A harrowing, if roughly constructed debut, based on the experiences of the author's grandfather; this tale of a student with a learning disability who is driven into a nervous breakdown is set in the early years of this century, when treatment of insanity was still firmly fixed in the Dark Ages. Although Matthew studies to the point of exhaustion, he is frustrated by an inability to understand or retain what he reads; when his failing marks get him expelled from the college in which he's enrolled, he breaks down, withdrawing into catatonia. He is committed to a private asylum, where a horrific program of abuse and neglect drives him even further into himself. Rescued at last by his older brother Zack, who takes him to a ranch in Colorado, Matthew finally embarks on the road to physical and mental health. Sharply defined are Matthew's rage and frustration at the beginning, and his painful, tentative steps toward recovery at the end are sharply defined; in between, readers get only glimpses of his interior state, perhaps because Seago switches points of view among several characters, sometimes rapidly. Matthew's mother and others are introduced with plot-stopping digressions, and the story loses focus with the development of a romance between Zack and a young woman. Still, Matthew's character is well-realized enough to make his retreat into mental illness seem plausible, given the pressures placed on him—and his experience in the asylum is positively nightmarish. Uneven but often engrossing. (Fiction. 11-15)
Pub Date: April 1, 1998
ISBN: 0-8037-2230-3
Page Count: 238
Publisher: Dial Books
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 1997
Evocations of Narnia are not enough to salvage this fantasy, which struggles with thin character development.
A portal fantasy survivor story from an established devotional writer.
Fourteen-year-old Eva’s maternal grandmother lives on a grand estate in England; Eva and her academic parents live in New Haven, Connecticut. When she and Mum finally visit Carrick Hall, Eva is alternately resentful at what she’s missed and overjoyed to connect with sometimes aloof Grandmother. Alongside questions of Eva’s family history, the summer is permeated by a greater mystery surrounding the work of fictional children’s fantasy writer A.H.W. Clifton, who wrote a Narnialike series that Eva adores. As it happens, Grandmother was one of several children who entered and ruled Ternival, the world of Clifton’s books; the others perished in 1952, and Grandmother hasn’t recovered. The Narnia influences are strong—Eva’s grandmother is the Susan figure who’s repudiated both magic and God—and the ensuing trauma has created rifts that echo through her relationships with her daughter and granddaughter. An early narrative implication that Eva will visit Ternival to set things right barely materializes in this series opener; meanwhile, the religious parable overwhelms the magic elements as the story winds on. The serviceable plot is weakened by shallow characterization. Little backstory appears other than that which immediately concerns the plot, and Eva tends to respond emotionally as the story requires—resentful when her seething silence is required, immediately trusting toward characters readers need to trust. Major characters are cued white.
Evocations of Narnia are not enough to salvage this fantasy, which struggles with thin character development. (author’s note, map, author Q&A) (Religious fantasy. 12-14)Pub Date: Jan. 30, 2024
ISBN: 9780593194454
Page Count: 384
Publisher: WaterBrook
Review Posted Online: Oct. 21, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2023
From Newth (The Abduction, 1989), a dense, unusual novel about Tora, 13, who is dying of leprosy in a hospital in 19th- century Bergen, Norway. When Tora contracts the horrible disease, she is yanked from her family’s farm and sent to spend the remainder of her life at a leper hospital in Bergen. It’s a wretched place, where the ill wail in agony from sores and lost limbs, and cry out at night in desperation and hunger. Tora, one of the more able patients, helps tend to others, and in the process, bonds with the most cruel and miserable patient, Mistress Dybendal, who teaches Tora how to read; reading becomes Tora’s sole comfort, giving her the courage to accept her condition. The subject matter is uncommonly intriguing, and the writing evocative, although some of the relationships are troubling: A childhood friend and soul mate, Endre, is presented as a major character and then fades away, while Tora’s father, hardly a presence at all, plays a vital role at the end. More authentically depicted are Tora’s revelations, forgiveness, and innate goodness; many passages are emotionally harrowing, such as the scene when her feet are amputated. Newth’s work is compelling, often heartbreaking, and more than once, triumphant. (Fiction. 12-15)
Pub Date: April 24, 1998
ISBN: 0-374-31701-1
Page Count: 246
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 1998
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