The Special Guest ($12.95; Nov. 1996; 96 pp.; 1-57566-120-9): A sentimental Christmas tale, first privately printed and now going public in a big way, about the Reid family coming to terms with hard feelings toward a man serving time for a drunk-driving accident that has left their daughter, Jenny, in a coma for the past year. Young Scott Reid, who bags groceries, finds elderly, mysterious Zachery in the store's parking lot. Zachery's vintage Packard won't start, garages are closed for the Christmas weekend, so Zachery is invited to pass the weekend with the Reids, who care for their unconscious daughter in an upstairs bedroom. The story's turn is that the family must forgive the jailed man before heaven's ``Law of Reciprocity'' can go into effect. The Reids not only forgive the jailed man but invite his family to Scott's school Nativity play and carry out other good deeds. Then God, via Zachery, restores Jenny. Barely a page isn't telegraphed ahead. (Also available in mass-market size: $8.95; 1-57566-117-9) (First printing of 500,000; $300,000 ad/promo; author tour)
Pub Date: Nov. 1, 1996
ISBN: 1-57566-120-9
Page Count: 96
Publisher: Kensington
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1996
I Who Have Never Known Men ($22.00; May 1997; 224 pp.; 1-888363-43-6): In this futuristic fantasy (which is immediately reminiscent of Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale), the nameless narrator passes from her adolescent captivity among women who are kept in underground cages following some unspecified global catastrophe, to a life as, apparently, the last woman on earth. The material is stretched thin, but Harpman's eye for detail and command of tone (effectively translated from the French original) give powerful credibility to her portrayal of a human tabula rasa gradually acquiring a fragmentary comprehension of the phenomena of life and loving, and a moving plangency to her muted cri de coeur (``I am the sterile offspring of a race about which I know nothing, not even whether it has become extinct'').
Pub Date: May 1, 1997
ISBN: 1-888363-43-6
Page Count: 224
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1997
BOOK REVIEW
Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.
Coelho is a Brazilian writer with four books to his credit. Following Diary of a Magus (1992—not reviewed) came this book, published in Brazil in 1988: it's an interdenominational, transcendental, inspirational fable—in other words, a bag of wind.
The story is about a youth empowered to follow his dream. Santiago is an Andalusian shepherd boy who learns through a dream of a treasure in the Egyptian pyramids. An old man, the king of Salem, the first of various spiritual guides, tells the boy that he has discovered his destiny: "to realize one's destiny is a person's only real obligation." So Santiago sells his sheep, sails to Tangier, is tricked out of his money, regains it through hard work, crosses the desert with a caravan, stops at an oasis long enough to fall in love, escapes from warring tribesmen by performing a miracle, reaches the pyramids, and eventually gets both the gold and the girl. Along the way he meets an Englishman who describes the Soul of the World; the desert woman Fatima, who teaches him the Language of the World; and an alchemist who says, "Listen to your heart" A message clings like ivy to every encounter; everyone, but everyone, has to put in their two cents' worth, from the crystal merchant to the camel driver ("concentrate always on the present, you'll be a happy man"). The absence of characterization and overall blandness suggest authorship by a committee of self-improvement pundits—a far cry from Saint- Exupery's The Little Prince: that flagship of the genre was a genuine charmer because it clearly derived from a quirky, individual sensibility.
Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.Pub Date: July 1, 1993
ISBN: 0-06-250217-4
Page Count: 192
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1993
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
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