by Louise Wener ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 21, 2005
Much inferior to The Perfect Play (2004), Wener’s first and more mature novel to appear in the US before this fledgling...
A lame, long-winded tale from Wener, a former lead singer with the Brit pop band Sleeper.
“Why is my girlfriend so fed up with me that she feels the need to go and live in a whole other country?” whines narrator Danny McQueen, whose mother was such a Steve McQueen fanatic that she married a man named McQueen. (Because you’re a boring lout, readers who’ve persevered through the novel’s first third to get to this point will reply.) After five years, marketing consultant Alison is fed up with 29 year-old Danny’s rock-star fantasies. He and two mates, one of whom gives him a black eye for being a “self-absorbed, moaning little git,” play for beer at friends’ parties. He gets up at midday, eats his breakfast in front of Supermarket Sweep, and drinks all of Alison’s Bacardi Breezes before she gets home from the office. He should shape up and get a job, says Alison, who’s accepted a six-month reassignment from London to Bruges. Danny tells the band they have to get a recording contract or hang it up. He tracks down an obnoxious high-school buddy who is now the lead singer in a hot band called Scarface and bluffs his way into a contract to back them up on a tour. It’s a vanity deal—his band has to pay $1,000 for the lowly 8–8:30 p.m. time slot—but it’s a gig. By the end of the tour, a reviewer has called them “the next big thing,” and the three have dipped into the life of champagne, cocaine, and groupies. A record deal may be in the works, but that doesn’t make Danny’s life with Alison any easier. Unfortunately, he’s such a flat character it’s hard to care what happens to him.
Much inferior to The Perfect Play (2004), Wener’s first and more mature novel to appear in the US before this fledgling effort, which needn’t have made the flight across the Atlantic.Pub Date: March 21, 2005
ISBN: 0-06-072563-X
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Perennial/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2005
Share your opinion of this book
More by Louise Wener
BOOK REVIEW
by Louise Wener
BOOK REVIEW
by Louise Wener
by Corinne Demas Bliss ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 1, 1999
PLB 0-7868-2125-6 As is true for Pam Conrad’s Tub People, the events in a matryoshka doll’s life depend on external manipulations and circumstances; in this case, it makes the story of a perilous journey fall somewhat flat. A set of the nesting dolls is carved in a Russian village and then sent to a toy shop in America. The outer doll, Anna, has been instructed by the maker to watch over her siblings—“Keep your sisters safe inside you”—but there is nothing she can do when the smallest doll, Nina, is accidentally brushed off the counter and unceremoniously kicked out the door. It is an odyssey in which she has absolutely no active part, nor does she have reactions, for all she possesses is a blank matryoshka face. In the meantime, a young girl who has bought the rest of the set on sale charmingly tucks a little wad of cotton into the next-to-smallest doll so she won’t feel empty. Brown’s atmospheric but docile watercolors often view the matryoshka dolls from a distance, furthering the sense that the story is about events surrounding the dolls, instead of the dolls themselves. An author’s note on the history of matryoshkas is a welcome touch. (Picture book. 4-8)
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1999
ISBN: 0-7868-0153-0
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Hyperion
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 1999
Share your opinion of this book
More by Corinne Demas Bliss
BOOK REVIEW
by Mayra Montero & translated by Edith Grossman ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 1, 1997
In The Palm Of Darkness ($21.00; May 1997; 192 pp.; 0-06-018703- 4): A Cuban writers's intensely imaginative portrait of the extremities of Haitian culture rings some fresh changes on the overfamiliar theme of intellectual arrogance humbled by its collision with ``elemental'' peasant wisdom. Montero subtly builds up a revealing contrast between Victor Griggs, a European herpetologist searching for the remaining specimens of an endangered species of amphibian, and his native guide Thierry Adrien's memories of his family's encounter with the island's ubiquitous spirits. This truly original novel is studded with surprises—not least of which is the concept of a species suddenly and entirely disappearing in a milieu where the living and the dead are known to mingle together more or less matter-of-factly. A refreshingly sophisticated treat. (Author tour)
Pub Date: May 1, 1997
ISBN: 0-06-018703-4
Page Count: 192
Publisher: HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 1997
Share your opinion of this book
More by Mayra Montero
BOOK REVIEW
by Mayra Montero & translated by Edith Grossman
BOOK REVIEW
by Mayra Montero & translated by Edith Grossman
BOOK REVIEW
by Mayra Montero & translated by Edith Grossman
© Copyright 2024 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Hey there, book lover.
We’re glad you found a book that interests you!
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Don’t fret. We’ll find you.