James Stewart in It's a Wonderful Cat, though in a vaguely realistic vein that avoids heavy sentimentality. This debut by a food and wine writer from Philadelphia who has worked as a chef, bartender, merchant seaman, and college professor follows the nameless narrator when, one cold day, he finds a newborn kitten shivering on his doorstep and takes it in. Gradually he learns to appeal to the cat by various ruses, so that the pet- in-training soon responds duly to its name (Spike) and sidles up to its new owner's leg. As a none-too-successful painter, the narrator has the requisite sexy girlfriend whom he can't quite hang on to and who leaves him time and again, only to return when she loses interest in whatever guy has replaced him. Then he meets a weight- challenged girl who, despite chubby arms, has a certain attractiveness—but clearly is not the kind of sexy beauty who can keep on winding him around her little finger. Even so, he exercises his outstanding cooking smarts and explains to her how he ``trained'' Spike largely by allowing the cat to train him. She too learns how to make Spike respond. When the girl at last asks if she can leave the digs she shares with a friend and move in with him, he hesitates. Okay, she says, I'll leave you alone for four days and come back at noon on Saturday. If you're here, I'll stay. If not, I'll say goodbye to the cat and leave. Then the sexy girl calls for a date. Come Saturday morning, though, Spike's paw is run over by a car and the narrator must race to a vet. Meanwhile, he does leave his door unlocked. . . . No tears, only mild uplift, and just the right size for Bridges of Madison County folks.
Pub Date: Nov. 1, 1997
ISBN: 0-06-019105-8
Page Count: 144
Publisher: HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 1997
A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy.
Are we not men? We are—well, ask Bigfoot, as Brooks does in this delightful yarn, following on his bestseller World War Z(2006).
A zombie apocalypse is one thing. A volcanic eruption is quite another, for, as the journalist who does a framing voice-over narration for Brooks’ latest puts it, when Mount Rainier popped its cork, “it was the psychological aspect, the hyperbole-fueled hysteria that had ended up killing the most people.” Maybe, but the sasquatches whom the volcano displaced contributed to the statistics, too, if only out of self-defense. Brooks places the epicenter of the Bigfoot war in a high-tech hideaway populated by the kind of people you might find in a Jurassic Park franchise: the schmo who doesn’t know how to do much of anything but tries anyway, the well-intentioned bleeding heart, the know-it-all intellectual who turns out to know the wrong things, the immigrant with a tough backstory and an instinct for survival. Indeed, the novel does double duty as a survival manual, packed full of good advice—for instance, try not to get wounded, for “injury turns you from a giver to a taker. Taking up our resources, our time to care for you.” Brooks presents a case for making room for Bigfoot in the world while peppering his narrative with timely social criticism about bad behavior on the human side of the conflict: The explosion of Rainier might have been better forecast had the president not slashed the budget of the U.S. Geological Survey, leading to “immediate suspension of the National Volcano Early Warning System,” and there’s always someone around looking to monetize the natural disaster and the sasquatch-y onslaught that follows. Brooks is a pro at building suspense even if it plays out in some rather spectacularly yucky episodes, one involving a short spear that takes its name from “the sucking sound of pulling it out of the dead man’s heart and lungs.” Grossness aside, it puts you right there on the scene.
A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy.Pub Date: June 16, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-9848-2678-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Del Rey/Ballantine
Review Posted Online: Feb. 9, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK TO SCREEN
A new edition of the by now classic collection of affiliated stories which has already established its deserved longevity.
Pub Date: Aug. 16, 1963
ISBN: 055338256X
Page Count: -
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Sept. 13, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 1963
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