Not exactly effortlessly readable, but a skillful treatment of its unusual and tricky subject.
The international sex trade becomes the unlikely source of an ironic metamorphosis in the prizewinning Spanish newspaper columnist and author’s 2003 novel (his first in English translation).
Its narrator, 22-year-od Moisés Froissard, abandons an unfulfilling life in Seville and the uncomfortable embrace of his troubled parents, accepting a job as a “scout” for Club Olympus. Portraying itself as a humanitarian relief organization that “rescues” Third World emigrants and refugees from poverty and homelessness, the Club is—as Moisés’s boss, Carmen T. (aka “the Doctor”), explains—a clearinghouse for beautiful women and men, employed as “models” servicing wealthy clients. Moisés warms to his task, forming volatile relationships with gorgeous Albanian model-turned-scout Ludmila, Mauritanian beauty Irène and succulent boytoy Emilio (who introduces Moisés to same-sex pleasures). Sent with Ludmila from the Club’s Barcelona headquarters to the southern Spanish city of Malaga, Moisés endures tropical heat mingled with the overpowering stench of uncollected garbage, while venturing into dangerous streets in search of “the Nubian”—a perfect male specimen coveted for business (and perhaps other) purposes by the sexually avaricious Doctor. The narrative dawdles for too many pages as Moisés considers the logistics and morality of the career that seems to have chosen him. But Bonilla picks up the pace when a tip sends Moisés and Ludmila to an “extreme fighting” arena where the Nubian (a refugee from civil and religious strife in his native Sudan) attracts dumbstruck adoration for his sculpted body and smoldering demeanor, and dominates his sport as an emotionlessly efficient killing machine. The scouts fulfill their mission, but Moisés reaps what he has sown, with a vengeance, and, as the story moves with increasing swiftness toward its conclusion, experiences a change of mind and heart that is simultaneously his humbling and his delayed maturity.
Not exactly effortlessly readable, but a skillful treatment of its unusual and tricky subject.Pub Date: July 7, 2006
ISBN: 0-8050-7781-2
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Metropolitan/Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2006
A modern day fable, with modern implications in a deceiving simplicity, by the author of Dickens. Dali and Others (Reynal & Hitchcock, p. 138), whose critical brilliance is well adapted to this type of satire. This tells of the revolt on a farm, against humans, when the pigs take over the intellectual superiority, training the horses, cows, sheep, etc., into acknowledging their greatness. The first hints come with the reading out of a pig who instigated the building of a windmill, so that the electric power would be theirs, the idea taken over by Napoleon who becomes topman with no maybes about it. Napoleon trains the young puppies to be his guards, dickers with humans, gradually instigates a reign of terror, and breaks the final commandment against any animal walking on two legs. The old faithful followers find themselves no better off for food and work than they were when man ruled them, learn their final disgrace when they see Napoleon and Squealer carousing with their enemies... A basic statement of the evils of dictatorship in that it not only corrupts the leaders, but deadens the intelligence and awareness of those led so that tyranny is inevitable. Mr. Orwell's animals exist in their own right, with a narrative as individual as it is apt in political parody.
Pub Date: Aug. 26, 1946
ISBN: 0452277507
Page Count: 114
Publisher: Harcourt, Brace
Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 1946
A thoroughly empathetic examination of the fragile human spirit, Backman’s latest will resonate a long time.
In Beartown, where the people are as "tough as the forest, as hard as the ice," the star player on the beloved hockey team is accused of rape, and the town turns upon itself.
Swedish novelist Backman’s (A Man Called Ove, 2014, etc.) story quickly becomes a rich exploration of the culture of hockey, a sport whose acolytes see it as a violent liturgy on ice. Beartown explodes after rape charges are brought against the talented Kevin, son of privilege and influence, who's nearly untouchable because of his transcendent talent. The victim is Maya, the teenage daughter of the hockey club’s much-admired general manager, Peter, another Beartown golden boy, a hockey star who made it to the NHL. Peter was lured home to bring winning hockey back to Beartown. Now, after years of despair, the local club is on the cusp of a championship, but not without Kevin. Backman is a masterful writer, his characters familiar yet distinct, flawed yet heroic. Despite his love for hockey, where fights are part of the game, Peter hates violence. Kira, his wife, is an attorney with an aggressive, take-no-prisoners demeanor. Minor characters include Sune, "the man who has been coach of Beartown's A-team since Peter was a boy," whom the sponsors now want fired. There are scenes that bring tears, scenes of gut-wrenching despair, and moments of sly humor: the club president’s table manners are so crude "you can’t help wondering if he’s actually misunderstood the whole concept of eating." Like Friday Night Lights, this is about more than youth sports; it's part coming-of-age novel, part study of moral failure, and finally a chronicle of groupthink in which an unlikely hero steps forward to save more than one person from self-destruction.
A thoroughly empathetic examination of the fragile human spirit, Backman’s latest will resonate a long time.Pub Date: April 25, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-5011-6076-9
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Atria
Review Posted Online: Feb. 20, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2017
BOOK TO SCREEN
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