For Billy the Kid, that is—here, a "young, short, dirty, ugly, and violent" killer, but still magnet enough to polarize the fabulous cast of historical and fictional characters that McMurtry (Texasville, 1987; Lonesome Dove, 1985; etc.) assembles in this lustrous new Western entertainment. The man who'd do anything for Billy is Ben Sippy, top author of dime novels such as Boiled in Yellowstone; or, Mustang Merle Amid the Geysers, late of Philadelphia and gone west at age 50 to seek adventure. Adventures he finds in spades, narrating them decades after the fact in short, often cliffhanger chapters that make this rich tale McMurtry's own sophisticated version of a "dimer." Instant failure at train robbery—the train just won't stop for him—finds Ben stranded in New Mexico when Billy comes "walking out of a cloud" towards him, "a pistol in each hand and a scared look on his rough young face." Ben and Billy take a shine to each other and, joined by saintly cowboy Joe Lovelady, roam the West in tandem during the few months that see Billy mutate from novice outlaw—so far, he's murdered only one man, half by accident—into a wanton killer. Along the way, Billy—with Ben in loyal tow—falls afoul of Will Issinglass—richest rancher in the West—and his right-hand man, the seven-foot tall, camel-riding African warrior Mesty-Woolah; mixes up with Doc Holliday, Bloody Feathers, Hill Coe, and other Western legends; is bedded by both Will's chili-pepper-blooded outlaw daughter and ice-goddess British mistress (who sleeps with Ben too); sinks ever deeper into glumness and ill health; and watches his young life turn into an uncontrollable myth as killing becomes a habit that he rides at full gallop towards an early death. Stuffed with excitement, humor, tragedy, and leathery Western lore; centerpieced by McMurtry's vibrant portrait of Billy, scary, pathetic, yet darkly if oddly sympathetic; told in a warm, wise voice that you wish would never cease: this is a golden, always surprising yarn, and a welcome return by McMurtry to the high-stepping form of Lonesome Dove.
Pub Date: Oct. 14, 1988
ISBN: 0743216288
Page Count: 420
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Sept. 30, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 1988
A deeply satisfying novel, both sensuously vivid and remarkably poignant.
Norwegian novelist Jacobsen folds a quietly powerful coming-of-age story into a rendition of daily life on one of Norway’s rural islands a hundred years ago in a novel that was shortlisted for the 2017 Man Booker International Prize.
Ingrid Barrøy, her father, Hans, mother, Maria, grandfather Martin, and slightly addled aunt Barbro are the owners and sole inhabitants of Barrøy Island, one of numerous small family-owned islands in an area of Norway barely touched by the outside world. The novel follows Ingrid from age 3 through a carefree early childhood of endless small chores, simple pleasures, and unquestioned familial love into her more ambivalent adolescence attending school off the island and becoming aware of the outside world, then finally into young womanhood when she must make difficult choices. Readers will share Ingrid’s adoration of her father, whose sense of responsibility conflicts with his romantic nature. He adores Maria, despite what he calls her “la-di-da” ways, and is devoted to Ingrid. Twice he finds work on the mainland for his sister, Barbro, but, afraid she’ll be unhappy, he brings her home both times. Rooted to the land where he farms and tied to the sea where he fishes, Hans struggles to maintain his family’s hardscrabble existence on an island where every repair is a struggle against the elements. But his efforts are Sisyphean. Life as a Barrøy on Barrøy remains precarious. Changes do occur in men’s and women’s roles, reflected in part by who gets a literal chair to sit on at meals, while world crises—a war, Sweden’s financial troubles—have unexpected impact. Yet the drama here occurs in small increments, season by season, following nature’s rhythm through deaths and births, moments of joy and deep sorrow. The translator’s decision to use roughly translated phrases in conversation—i.e., “Tha’s goen’ nohvar” for "You’re going nowhere")—slows the reading down at first but ends up drawing readers more deeply into the world of Barrøy and its prickly, intensely alive inhabitants.
A deeply satisfying novel, both sensuously vivid and remarkably poignant.Pub Date: April 7, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-77196-319-0
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Biblioasis
Review Posted Online: Jan. 12, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2020
In Clavell's last whopper, Tai-pan, the hero became tai-pan (supreme ruler) of Hong Kong following England's victory in the first Opium War. Clavell's new hero, John Blackthorne, a giant Englishman, arrives in 17th century Japan in search of riches and becomes the right arm of the warlord Toranaga who is even more powerful than the Emperor. Superhumanly self-confident (and so sexually overendowed that the ladies who bathe him can die content at having seen the world's most sublime member), Blackthorne attempts to break Portugal's hold on Japan and encourage trade with Elizabeth I's merchants. He is a barbarian not only to the Japanese but also to Portuguese Catholics, who want him dispatched to a non-papist hell. The novel begins on a note of maelstrom-and-tempest ("'Piss on you, storm!' Blackthorne raged. 'Get your dung-eating hands off my ship!'") and teems for about 900 pages of relentless lopped heads, severed torsos, assassins, intrigue, war, tragic love, over-refined sex, excrement, torture, high honor, ritual suicide, hot baths and breathless haikus. As in Tai-pan, the carefully researched material on feudal Oriental money matters seems to he Clavell's real interest, along with the megalomania of personal and political power. After Blackthorne has saved Toranaga's life three times, he is elevated to samurai status, given a fief and made a chief defender of the empire. Meanwhile, his highborn Japanese love (a Catholic convert and adulteress) teaches him "inner harmony" as he grows ever more Eastern. With Toranaga as shogun (military dictator), the book ends with the open possibility of a forthcoming sequel. Engrossing, predictable and surely sellable.
Pub Date: June 23, 1975
ISBN: 0385343248
Page Count: 998
Publisher: Atheneum
Review Posted Online: Sept. 21, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 1975
BOOK TO SCREEN
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