Penetrating, inventive writing that challenges perceptions of what lies beyond the veil.
This intriguingly dark collection of short stories by Piatigorsky (Jellyfish Have Eyes, 2015, etc.) considers the possibility of a transitional stage between life and death.
“I cannot fathom my own death,” writes scientist Piatigorsky, “however, the mind and imagination can…indulge in fantasies…that challenge our concepts of death and being human.” This collection of six short stories does exactly that. The first, “Notes Going Underground,” is written from the perspective of a research scientist who finds he has been given a “grace period” between life and death to “size up” his life before burial. In “My Funeral,” a biomedical scientist discovers that once dead, he continues to feel alive and attends his own memorial service. “Waking up Dead” continues in a similar vein with a protagonist who doesn’t realize he is dead and continues his life as usual. The imagination-stretching “Death by Drowning” is about a daughter who connects with an absent father who has been jailed for misusing government funds when researching jellyfish, only for him to die in a bizarre manner. “Mr. Blok” ponders the state of dying after the protagonist falls into a ditch, and “What’s Alive” takes the form of an essay examining the gray area between life and death. The writing is playfully morbid. In “Mr. Blok” an unnerving pleasure arises from the process of dying: “Lying on his back in the mud, soft and warm, with his eyes closed, in the marvelous quietness made him feel almost grateful and glad. How amazingly simple it is to be dead.” Piatigorsky’s prose is laconic yet elegant—always keen to confront the reader with probing questions: “Is a virus dead? Is the peeling bark of a eucalyptus tree alive?” The result is a deeply thought-provoking collection that presents an unflinching examination of a taboo subject. The first three offerings read as a reworking of the same story, each about a scientist negotiating the partition between life and death. Still, despite blurring into one another, these stories capture various aspects of the same phenomena. Accompanied by suitably macabre illustrations by Carrillo, this book is an intriguing read.
Penetrating, inventive writing that challenges perceptions of what lies beyond the veil.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: 978-1-951214-52-4
Page Count: 95
Publisher: Adelaide Books
Review Posted Online: Jan. 2, 2020
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.
Sisters work together to solve a child-abandonment case.
Ellie and Julia Cates have never been close. Julia is shy and brainy; Ellie gets by on charm and looks. Their differences must be tossed aside when a traumatized young girl wanders in from the forest into their hometown in Washington. The sisters’ professional skills are put to the test. Julia is a world-renowned child psychologist who has lost her edge. She is reeling from a case that went publicly sour. Though she was cleared of all wrongdoing, Julia’s name was tarnished, forcing her to shutter her Beverly Hills practice. Ellie Barton is the local police chief in Rain Valley, who’s never faced a tougher case. This is her chance to prove she is more than just a fading homecoming queen, but a scarcity of clues and a reluctant victim make locating the girl’s parents nearly impossible. Ellie places an SOS call to her sister; she needs an expert to rehabilitate this wild-child who has been living outside of civilization for years. Confronted with her professional demons, Julia once again has the opportunity to display her talents and salvage her reputation. Hannah (The Things We Do for Love, 2004, etc.) is at her best when writing from the girl’s perspective. The feral wolf-child keeps the reader interested long after the other, transparent characters have grown tiresome. Hannah’s torturously over-written romance passages are stale, but there are surprises in store as the sisters set about unearthing Alice’s past and creating a home for her.
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.Pub Date: March 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-345-46752-3
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2005
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.
A violent surfacing of adolescence (which has little in common with Tarkington's earlier, broadly comic, Seventeen) has a compulsive impact.
"Nobody big except me" is the dream world of Holden Caulfield and his first person story is down to the basic, drab English of the pre-collegiate. For Holden is now being bounced from fancy prep, and, after a vicious evening with hall- and roommates, heads for New York to try to keep his latest failure from his parents. He tries to have a wild evening (all he does is pay the check), is terrorized by the hotel elevator man and his on-call whore, has a date with a girl he likes—and hates, sees his 10 year old sister, Phoebe. He also visits a sympathetic English teacher after trying on a drunken session, and when he keeps his date with Phoebe, who turns up with her suitcase to join him on his flight, he heads home to a hospital siege. This is tender and true, and impossible, in its picture of the old hells of young boys, the lonesomeness and tentative attempts to be mature and secure, the awful block between youth and being grown-up, the fright and sickness that humans and their behavior cause the challenging, the dramatization of the big bang. It is a sorry little worm's view of the off-beat of adult pressure, of contemporary strictures and conformity, of sentiment….
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.Pub Date: June 15, 1951
ISBN: 0316769177
Page Count: -
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1951
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
APPRECIATIONS
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