Sharp, offbeat and occasionally off-putting; Ellmann delivers a rarity in the world of fiction—a comic novel of ideas.
British author Ellmann’s comic novels are becoming increasingly odd, as this fifth, about an obese, homicidal nurse with a passion for handbags, demonstrates.
Ellmann writes spry black comedies (Dot in the Universe, 2004, etc.) examining the futility of just about everything. Her quirky prose style (so VERY much is CAPITALIZED that OLD-FASHIONED EMPHASIS slips instead into MOCKERY) and emotional detachment—there is little love lost between reader and heroine—make for a challenging read. Having been fired from her last job in the pediatrics wing (mortality rates skyrocket whenever she’s around), desperate Jen becomes a nurse to a country doctor. Roger Lewis is a worse doctor than Jen is a nurse—his casual negligence has killed off much of the countryside—but no matter, Dr. Lewis is a handsome man with a cleft chin. Jen is a hateful creature, but she does love a few things: cargo pants (to hide her enormous behind); her remarkable collection of handbags; and Dr. Lewis. Soon the two are embroiled in a torrid affair, and then the two are engaged. But at the altar, Francine, the doctor’s belligerent receptionist with a penchant for cosmetic enhancement, reveals herself to be the doctor’s wife. Jen flees and soon finds the meaning of life (which, incidentally, has a fair amount to do with public nudity). Unfortunately, when she returns, her best friend and brother have been murdered, their body parts stashed in Jen’s prized handbags—a triple blow! The police finger her for the crime—someone that overweight must have a guilty conscience about something. In Ellmann’s cruel world, the medical profession is a dangerous sham; fat women are openly despised; and the only love that’s worthwhile is love of self.
Sharp, offbeat and occasionally off-putting; Ellmann delivers a rarity in the world of fiction—a comic novel of ideas.Pub Date: March 1, 2006
ISBN: 1-59691-102-6
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Bloomsbury
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2006
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.
A violent surfacing of adolescence (which has little in common with Tarkington's earlier, broadly comic, Seventeen) has a compulsive impact.
"Nobody big except me" is the dream world of Holden Caulfield and his first person story is down to the basic, drab English of the pre-collegiate. For Holden is now being bounced from fancy prep, and, after a vicious evening with hall- and roommates, heads for New York to try to keep his latest failure from his parents. He tries to have a wild evening (all he does is pay the check), is terrorized by the hotel elevator man and his on-call whore, has a date with a girl he likes—and hates, sees his 10 year old sister, Phoebe. He also visits a sympathetic English teacher after trying on a drunken session, and when he keeps his date with Phoebe, who turns up with her suitcase to join him on his flight, he heads home to a hospital siege. This is tender and true, and impossible, in its picture of the old hells of young boys, the lonesomeness and tentative attempts to be mature and secure, the awful block between youth and being grown-up, the fright and sickness that humans and their behavior cause the challenging, the dramatization of the big bang. It is a sorry little worm's view of the off-beat of adult pressure, of contemporary strictures and conformity, of sentiment….
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.Pub Date: June 15, 1951
ISBN: 0316769177
Page Count: -
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1951
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
APPRECIATIONS
Genetically engineered dinosaurs run amok in Crichton's new, vastly entertaining science thriller. From the introduction alone—a classically Crichton-clear discussion of the implications of biotechnological research—it's evident that the Harvard M.D. has bounced back from the science-fantasy silliness of Sphere (1987) for another taut reworking of the Frankenstein theme, as in The Andromeda Strain and The Terminal Man. Here, Dr. Frankenstein is aging billionaire John Hammond, whose monster is a manmade ecosystem based on a Costa Rican island. Designed as the world's ultimate theme park, the ecosystem boasts climate and flora of the Jurassic Age and—most spectacularly—15 varieties of dinosaurs, created by elaborate genetic engineering that Crichton explains in fascinating detail, rich with dino-lore and complete with graphics. Into the park, for a safety check before its opening, comes the novel's band of characters—who, though well drawn, double as symbolic types in this unsubtle morality play. Among them are hero Alan Grant, noble paleontologist; Hammond, venal and obsessed; amoral dino-designer Henry Wu; Hammond's two innocent grandchildren; and mathematician Ian Malcolm, who in long diatribes serves as Crichton's mouthpiece to lament the folly of science. Upon arrival, the visitors tour the park; meanwhile, an industrial spy steals some dino embryos by shutting down the island's power—and its security grid, allowing the beasts to run loose. The bulk of the remaining narrative consists of dinos—ferocious T. Rex's, voracious velociraptors, venom-spitting dilophosaurs—stalking, ripping, and eating the cast in fast, furious, and suspenseful set-pieces as the ecosystem spins apart. And can Grant prevent the dinos from escaping to the mainland to create unchecked havoc? Though intrusive, the moralizing rarely slows this tornado-paced tale, a slick package of info-thrills that's Crichton's most clever since Congo (1980)—and easily the most exciting dinosaur novel ever written. A sure-fire best-seller.
Pub Date: Nov. 7, 1990
ISBN: 0394588169
Page Count: 424
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Sept. 21, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 1990
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