep the plot energized, but the pallid protagonist eventually becomes more irritating than sympathetic. Ponepinto has some definite ideas about the flaws of the democratic process—notably, how easy it is to manipulate public opinion—but he wobbles between satirizing the shortcomings of political life and exploring the science-fiction elements of Reason’s existence, including the machinations of the corrupt genius who created him, without fully committing to either story. That structural flaw becomes especially apparent as the novel lurches toward its bizarre climax.
A political satire wanders off course after a promising start.Pub Date: March 7, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-9984092-4-5
Page Count: 300
Publisher: 7.13 Books
Review Posted Online: Dec. 11, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2018
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.
Sisters work together to solve a child-abandonment case.
Ellie and Julia Cates have never been close. Julia is shy and brainy; Ellie gets by on charm and looks. Their differences must be tossed aside when a traumatized young girl wanders in from the forest into their hometown in Washington. The sisters’ professional skills are put to the test. Julia is a world-renowned child psychologist who has lost her edge. She is reeling from a case that went publicly sour. Though she was cleared of all wrongdoing, Julia’s name was tarnished, forcing her to shutter her Beverly Hills practice. Ellie Barton is the local police chief in Rain Valley, who’s never faced a tougher case. This is her chance to prove she is more than just a fading homecoming queen, but a scarcity of clues and a reluctant victim make locating the girl’s parents nearly impossible. Ellie places an SOS call to her sister; she needs an expert to rehabilitate this wild-child who has been living outside of civilization for years. Confronted with her professional demons, Julia once again has the opportunity to display her talents and salvage her reputation. Hannah (The Things We Do for Love, 2004, etc.) is at her best when writing from the girl’s perspective. The feral wolf-child keeps the reader interested long after the other, transparent characters have grown tiresome. Hannah’s torturously over-written romance passages are stale, but there are surprises in store as the sisters set about unearthing Alice’s past and creating a home for her.
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.Pub Date: March 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-345-46752-3
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2005
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.
A violent surfacing of adolescence (which has little in common with Tarkington's earlier, broadly comic, Seventeen) has a compulsive impact.
"Nobody big except me" is the dream world of Holden Caulfield and his first person story is down to the basic, drab English of the pre-collegiate. For Holden is now being bounced from fancy prep, and, after a vicious evening with hall- and roommates, heads for New York to try to keep his latest failure from his parents. He tries to have a wild evening (all he does is pay the check), is terrorized by the hotel elevator man and his on-call whore, has a date with a girl he likes—and hates, sees his 10 year old sister, Phoebe. He also visits a sympathetic English teacher after trying on a drunken session, and when he keeps his date with Phoebe, who turns up with her suitcase to join him on his flight, he heads home to a hospital siege. This is tender and true, and impossible, in its picture of the old hells of young boys, the lonesomeness and tentative attempts to be mature and secure, the awful block between youth and being grown-up, the fright and sickness that humans and their behavior cause the challenging, the dramatization of the big bang. It is a sorry little worm's view of the off-beat of adult pressure, of contemporary strictures and conformity, of sentiment….
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.Pub Date: June 15, 1951
ISBN: 0316769177
Page Count: -
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1951
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