Boilard was raised in Massachusetts and now lives in San Francisco, so the book can be read as a poison-pen letter to his...
Boilard’s debut novel is the literary equivalent of punk rock: angry, cathartic and dripping with contempt for its characters. The story is set in western Massachusetts, which Boilard depicts as a backwater where rape, violence, racism and misogyny are the currency.
The closest thing to a hero is Bobby DuBois, youngest member of an ill-fated family. Events are set in motion when Bobby’s father, Blackie, an ex-convict with a wide sadistic streak, kidnaps and tortures Raymont, a dimwitted boy who’s been suspected of a sex crime. Bobby takes pity on the boy and sets him free—which he knows will be enough to send Blackie into a murderous rage. Running to the ineffectual police force is not an option—nor apparently is escaping to Boston or one of the nearby college towns, which don’t exist at all in the narrative. So, after wrapping up some business—which includes taking revenge on the thugs who’ve attacked his pregnant girlfriend, Doreen—Bobby heads for the hills in the custody of his uncle Thaddeus. No role model himself, Thaddeus teaches Bobby to have sex with ex-strippers, eat dogs and other random roadkill and finally, to murder those who get in the way. The body count piles up as Blackie gives pursuit, joined by an even scarier ex-con, Ed. The conclusion offers hope that Bobby will rise above his surroundings, but it doesn’t seem likely; and the doormatlike female characters aren’t much more appealing than the males.
Boilard was raised in Massachusetts and now lives in San Francisco, so the book can be read as a poison-pen letter to his former home; it's compelling in its twisted way.Pub Date: Sept. 21, 2012
ISBN: 978-1-59692-381-2
Page Count: 328
Publisher: MacAdam/Cage
Review Posted Online: Aug. 21, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2012
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
Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.
Coelho is a Brazilian writer with four books to his credit. Following Diary of a Magus (1992—not reviewed) came this book, published in Brazil in 1988: it's an interdenominational, transcendental, inspirational fable—in other words, a bag of wind.
The story is about a youth empowered to follow his dream. Santiago is an Andalusian shepherd boy who learns through a dream of a treasure in the Egyptian pyramids. An old man, the king of Salem, the first of various spiritual guides, tells the boy that he has discovered his destiny: "to realize one's destiny is a person's only real obligation." So Santiago sells his sheep, sails to Tangier, is tricked out of his money, regains it through hard work, crosses the desert with a caravan, stops at an oasis long enough to fall in love, escapes from warring tribesmen by performing a miracle, reaches the pyramids, and eventually gets both the gold and the girl. Along the way he meets an Englishman who describes the Soul of the World; the desert woman Fatima, who teaches him the Language of the World; and an alchemist who says, "Listen to your heart" A message clings like ivy to every encounter; everyone, but everyone, has to put in their two cents' worth, from the crystal merchant to the camel driver ("concentrate always on the present, you'll be a happy man"). The absence of characterization and overall blandness suggest authorship by a committee of self-improvement pundits—a far cry from Saint- Exupery's The Little Prince: that flagship of the genre was a genuine charmer because it clearly derived from a quirky, individual sensibility.
Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.Pub Date: July 1, 1993
ISBN: 0-06-250217-4
Page Count: 192
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1993
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
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