A measured, riveting tale, written in a confident, impassioned voice.
A Massachusetts teenager of mixed heritage leaves his family behind to search for his own identity in 1960s America in Cardillo’s (The Smallest Christmas Tree, 2015, etc.) historical-drama sequel.
The Monroes revel in their quiet life in Cape Poge on Chappaquiddick Island. But tragedy rears its ugly head in 1955 when polio attacks the family’s youngest child, 7-year-old Izzy. Mother Mae takes time away from her Boat House Café, which she’d established on her own in the series’ first book, to care for her ailing daughter. Son Josiah, meanwhile, struggles to connect to his Wampanoag roots. Despite the fact that his father, Tobias, is the tribe’s sachem (chief), some tribespeople feel that Jo that doesn’t belong because his mother is Irish. Meanwhile, Mae’s engaging, selfless friend, Betty, acts as a surrogate mother for the confused, adolescent Jo. (One can only hope that she will lead a spinoff book series.) Izzy survives polio with a paralyzed left leg, necessitating braces and crutches; later, Hurricane Donna damages the café so extensively that the family may not be able to afford repairs. Selling Mae’s land, Innisfree, however, could mean that the family would be able to pay for experimental corrective surgery for Izzy, which could allow her to walk unaided. Jo feels that losing Innisfree would be like losing another part of himself. He absconds to Boston and eventually tracks down Patrick, one of Mae’s estranged siblings. It turns out that mother and son are more alike than they’re willing to admit. This unhurried novel tackles crucial issues with panache. The theme of finding one’s identity, for example, also applies to Izzy, who doesn’t want to be defined by her disease. The novel also presents racism with subtlety, as when people guess where Jo’s from based solely on the color of his skin. Over the course of the story, Cardillo skillfully weaves in events from real-life history, as when Jo later serves as a combat medic in Vietnam. The novel only falters when it shifts its perspective to Tobias, whose relatively harmless act earns him unjust ire from Mae and Izzy; this thread lacks the dramatic punch of the rest of the narrative.
A measured, riveting tale, written in a confident, impassioned voice.Pub Date: April 1, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-942209-23-2
Page Count: 380
Publisher: Bellastoria Press
Review Posted Online: Aug. 15, 2016
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
King handles his first novel with considerable accomplishment and very little hokum—it's only too easy to believe that these...
Figuratively and literally shattering moments of hoRRRRRipilication in Chamberlain, Maine where stones fly from the sky rather than from the hands of the villagers (as they did in "The Lottery," although the latter are equal to other forms of persecution).
All beginning when Carrie White discovers a gift with telekinetic powers (later established as a genetic fact), after she menstruates in full ignorance of the process and thinks she is bleeding to death while the other monsters in the high school locker room bait and bully her mercilessly. Carrie is the only child of a fundamentalist freak mother who has brought her up with a concept of sin which no blood of the Lamb can wash clean. In addition to a sympathetic principal and gym teacher, there's one girl who wishes to atone and turns her date for the spring ball over to Carrie who for the first time is happy, beautiful and acknowledged as such. But there will be hell to pay for this success—not only her mother but two youngsters who douse her in buckets of fresh-killed pig blood so that Carrie once again uses her "wild talent," flexes her mind and a complete catastrophe (explosion and an uncontrolled fire) virtually destroys the town.
King handles his first novel with considerable accomplishment and very little hokum—it's only too easy to believe that these youngsters who once ate peanut butter now scrawl "Carrie White eats shit." But as they still say around here, "Sit a spell and collect yourself."Pub Date: April 8, 1974
ISBN: 0385086954
Page Count: 216
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Sept. 26, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 1974
PERSPECTIVES
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
A first novel, this is also a first person account of Scout's (Jean Louise) recall of the years that led to the ending of a mystery, the breaking of her brother Jem's elbow, the death of her father's enemy — and the close of childhood years. A widower, Atticus raises his children with legal dispassion and paternal intelligence, and is ably abetted by Calpurnia, the colored cook, while the Alabama town of Maycomb, in the 1930's, remains aloof to their divergence from its tribal patterns. Scout and Jem, with their summer-time companion, Dill, find their paths free from interference — but not from dangers; their curiosity about the imprisoned Boo, whose miserable past is incorporated in their play, results in a tentative friendliness; their fears of Atticus' lack of distinction is dissipated when he shoots a mad dog; his defense of a Negro accused of raping a white girl, Mayella Ewell, is followed with avid interest and turns the rabble whites against him. Scout is the means of averting an attack on Atticus but when he loses the case it is Boo who saves Jem and Scout by killing Mayella's father when he attempts to murder them. The shadows of a beginning for black-white understanding, the persistent fight that Scout carries on against school, Jem's emergence into adulthood, Calpurnia's quiet power, and all the incidents touching on the children's "growing outward" have an attractive starchiness that keeps this southern picture pert and provocative. There is much advance interest in this book; it has been selected by the Literary Guild and Reader's Digest; it should win many friends.
Pub Date: July 11, 1960
ISBN: 0060935464
Page Count: 323
Publisher: Lippincott
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1960
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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