The editor emeritus of New York's Lower East Side (and the author of one previous novel, Kill the Poor, 1988) here tries to cash in on the post-Tarantino trend in nihilist/killer coolness for this tale of a Jack Henry Abbott sort—an ex-con who writes his way out of a life sentence only to end up back in the can on a bum rap. Joey One-Way, ``a walking aberration, a talking negotiation,'' serves over 17 years for killing his adulterous wife, who was ``light, bright, and almost white.'' As narrator of this supposedly transgressive narrative, Joey establishes his street credo early on, both with his ungrammatical ghetto dialect and his boast of tearing off a jail rapist's testicles. Joey's jailhouse masterpiece, ``White Man Black Hole,'' lands him a job ``juicing up'' scripts for a Miami Vice-like TV show set on Manhattan's mean streets, on which Joey is ostensibly an authority. Joey's pent-up aggression finds expression in a number of ways: He slashes a street punk in the face, he breaks a beer bottle over the head of a Maileresque writer at a cocktail party, and he enjoys lots of steamy sex with the wife of the man who arranged his release, the show's producer. Irony of ironies, this showbiz smoothie will also frame Joey for schtupping his old lady, a sultry French Algerian, a former prostitute who became famous writing about her career. Joey's so cool that he not only talks funny (``Joey smell death''), but he can't believe how lame all the upscale heroin users are in Manhattan (i.e., junkies ain't what they used to be). A stunning display of artsploitation, this self-styled shocker will probably suffer the fate of such books: Those who would be shocked aren't likely to read it. But if they do, they'll discover that the biggest con here is not Joey or his producer, but the novel itself. (Author tour)
Pub Date: April 1, 1997
ISBN: 0-517-70819-1
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 1997
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
Soft-focus story moves right along with few surprises. This time around, Hannah avoids the soap-opera complications of her...
Another middle-aged mom in a muddle.
After years of false starts and big hopes, Elizabeth’s ruggedly handsome husband Jack, a former football star, just landed a spot as a sportscaster on national news. He still loves her, even though much younger women are giving him come-hither looks. Heck, he doesn’t want to betray the love of his life after she helped him kick drugs and stuck by him even when he was a struggling has-been. And won’t it seem hypocritical if he fools around with his sexy assistant while he does in-depth reporting on a rape case involving a famous basketball center? Well, he fools around anyway. Elizabeth, nicknamed Birdie, knows nothing of this, but she withdraws from Jack when her hard-drinking, salt-of-the-earth father has a stroke and dies. Now no one will call her “sugar beet” ever again. Time to return home to Tennessee and contend with Anita, the sort-of-evil stepmother so trashy she wears pink puffy slippers all day long. Naturally, it turns out that Anita actually has a heart of gold and knows a few things about Birdie’s dead mother that were hushed up for years. Mom was an artist, just like Birdie, and an old scandal comes to light as Anita unrolls a vibrant canvas that portrays her secret lover. Perhaps, Birdie muses, her mother died of heartbreak, never having followed her true love or developed her talent. Has she, too, compromised everything she holds dear? Hoping to find out, Birdie joins a support group that promises to reconnect confused women with their passion. She and Jack separate, prompting a how-dare-you fit from their grown daughters. Will Birdie fly her empty nest? Will she go back to college for a degree in art? Will her brooding watercolors ever sell?
Soft-focus story moves right along with few surprises. This time around, Hannah avoids the soap-opera complications of her previous tales (Summer Island, 2001, etc.).Pub Date: July 1, 2002
ISBN: 0-345-45071-X
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2002
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