by John Drake ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 1, 2009
No children’s story this, but appealing to adult readers with fond memories of the original.
Prequel imaginatively addresses questions Treasure Island left unanswered.
Why would pirates, known for living in the moment, bury a vast fortune? And how did Long John Silver lose his leg? First-time author Drake elaborates on clues in the original novel to offer back stories of John Silver, captured by a pirate captain, and the dreaded Jack Flint, a navy officer turned mutineer. The storytelling moves quickly, if at times more elliptically than necessary. Flint is flummoxed when Silver, a born leader, rescues him from certain defeat and then sets him up as captain of Silver’s ship. Silver’s one shortcoming is that he cannot navigate at sea, a flaw that erodes his self-confidence to such a degree that he relinquishes the command that ought to be his. The two forge an alliance so successful that the Walrus, under their cooperative command, amasses a great fortune. Silver, ever insistent that they operate not as mere pirates but as “Gentlemen of Fortune,” moderates Flint’s sadistic proclivities and proves more effective in leading men. Enter the beautiful runaway slave Selena, who once rebuffed Silver. Flint takes her onboard as his “ward,” despite the sailors’ credo that women are bad luck at sea. Discord soon rankles as Flint endeavors to bury the pirates’ amassed fortune in a place secret from all living men save him. Silver argues that they would do better taking their treasure to Savannah, but Flint wins the debate over the treasure’s fate. Silver takes command of a captured vessel, taking half the Walrus crew with him, and the two ships converge on Treasure Island to bury the loot. But while Flint prevails with his plan, Silver gains Selena’s love. The showdown at sea between these erstwhile friends builds to a spectacular crescendo. Drake vigorously recounts bloody exploits and savage adventures, updating Stevenson with the addition of sex and violence, not to mention the pirates’ own highly creative profanity.
No children’s story this, but appealing to adult readers with fond memories of the original.Pub Date: May 1, 2009
ISBN: 978-1-4165-9275-4
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2009
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by Hanya Yanagihara ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 10, 2015
The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.
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Four men who meet as college roommates move to New York and spend the next three decades gaining renown in their professions—as an architect, painter, actor and lawyer—and struggling with demons in their intertwined personal lives.
Yanagihara (The People in the Trees, 2013) takes the still-bold leap of writing about characters who don’t share her background; in addition to being male, JB is African-American, Malcolm has a black father and white mother, Willem is white, and “Jude’s race was undetermined”—deserted at birth, he was raised in a monastery and had an unspeakably traumatic childhood that’s revealed slowly over the course of the book. Two of them are gay, one straight and one bisexual. There isn’t a single significant female character, and for a long novel, there isn’t much plot. There aren’t even many markers of what’s happening in the outside world; Jude moves to a loft in SoHo as a young man, but we don’t see the neighborhood change from gritty artists’ enclave to glitzy tourist destination. What we get instead is an intensely interior look at the friends’ psyches and relationships, and it’s utterly enthralling. The four men think about work and creativity and success and failure; they cook for each other, compete with each other and jostle for each other’s affection. JB bases his entire artistic career on painting portraits of his friends, while Malcolm takes care of them by designing their apartments and houses. When Jude, as an adult, is adopted by his favorite Harvard law professor, his friends join him for Thanksgiving in Cambridge every year. And when Willem becomes a movie star, they all bask in his glow. Eventually, the tone darkens and the story narrows to focus on Jude as the pain of his past cuts deep into his carefully constructed life.
The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.Pub Date: March 10, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-385-53925-8
Page Count: 720
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Dec. 21, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2015
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by Harper Lee ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 11, 1960
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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