A prequel to Montana 1948 (1993), once again centered on the Hayden family of Montana, though this time the focus broadens beyond a small-town sheriff and his bad brother to explore the theme of justice in a series of intimate short stories. The collection is notable for its unrelenting tension, the result of texture and detail more than plot or conflict. The striking novella that opens the volume, ``Outside the Jurisdiction,'' shows brothers Wesley and Frank Hayden, sons of sheriff Julian, setting off with two no-accounts in 1924 for a town outside their father's jurisdiction. At a local cafe the boys—or at least the no-accounts—harass two Indian girls; the local sheriff humiliates them with ad hoc justice before sending them home. The next story, ``Julian Hayden,'' moves the action back to 1899, when their father arrived in Montana and began homesteading with his widowed mother and sisters; when one sister is overworked by a minister in another town, Julian takes justice into his own hands. Moving ahead seven years to 1906, ``Enid Garling'' tells the story of Julian's wife; she thwarts her possessive father by marrying Julian. ``Thanksgiving'' captures the family in 1927, when the sons return from college for the holidays and Wesley begins to understand that brother Frank is not to be trusted (a major theme in Montana 1948). Of the remaining episodes, ``Len McAuley'' profiles a deputy who develops a crush on Wesley's wife, Gail, in 1935; ``Sheriff's Wife'' and ``The Visit,'' both set in 1937, chronicle Gail's disillusionment with her husband's brand of frontier justice and the birth of their son, David. Episodic, but also an intense, vivid portrait of braided lives.
Pub Date: Feb. 1, 1995
ISBN: 1-57131-002-9
Page Count: 228
Publisher: Milkweed
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 1994
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
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
APPRECIATIONS
Genetically engineered dinosaurs run amok in Crichton's new, vastly entertaining science thriller. From the introduction alone—a classically Crichton-clear discussion of the implications of biotechnological research—it's evident that the Harvard M.D. has bounced back from the science-fantasy silliness of Sphere (1987) for another taut reworking of the Frankenstein theme, as in The Andromeda Strain and The Terminal Man. Here, Dr. Frankenstein is aging billionaire John Hammond, whose monster is a manmade ecosystem based on a Costa Rican island. Designed as the world's ultimate theme park, the ecosystem boasts climate and flora of the Jurassic Age and—most spectacularly—15 varieties of dinosaurs, created by elaborate genetic engineering that Crichton explains in fascinating detail, rich with dino-lore and complete with graphics. Into the park, for a safety check before its opening, comes the novel's band of characters—who, though well drawn, double as symbolic types in this unsubtle morality play. Among them are hero Alan Grant, noble paleontologist; Hammond, venal and obsessed; amoral dino-designer Henry Wu; Hammond's two innocent grandchildren; and mathematician Ian Malcolm, who in long diatribes serves as Crichton's mouthpiece to lament the folly of science. Upon arrival, the visitors tour the park; meanwhile, an industrial spy steals some dino embryos by shutting down the island's power—and its security grid, allowing the beasts to run loose. The bulk of the remaining narrative consists of dinos—ferocious T. Rex's, voracious velociraptors, venom-spitting dilophosaurs—stalking, ripping, and eating the cast in fast, furious, and suspenseful set-pieces as the ecosystem spins apart. And can Grant prevent the dinos from escaping to the mainland to create unchecked havoc? Though intrusive, the moralizing rarely slows this tornado-paced tale, a slick package of info-thrills that's Crichton's most clever since Congo (1980)—and easily the most exciting dinosaur novel ever written. A sure-fire best-seller.
Pub Date: Nov. 7, 1990
ISBN: 0394588169
Page Count: 424
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Sept. 21, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 1990
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