As characterized here, Becky doesn’t earn the equal time she clamors for.
A supporting character in Twain’s The Adventures of Tom Sawyer gets her own novel.
Reviewing her past at 70, Becky Thatcher means to set the record straight. She wasn’t the prissy crybaby portrayed in her old schoolmate Sam Clemens’s bestselling book. She wasn’t just rascally Tom Sawyer’s schoolyard crush—she was his lover and the mother of his child. She was a tomboy who snuck out at night to tail Tom and Huck Finn on their mischief missions around Hannibal, Mo. And Clemens got it wrong about that graveyard murder. Muff Potter, not Injun Joe, was the culprit, and Becky’s first rupture with Tom happened because he inculpated Joe. Grown-up Becky marries Tom’s cousin Sid. Tom pilots riverboats and Huck skulks around Hannibal, a human cipher. When Sid enlists to fight, and Missouri is ravaged by Civil War shortages and marauding gangs, Becky helps her father, Judge Thatcher, escape arrest for treason. Her infant son Tyler has died, leaving only Gage, her son conceived in a tryst with Tom—a secret she withholds from Sid. Dressing as a soldier, Becky follows the troops and rescues Sid. On their return to Hannibal they witness a steamboat explosion in which Tom is lost. The couple head west to join the Nevada gold rush. Sid discovers a rich silver vein, but is killed by vigilantes. Now a wealthy widow, Becky journeys with Gage and her new daughter by Sid to San Francisco. Encouraged by Sam, she becomes a newspaperwoman. But Becky still yearns for Tom and regrets deceiving Sid. A telegraph from Hannibal reveals that Tom is alive, but desperately ill in Panama, where he and Huck had gone for their latest adventure. Becky must follow them one last time. Feisty Becky and charismatic Tom are still, in Hart’s retelling, unable to transcend their Twain-fostered public images. Huck’s best friends ultimately appear to be as unknowable as he is.
As characterized here, Becky doesn’t earn the equal time she clamors for.Pub Date: Jan. 8, 2008
ISBN: 978-0-312-37327-6
Page Count: 384
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2007
This novel began as a reworking of W.W. Jacobs' horror classic "The Monkey's Paw"—a short story about the dreadful outcome when a father wishes for his dead son's resurrection. And King's 400-page version reads, in fact, like a monstrously padded short story, moving so slowly that every plot-turn becomes lumberingly predictable. Still, readers with a taste for the morbid and ghoulish will find unlimited dark, mortality-obsessed atmosphere here—as Dr. Louis Creed arrives in Maine with wife Rachel and their two little kids Ellie and Gage, moving into a semi-rural house not far from the "Pet Sematary": a spot in the woods where local kids have been burying their pets for decades. Louis, 35, finds a great new friend/father-figure in elderly neighbor Jud Crandall; he begins work as director of the local university health-services. But Louis is oppressed by thoughts of death—especially after a dying student whispers something about the pet cemetery, then reappears in a dream (but is it a dream) to lead Louis into those woods during the middle of the night. What is the secret of the Pet Sematary? Well, eventually old Jud gives Louis a lecture/tour of the Pet Sematary's "annex"—an old Micmac burying ground where pets have been buried. . .and then reappeared alive! So, when little Ellie's beloved cat Church is run over (while Ellie's visiting grandfolks), Louis and Jud bury it in the annex—resulting in a faintly nasty resurrection: Church reappears, now with a foul smell and a creepy demeanor. But: what would happen if a human corpse were buried there? That's the question when Louis' little son Gage is promptly killed in an accident. Will grieving father Louis dig up his son's body from the normal graveyard and replant it in the Pet Sematary? What about the stories of a previous similar attempt—when dead Timmy Baterman was "transformed into some sort of all-knowing daemon?" Will Gage return to the living—but as "a thing of evil?" He will indeed, spouting obscenities and committing murder. . .before Louis must eliminate this child-demon he has unleashed. Filled out with overdone family melodrama (the feud between Louis and his father-in-law) and repetitious inner monologues: a broody horror tale that's strong on dark, depressing chills, weak on suspense or surprise—and not likely to please the fans of King's zestier, livelier terror-thons.
Pub Date: Nov. 4, 1983
ISBN: 0743412281
Page Count: 420
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Sept. 26, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 1983
BOOK TO SCREEN
This is historical adventure on a grand scale, right up there with the works of Conn Iggulden and Minette Walters.
Plenty of gore from days of yore fills the 12th entry in Cornwell’s The Last Kingdom series (War of the Wolf, 2018, etc.).
The pagan warlord Uhtred of Bebbanburg narrates his 10th-century adventures, during which he hacks people apart so that kingdoms might be stitched together. He is known to some as the Godless or the Wicked, a reputation he enjoys. Edward, King of Wessex, Mercia, and East Anglia is gravely ill, and Uhtred pledges an oath to likely heir Æthelstan to kill two rivals, Æthelhelm and “his rotten nephew,” Ælfweard, when the king dies. Uhtred’s wife, Eadith, wants him to break that oath, but he cannot live with the dishonor of being an oathbreaker. The tale seems to begin in the middle, as though the reader had just turned the last page in the 11th book—and yet it stands alone quite well. Uhtred travels the coast and the river Temes in the good ship Spearhafoc, powered by 40 rowers struggling against tides and currents. He and his men fight furious battles, and he lustily impales foes with his favorite sword, Serpent-Breath. “I don’t kill the helpless,” though, which is one of his few limits. So, early in the story, when a man calling himself “God’s chosen one” declares “We were sent to kill you,” readers may chuckle and say yeah, right. But Uhtred faces true challenges such as Waormund, “lord Æthelhelm’s beast.” Immense bloodletting aside, Cornwell paints vivid images of the filth in the Temes and in cities like Lundene. This is mainly manly fare, of course. Few women are active characters. The queen needs rescuing, and “when queens call for help, warriors go to war.” The action is believable if often gruesome and loathsome, and it never lets up for long.
This is historical adventure on a grand scale, right up there with the works of Conn Iggulden and Minette Walters.Pub Date: Nov. 26, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-06-256321-7
Page Count: 336
Publisher: HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Sept. 1, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2019
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