An often hilarious and astute, if overlong, satire.
A debut comic novel that parodies the labyrinthine bureaucracy of the public school system.
After finishing a graduate school degree program in law and business at Eastern Oregon University, Greg Samson finds himself without any promising employment prospects. However, his best friend, Randy Smith, is the athletic director at Shadowcliff High School in Sweetwater, Arizona, and he helps him find a job as a track coach there. Greg also ends up teaching English and video-production classes and becomes the supervisor for both the yearbook and the business education program. He quickly learns that the world of public education is a well-intentioned but self-destructively incompetent one, full of bureaucratic absurdity. The school’s principal, Connie Rumsford, seems committed to fostering a culture of “compliance and submission,” treating students and their parents as clients to be indulged at the expense of real education. Rumsford also obsessively quotes “master teacher” Elden Ray Fong on issues from pedagogy to sound sleeping habits—a reflection of the fashionable obsession with academic theory. Greg is largely a cheerful idealist and manages to become an effective teacher, but he finds that real progress is thwarted at every turn; he works inside a system that’s designed to produce a veneer of success—one that’s measurable in quantitative terms but ignores actual learning. Debut author Prather has a real talent for comedic writing, and he possesses a deep knowledge of the obstacles that public education faces today, including those created by overzealous parents. At one point, for example, Rumsford refuses to let Greg fail a student for cheating for fear of legal action from the teen’s father and even demands that Greg write the offending student a letter of apology. Prather is clearly influenced by Franz Kafka’s work—Greg’s name, for example, is obviously inspired by that of the main character of The Metamorphosis, and he teaches Kafka to his Advanced Placement students—and he follows that author’s footsteps in ably lampooning technocratic hubris. Problematically, though, his wonderfully rich characters aren’t provided much of a plot; instead, the story meanders somewhat aimlessly at far too great a length.
An often hilarious and astute, if overlong, satire.Pub Date: June 11, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-5332-0202-4
Page Count: 480
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: March 3, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with...
Talk-show queen takes tumble as millions jeer.
Nora Bridges is a wildly popular radio spokesperson for family-first virtues, but her loyal listeners don't know that she walked out on her husband and teenaged daughters years ago and didn't look back. Now that a former lover has sold racy pix of naked Nora and horny himself to a national tabloid, her estranged daughter Ruby, an unsuccessful stand-up comic in Los Angeles, has been approached to pen a tell-all. Greedy for the fat fee she's been promised, Ruby agrees and heads for the San Juan Islands, eager to get reacquainted with the mom she plans to betray. Once in the family homestead, nasty Ruby alternately sulks and glares at her mother, who is temporarily wheelchair-bound as a result of a post-scandal car crash. Uncaring, Ruby begins writing her side of the story when she's not strolling on the beach with former sweetheart Dean Sloan, the son of wealthy socialites who basically ignored him and his gay brother Eric. Eric, now dying of cancer and also in a wheelchair, has returned to the island. This dismal threesome catch up on old times, recalling their childhood idylls on the island. After Ruby's perfect big sister Caroline shows up, there's another round of heartfelt talk. Nora gradually reveals the truth about her unloving husband and her late father's alcoholism, which led her to seek the approval of others at the cost of her own peace of mind. And so on. Ruby is aghast to discover that she doesn't know everything after all, but Dean offers her subdued comfort. Happy endings await almost everyone—except for readers of this nobly preachy snifflefest.
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with syrupy platitudes about life and love.Pub Date: March 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-609-60737-5
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2001
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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SEEN & HEARD
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