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THE BOY WITHOUT A FLAG

Name: THE BOY WITHOUT A FLAG
Author: Jr. Rodriguez
ISBN: 0-915943-74-3

TALES OF THE SOUTH BRONX

by Jr. Rodriguez ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 1, 1992

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In seven stories that chronicle growing up Puerto Rican in the South Bronx—surrounded by violence, promiscuous sex, and casual drug use—Rodriguez captures the quick, jagged rhythms of street life. In the title piece, the narrator, who wants to be a writer, becomes enamored of his father's stories about American imperialism and refuses to salute the flag. After a big brouhaha, the authorities finally bring the father, intimidated and ready for compromise, into the situation, and the boy, diminished but aware of the world's complexity, capitulates. ``No More War Games'' introduces a 12-year-old girl, Nilsa, who—in a few pages—grows up fast, moving from ``war games'' (bottles and rocks thrown with a vengeance) to an exploration of her emerging sexuality. ``Babies'' is a gritty underbelly-of-life fiction about a female narrator, a 16-year-old junkie, who, denying the strength of her habit, watches one friend give away a baby before getting pregnant herself and choosing an abortion. Likewise, in ``Elba,'' Rodriguez dramatizes the way a young mother tries to raise her baby and make a life with the father, but then, in despair, leaves the baby so that she can have a night out. In ``The Lotto,'' one of the most powerful stories here, Dahlia loses her innocence amid dreams of the Lotto but tests negative for pregnancy, whereupon pregnant Elba (who reappears) breaks off the friendship. ``Birthday Boy'' shows a kid's descent into petty crime and indifference after a childhood of betrayal, desertion, and abuse. ``Short Stop,'' about Marty the motorman, is more buoyant than the others, mostly because Marty, accosted on all sides by crazies, goes about his business and survives. Occasionally derivative in its use of dialect, but a debut that's almost always striking in its bleakness, its empathy, and its convincing detail. A couple of these pieces previously appeared in Story.

Pub Date: June 1, 1992

ISBN: 0-915943-74-3

Page Count: 144

Publisher: Milkweed

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 1992

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

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BETWEEN SISTERS

by Kristin Hannah ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 1, 2003

Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles...

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Sisters in and out of love.

Meghann Dontess is a high-powered matrimonial lawyer in Seattle who prefers sex with strangers to emotional intimacy: a strategy bound to backfire sooner or later, warns her tough-talking shrink. It’s advice Meghann decides to ignore, along with the memories of her difficult childhood, neglectful mother, and younger sister. Though she managed to reunite Claire with Sam Cavenaugh (her father but not Meghann’s) when her mother abandoned both girls long ago, Meghann still feels guilty that her sister’s life doesn’t measure up, at least on her terms. Never married, Claire ekes out a living running a country campground with her dad and is raising her six-year-old daughter on her own. When she falls in love for the first time with an up-and-coming country musician, Meghann is appalled: Bobby Austin is a three-time loser at marriage—how on earth can Claire be so blind? Bobby’s blunt explanation doesn’t exactly satisfy the concerned big sister, who busies herself planning Claire’s dream wedding anyway. And, to relieve the stress, she beds various guys she picks up in bars, including Dr. Joe Wyatt, a neurosurgeon turned homeless drifter after the demise of his beloved wife Diane (whom he euthanized). When Claire’s awful headache turns out to be a kind of brain tumor known among neurologists as a “terminator,” Joe rallies. Turns out that Claire had befriended his wife on her deathbed, and now in turn he must try to save her. Is it too late? Will Meghann find true love at last?

Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles (Distant Shores, 2002, etc.). Kudos for skipping the snifflefest this time around.

Pub Date: May 1, 2003

ISBN: 0-345-45073-6

Page Count: 400

Publisher: Ballantine

Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2003

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

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by Kristin Hannah

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by Kristin Hannah

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by Kristin Hannah

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THE ALCHEMIST

by Paulo Coelho & translated by Margaret Jull Costa ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 1, 1993

Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.

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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.