An entertaining comedy of errors that should especially appeal to Christian readers.
A local preacher’s simple decision turns an entire small town against him in this novel.
Everyone in Aucoin, Louisiana, thinks that Brad Johnson was born to be the preacher of Lee Community Church. Lately though, Brad’s life at church has become monotonous; he’s been longing to go on a vacation with his wife, Allison, and get away from “the sheer agony of trying to change the order of the worship service.” Behind a lot of that angst is the gruff and very traditional deacon named Earl Bishop. Like the church’s other deacons, Earl has become concerned about the amount of money the Christian congregation is bringing in and he blames Brad’s lackluster sermons. When Brad finds a $100 bill on the floor of his office, he never intends to steal from his own struggling church, but only a few hours later he finds himself needing to spend the money in an emergency at a gas station—a move that will set off Earl and the town’s gossip mill. By the end of a single day, the whole town believes that Brad has been driving through New Orleans with women passed out in the back of his car, doing drugs in his front yard, gambling with church money, and cheating on his wife with gas station clerk Sally Mae Watson—only some of which is true. For his novel, Frady (co-author: Staccato, 2011) sets up an impressive domino effect of mistakes and assumptions; he makes it enjoyable to see so much trouble stem from such a small decision. He also offers plenty of humor, pitting the sweet Brad against infuriating townspeople and putting him completely out of his element. (“I didn’t even know there were different kinds of lottery tickets,” Brad exclaims to a crowd at a gas station while trying his hand at a new vice.) At times, the author goes a bit too far with the frustrating small-town mentality—from the beginning, it’s hard to understand why Brad would put up with his deacons in the first place—but funny, fast-paced dialogue overall makes for rapid jokes and mostly lovable characters.
An entertaining comedy of errors that should especially appeal to Christian readers.Pub Date: Aug. 9, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-5127-9582-0
Page Count: 274
Publisher: Westbow Press
Review Posted Online: Dec. 7, 2017
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
These letters from some important executive Down Below, to one of the junior devils here on earth, whose job is to corrupt mortals, are witty and written in a breezy style seldom found in religious literature. The author quotes Luther, who said: "The best way to drive out the devil, if he will not yield to texts of Scripture, is to jeer and flout him, for he cannot bear scorn." This the author does most successfully, for by presenting some of our modern and not-so-modern beliefs as emanating from the devil's headquarters, he succeeds in making his reader feel like an ass for ever having believed in such ideas. This kind of presentation gives the author a tremendous advantage over the reader, however, for the more timid reader may feel a sense of guilt after putting down this book. It is a clever book, and for the clever reader, rather than the too-earnest soul.
Pub Date: Jan. 1, 1942
ISBN: 0060652934
Page Count: 53
Publisher: Macmillan
Review Posted Online: Oct. 17, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1943
Too beholden to sentimentality and cliché, this novel fails to establish a uniquely realized perspective.
Hunter’s debut novel tracks the experiences of her family members during the Holocaust.
Sol and Nechuma Kurc, wealthy, cultured Jews in Radom, Poland, are successful shop owners; they and their grown children live a comfortable lifestyle. But that lifestyle is no protection against the onslaught of the Holocaust, which eventually scatters the members of the Kurc family among several continents. Genek, the oldest son, is exiled with his wife to a Siberian gulag. Halina, youngest of all the children, works to protect her family alongside her resistance-fighter husband. Addy, middle child, a composer and engineer before the war breaks out, leaves Europe on one of the last passenger ships, ending up thousands of miles away. Then, too, there are Mila and Felicia, Jakob and Bella, each with their own share of struggles—pain endured, horrors witnessed. Hunter conducted extensive research after learning that her grandfather (Addy in the book) survived the Holocaust. The research shows: her novel is thorough and precise in its details. It’s less precise in its language, however, which frequently relies on cliché. “You’ll get only one shot at this,” Halina thinks, enacting a plan to save her husband. “Don’t botch it.” Later, Genek, confronting a routine bit of paperwork, must decide whether or not to hide his Jewishness. “That form is a deal breaker,” he tells himself. “It’s life and death.” And: “They are low, it seems, on good fortune. And something tells him they’ll need it.” Worse than these stale phrases, though, are the moments when Hunter’s writing is entirely inadequate for the subject matter at hand. Genek, describing the gulag, calls the nearest town “a total shitscape.” This is a low point for Hunter’s writing; elsewhere in the novel, it’s stronger. Still, the characters remain flat and unknowable, while the novel itself is predictable. At this point, more than half a century’s worth of fiction and film has been inspired by the Holocaust—a weighty and imposing tradition. Hunter, it seems, hasn’t been able to break free from her dependence on it.
Too beholden to sentimentality and cliché, this novel fails to establish a uniquely realized perspective.Pub Date: Feb. 14, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-399-56308-9
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: Nov. 21, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2016
BOOK TO SCREEN
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