All right, all right: The mystery, as usual in this waggish series (The Mile High Club, 2000, etc.), is no more substantial...
Now that his Vandam Street Irregulars are all out of town—Stephanie DuPont’s in Nassau, Ratso Sloman in Montauk, Steve Rambam in Israel, Mike McGovern in Hawaii collecting recipes for his new cookbook Eat, Drink, and Be Kinky—is it finally time for Kinky Friedman to get a life of his own? Of course not. A pair of phone calls—the first from beekeeper-turned-newspaperman Willis Hoover reporting McGovern’s sudden disappearance from a Waikiki beach, the second including McGovern’s trademark distress signal—“MIT!—MIT!—MIT!”—announces that McGovern’s indeed a Man in Trouble, and that Kinky and the returning Stephanie have to get megamillionaire John McCall to fly them and Stephanie’s pain-in-the-neck dogs to the islands. The good news is that McGovern’s mayday strongly suggests that he’s not dead; certainly he’s not the corpse the Hawaiian authorities identify as his. Nor is a mental inmate in the institution Kinky and his diminished forces visit, or the kidnap victim a pair of low-level thugs try to ransom. But if McGovern’s in no danger, what’s his connection to the vanishing years ago of a pair of priceless Island relics, and the current vanishing of investigative reporter Carline Ravel?
All right, all right: The mystery, as usual in this waggish series (The Mile High Club, 2000, etc.), is no more substantial than peach fuzz. This time, though, Kinky’s patter is disappointingly thin too. As he’d be the first to admit, he needs his posse, or at least his cat, rather than a row of Penis Coladas to bounce off his peerless non-sequiturs.Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-684-86487-8
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2001
None
This is a book which courts the dangers of two extremes. It can be taken not seriously enough or, more likely, critical climate considered, too seriously. Kesey's first novel is narrated by a half-Indian schizophrenic who has withdrawn completely by feigning deaf-muteness. It is set in a mental ward ruled by Big Nurse — a monumental matriarch who keeps her men in line by some highly original disciplinary measures: Nursey doesn't spank, but oh that electric shock treatment! Into the ward swaggers McMurphy, a lusty gambling man with white whales on his shorts and the psychology of unmarried nurses down to a science. He leads the men on to a series of major victories, including the substitution of recent issues of Nuggetand Playboyfor some dated McCall's. The fatuity of hospital utilitarianism, that alcohol-swathed brand of idiocy responsible for the custom of waking patients from a deep sleep in order to administer barbiturates, is countered by McMurphy's simple, articulate, logic. This is a thoroughly enthralling, brilliantly tempered novel, peopled by at least two unforgettable characters. (Big Nurse is custom tailored for a busty Eileen Heckert.) Though extension is possible, make no mistake about it; this is a ward and not a microcosm.
None NonePub Date: Feb. 1, 1962
ISBN: 0451163966
Page Count: 335
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: Sept. 26, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1961
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
APPRECIATIONS
Outrageous, darkly comic fun of the sort you’d expect from Palahniuk.
The latest comic outrage from Palahniuk (Choke, 2001, etc.) concerns a lethal African poem, an unwitting serial killer, a haunted-house broker, and a frozen baby. In other words, the usual Palahniuk fare.
Carl Streator is a grizzled City Desk reporter whose outlook on life has a lot to do with years of interviewing grief-stricken parents, spouses, children, victims, and survivors. His latest investigation is a series of crib deaths. A very good reporter, one thing he’s got is an eye for detail, and he notices that there’s always a copy of the same book (Poems and Rhymes Around the World) at the scene of these deaths. In fact, more often than not, the book is open to an African nursery rhyme called a “culling chant.” A deadly lullaby? It sounds crazy, but Carl discovers that simply by thinking about someone while reciting the poem he can knock him off in no time at all. First, his editor dies. Then an annoying radio host named Dr. Sara. It’s too much to be a coincidence: Carl needs help—and fast, before he kills off everyone he knows. He investigates the book and finds that it was published in a small edition now mainly held in public libraries, so he begins by tracking down everyone known to have checked the book out. This brings him to the office of Helen Hoover Boyle, a realtor who makes a good living selling haunted houses—and reselling them a few months later after the owners move out. A son of Helen’s died of crib death about 20 years ago, and she’s reluctant to talk to Carl until he gains the confidence of her Wiccan secretary, Mona Sabbat. Together, Carl, Helen, Mona, and Mona’s ecoterrorist/scam-artist boyfriend Oyster set out across the country to find and destroy every one of the 200-plus remaining copies of Poems and Rhymes. But can Carl (and Helen) forget the chant themselves? Pandora never did manage to get her box shut, after all.
Outrageous, darkly comic fun of the sort you’d expect from Palahniuk.Pub Date: Sept. 17, 2002
ISBN: 0-385-50447-0
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2002
© Copyright 2024 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
bookshelf
