Neither psychologically plausible nor suspenseful.
Urban fantasy (The Turn, 2017) and science-fiction thriller (The Operator, 2016) author Harrison steps into decidedly murkier territory with this gothic-tinged short novel.
In the three years since her mother’s death and a subsequent car accident that gravely wounded her boyfriend, Austin, gifted artist Meg Seton finds that grief, depression, anxiety, and rock-bottom self-esteem have made it nearly impossible for her to conduct the routines of daily life without being thrown into a tailspin. Then Meg’s psychiatrist, Dr. Jillium, puts her on a new medication that gives her the confidence to make instant friends with Haley and Rorry, an elegant but friendly couple who are new in town. Are they simply nice people who are interested in Meg, or are they faeries who want to steal Meg away and exploit her art? And why does Austin seem so threatened by them? A plot in which someone is either hallucinating or experiencing a supernatural event, or both, is a classic and tired trope, expressed more effectively in such works as Russell H. Greenan’s It Happened in Boston?, L. Ron Hubbard’s Fear, and Richard Matheson’s Somewhere in Time. It works best if the writer either descends into outright psychedelic imagery or constructs a consistently mundane world that interlocks with the visions. Harrison tries the latter ploy, but it’s riddled with holes. Meg is an incredibly talented painter, but she demonstrates none of the focus or pedagogy needed to teach a class three times a week. Apparently she’s being cared for by a single psychiatrist who puts her on a course of an experimental psychotropic drug with dangerous side effects that have already severely affected a previous patient—and there’s no significant monitoring, oversight by other doctors, rigorous testing protocol, or even a release to sign. There are no relatives or other friends (except for Austin, sort of) to object to this situation, not even a lawyer, which you’d expect a wealthy woman with issues to have.
Neither psychologically plausible nor suspenseful.Pub Date: March 31, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-59606-896-4
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Subterranean Press
Review Posted Online: Jan. 20, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2019
King handles his first novel with considerable accomplishment and very little hokum—it's only too easy to believe that these...
Figuratively and literally shattering moments of hoRRRRRipilication in Chamberlain, Maine where stones fly from the sky rather than from the hands of the villagers (as they did in "The Lottery," although the latter are equal to other forms of persecution).
All beginning when Carrie White discovers a gift with telekinetic powers (later established as a genetic fact), after she menstruates in full ignorance of the process and thinks she is bleeding to death while the other monsters in the high school locker room bait and bully her mercilessly. Carrie is the only child of a fundamentalist freak mother who has brought her up with a concept of sin which no blood of the Lamb can wash clean. In addition to a sympathetic principal and gym teacher, there's one girl who wishes to atone and turns her date for the spring ball over to Carrie who for the first time is happy, beautiful and acknowledged as such. But there will be hell to pay for this success—not only her mother but two youngsters who douse her in buckets of fresh-killed pig blood so that Carrie once again uses her "wild talent," flexes her mind and a complete catastrophe (explosion and an uncontrolled fire) virtually destroys the town.
King handles his first novel with considerable accomplishment and very little hokum—it's only too easy to believe that these youngsters who once ate peanut butter now scrawl "Carrie White eats shit." But as they still say around here, "Sit a spell and collect yourself."Pub Date: April 8, 1974
ISBN: 0385086954
Page Count: 216
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Sept. 26, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 1974
PERSPECTIVES
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
A first novel, this is also a first person account of Scout's (Jean Louise) recall of the years that led to the ending of a mystery, the breaking of her brother Jem's elbow, the death of her father's enemy — and the close of childhood years. A widower, Atticus raises his children with legal dispassion and paternal intelligence, and is ably abetted by Calpurnia, the colored cook, while the Alabama town of Maycomb, in the 1930's, remains aloof to their divergence from its tribal patterns. Scout and Jem, with their summer-time companion, Dill, find their paths free from interference — but not from dangers; their curiosity about the imprisoned Boo, whose miserable past is incorporated in their play, results in a tentative friendliness; their fears of Atticus' lack of distinction is dissipated when he shoots a mad dog; his defense of a Negro accused of raping a white girl, Mayella Ewell, is followed with avid interest and turns the rabble whites against him. Scout is the means of averting an attack on Atticus but when he loses the case it is Boo who saves Jem and Scout by killing Mayella's father when he attempts to murder them. The shadows of a beginning for black-white understanding, the persistent fight that Scout carries on against school, Jem's emergence into adulthood, Calpurnia's quiet power, and all the incidents touching on the children's "growing outward" have an attractive starchiness that keeps this southern picture pert and provocative. There is much advance interest in this book; it has been selected by the Literary Guild and Reader's Digest; it should win many friends.
Pub Date: July 11, 1960
ISBN: 0060935464
Page Count: 323
Publisher: Lippincott
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1960
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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