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Prophet of Loss

An often striking account of religious opportunism.

In this drama, a charismatic cult leader exploits a downtrodden family.

Celia Waters’ parents take a calculated risk to buy a new house in a small town in South Carolina, using insurance money that they received after Celia’s grandmother’s death to move out of the Blue Wave Mobile Home Community. But then Celia’s father suffers a serious back injury and loses his job delivering newspapers. Her mother is put out of work, too, when the dentist who employs her goes bankrupt. Celia’s dad abuses alcohol and OxyContin, and he grows verbally abusive, hopeless, and uncharacteristically lazy. His spirits improve after he attends a service at the Living Faith Church, and he’s enthralled with one of its ministers—the hypnotic Barrett Higgins, who eventually breaks from the church and starts his own. He then invites Celia’s family to live in his farmhouse rent-free. They become part of a fledgling religious community that becomes increasingly cultish and bizarre. One day, Higgins announces that he’s the second coming of Jesus Christ—to the joy of his new disciples—and takes Celia’s mother to be his new bride. They all start referring to him as “The Prophet.” Celia is singled out to be Higgins’ “own personal Gabriel.” But then she starts to question his divinity—and his motives. Author Weible (Hello from Out Here, 2010, etc.) deftly unpacks the cunning charm of the cult leader in this unsettling novel, showing how Higgins expertly preys on the vulnerabilities of his quarry: “Celia had wanted Barrett, to possess or be possessed by him, so badly because he was the only thing there was to want. That was his greatest trick.” That said, Celia’s father’s descent into helplessness from an initial place of strength seems too precipitous to be plausible. Aside from this narrative flaw, though, it’s a powerful story, and one that effectively illustrates the human capacity for gullibility.

An often striking account of religious opportunism.

Pub Date: Nov. 8, 2016

ISBN: 978-0-692-76126-7

Page Count: 278

Publisher: East West 792

Review Posted Online: Nov. 28, 2016

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MAGIC HOUR

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

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THE CATCHER IN THE RYE

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

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