Once again, Newman (The Night Mayor, 1990; Bad Dreams, 1991)- -in his best effort yet—strives to deepen the horror-novel genre, or give it new levels. Here, Newman builds upon the main device of Bad Dreams, in which dreams mushroomed into dreams within dreams. Like Yggdrasis, the World Tree of Eddic myth ruling The Night Mayor, and Mr. Skinner, the uncontainably passionate vampire ruler of Bad Dreams, the author's new villain swells larger than life even as it's known in fantasy novels. Jago, or ``Beloved,'' is both an unnameable or untraceable bolt of divine love in human form—who now rules a portion of the English countryside and attracts a huge Woodstock festival of millions to his love kingdom (he bleeds from stigmata; a taste of his blood brings bliss; his mere presence ravishes with sexual joy all who come near him)—and a Boschian nightmare who transfuses parts of the animal and vegetable kingdoms into each other. One farmer, on whose heat-wave-crisped land the festival blooms riotously, becomes The Green Man, the very spirit of the earth—a human bush bursting with dirt and green bulbs, his roots threading the bodies of his family members as he spreads over the entrance to Jago's temple, Agapemone. A woman's arm ends handless in a pistol—just as Bosch's human scissors runs about his hellgarden. Dreams are real and shared by others. The hero, writing a thesis on end-of-the-world millenarianism, cuts his shin against one of the ravaging metal monsters from Mars in H.G. Wells's The War of the Worlds. Meanwhile, the plot, less spinal than cumulative, builds into the coming of Heaven on Earth where troubles melt like lemon drops way above the chimney tops and the corn is as high as an elephant's eye. A shot at the transcendental, with fantasy to splurge.
Pub Date: Jan. 15, 1993
ISBN: 0-88184-868-9
Page Count: 536
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 1992
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
Soft-focus story moves right along with few surprises. This time around, Hannah avoids the soap-opera complications of her...
Another middle-aged mom in a muddle.
After years of false starts and big hopes, Elizabeth’s ruggedly handsome husband Jack, a former football star, just landed a spot as a sportscaster on national news. He still loves her, even though much younger women are giving him come-hither looks. Heck, he doesn’t want to betray the love of his life after she helped him kick drugs and stuck by him even when he was a struggling has-been. And won’t it seem hypocritical if he fools around with his sexy assistant while he does in-depth reporting on a rape case involving a famous basketball center? Well, he fools around anyway. Elizabeth, nicknamed Birdie, knows nothing of this, but she withdraws from Jack when her hard-drinking, salt-of-the-earth father has a stroke and dies. Now no one will call her “sugar beet” ever again. Time to return home to Tennessee and contend with Anita, the sort-of-evil stepmother so trashy she wears pink puffy slippers all day long. Naturally, it turns out that Anita actually has a heart of gold and knows a few things about Birdie’s dead mother that were hushed up for years. Mom was an artist, just like Birdie, and an old scandal comes to light as Anita unrolls a vibrant canvas that portrays her secret lover. Perhaps, Birdie muses, her mother died of heartbreak, never having followed her true love or developed her talent. Has she, too, compromised everything she holds dear? Hoping to find out, Birdie joins a support group that promises to reconnect confused women with their passion. She and Jack separate, prompting a how-dare-you fit from their grown daughters. Will Birdie fly her empty nest? Will she go back to college for a degree in art? Will her brooding watercolors ever sell?
Soft-focus story moves right along with few surprises. This time around, Hannah avoids the soap-opera complications of her previous tales (Summer Island, 2001, etc.).Pub Date: July 1, 2002
ISBN: 0-345-45071-X
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2002
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