A rich, exotic journey that will leave you reaching for your passport.
In a bohemian odyssey set in the 1960s, a young man just out of college backpacks around the world, sampling hash, sex, acid, and illumination as the Vietnam War rages.
In 1966, fresh out of UC Santa Barbara, Ken and roommate Jeb set out to hitchhike to New York City. In New Mexico, Jeb lucks out and catches a solo ride, while Ken climbs in with Lester, a spooky ex-con. Lester gleefully tells of a 13-year-old girl who “cummed in her panties” at a Beatles concert, and he warns Ken to look out for Texas Rangers. Ken lands in the East Village and is soon living with Brenda, a secretary at Columbia University. They marry and set off to backpack the world. Debarking in Ibiza, Ken memorably sees his landlords’ pet monkey carbonize himself as he grabs an electric line. After some hash in Tangiers, the couple reach Italy, where Brenda is groped—a recurring problem—this time in Naples. The travelogue moves on: Byron’s name chiseled by the poet into a marble column in Greece; Masada in the early morning; a Sikh worship service in Tehran; into Afghanistan and hash in Herat. As the narrative turns to New Delhi, its primary strength and challenge become clear: this is an exceedingly rich buffet. But patience is rewarded, as Canatsey (Confessions of a Friendly Anarchist, 2012, etc.) excels at the mesmerizing detail: the monkey’s “palms melted into the wires as electricity coursed through his body, and his body gradually diminished in size as the volts steadily burned away his flesh, muscles, sinews, organs and fat—the greater part of his entire physical mass.” At 400-plus pages, the novel could sometimes benefit from the spicy ironies of a Paul Theroux or the careening freedom of a Kerouac. But overall, Canatsey’s grasp is equal to his reach, and many passages will leave armchair Marco Polos hungering for more.
A rich, exotic journey that will leave you reaching for your passport.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: 978-1-5144-0536-9
Page Count: -
Publisher: Xlibris
Review Posted Online: Oct. 31, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2015
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles...
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
Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.
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.Pub Date: July 1, 1993
ISBN: 0-06-250217-4
Page Count: 192
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1993
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
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