Barbados native Kamau, mixing magic realism and political rhetoric, tries but fails in this first novel to create a searing portrait of oppression on a Caribbean island. The story is told by the dead grandfather of Cephus, one of the protagonists. Now a spirit, the grandfather keeps a protective eye on his kin and makes judicious appearances to those of the living who have the gift of second sight. He recalls how the island won independence from Britain only to end up with a prime minister, Anthony Roachford, even more oppressive and corrupt than the colonial masters. The tale opens as a white missionary and his wife move in and begin proselytizing. The two are observed with distrust by the locals, like Cephus, a farmer, and Boysie, a former sailor, who as Brethren members worship their ancestors and the old African spirits. Cephus's wife Doreen, in love with Boysie, joins the new church but most remain suspicious of the newcomers. With good reason, too, because Pastor Wright and wayward wife Sandra, who seduces a local lad, are bad news. They're hypocritical and corrupt, and thus fitting representatives of the West, but the local oligarchy is not much better; only the poor are pure. Roachford gives money for a new church while the locals lack housing; a hurricane devastates the region, and no aid is forthcoming; bauxite is discovered but not enough to satisfy those who've invested in the search for it. They decide instead to build a resort on land stolen with the Pastor's connivance. A revolution planned by Cephus and Boysie goes horribly wrong as Roachford gets help from the West; the good and the bad die violently; and all the despairing spirits can do is to remind people of ``who they are, where they came from.'' Despite the beguilingly effective uses of lyric symbolism and lilting Caribbean speech, the heavy agenda and almost farcically melodramatic plot make for a disappointing debut.
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1996
ISBN: 1-56689-049-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Coffee House
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 1996
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
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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