Another old man's tragic past comes to light in a flimsy thematic reprise of The King Boy (1991). Two years after his abusive grandfather's death, Benjy is struggling to keep his Arkansas farm going. Ready to quit, he calls on gray-bearded friend Coot Hunter, who introduces him to Wolf, Doe, and Little Hawk, First Americans living as far from ``civilization'' as they can get. Heartened because at least no one can take away his home, Benjy returns to the farm. Enter Sara Brown, searching for her long-lost father; Benjy conveniently finds a telling photo and extracts from Coot a sad tale of a young mother who killed herself, a drunken father, and self-righteous relatives who beat him nearly to death and took his baby girl. A tearful reunion ensues. Along with a plot punctuated with extraneous incidents, and characters who speak in colorful similes and vague platitudes, the portrayals of Wolf (painted face and stilted speech) and Doe (whose only apparent purpose here is to die in childbirth because Wolf refuses to summon a doctor) are insensitive at best. An abrupt shift from Benjy's story to Sara's and Hunter's roils the ending. Altogether, an awkward, rough-hewn construct. (Fiction. 11-13)
Pub Date: Oct. 29, 1993
ISBN: 0-02-775935-0
Page Count: 184
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 1993
Paulsen recalls personal experiences that he incorporated into Hatchet (1987) and its three sequels, from savage attacks by moose and mosquitoes to watching helplessly as a heart-attack victim dies. As usual, his real adventures are every bit as vivid and hair-raising as those in his fiction, and he relates them with relish—discoursing on “The Fine Art of Wilderness Nutrition,” for instance: “Something that you would never consider eating, something completely repulsive and ugly and disgusting, something so gross it would make you vomit just looking at it, becomes absolutely delicious if you’re starving.” Specific examples follow, to prove that he knows whereof he writes. The author adds incidents from his Iditarod races, describes how he made, then learned to hunt with, bow and arrow, then closes with methods of cooking outdoors sans pots or pans. It’s a patchwork, but an entertaining one, and as likely to win him new fans as to answer questions from his old ones. (Autobiography. 10-13)
Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-385-32650-5
Page Count: 150
Publisher: Delacorte
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2000
Characteristically provocative gothic comedy, with sublime undertones. (Autobiographical fiction. 11-13)
An exhilarating summer marked by death, gore and fire sparks deep thoughts in a small-town lad not uncoincidentally named “Jack Gantos.”
The gore is all Jack’s, which to his continuing embarrassment “would spray out of my nose holes like dragon flames” whenever anything exciting or upsetting happens. And that would be on every other page, seemingly, as even though Jack’s feuding parents unite to ground him for the summer after several mishaps, he does get out. He mixes with the undertaker’s daughter, a band of Hell’s Angels out to exact fiery revenge for a member flattened in town by a truck and, especially, with arthritic neighbor Miss Volker, for whom he furnishes the “hired hands” that transcribe what becomes a series of impassioned obituaries for the local paper as elderly town residents suddenly begin passing on in rapid succession. Eventually the unusual body count draws the—justified, as it turns out—attention of the police. Ultimately, the obits and the many Landmark Books that Jack reads (this is 1962) in his hours of confinement all combine in his head to broaden his perspective about both history in general and the slow decline his own town is experiencing.
Characteristically provocative gothic comedy, with sublime undertones. (Autobiographical fiction. 11-13)Pub Date: Sept. 13, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-374-37993-3
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: April 5, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2011
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