A genre-crossing short story collection that’s full of dark imagery.
Duda (Bedtime for Seneca, 2015) brings an eerie twist to three new character-driven tales in his second story collection.
A small, post-apocalyptic community summarily executes its weakest members in “CRDL.” A ghost meets her dead father and finally learns to let go in “Christmas Never Snows.” And in “Cosmo’s Tale,” a girl seeking more exciting friends realizes that sometimes the biggest changes need to come from inside, not from a new social group. The shortest of Duda’s three stories, “CRDL,” leaves a lasting impression; the acronym stands for “Care of the Reclaimed and Deceased Beloved” and represents a chilling process of composting noncontributing members of society in order to provide energy and resources for the survivors. There are overtones of Ursula K. Le Guin’s famous 1973 story “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas” here, but they’re inverted: those who seek to change or leave the society inevitably end up joining the others in death. The second tale features two sets of parents and children—Miss Leal, a ghost whose late father, Flit, attempts to convince her to move on; and a new trio: Tim, who committed a crime for Samantha, the abusive mother of a crippled daughter. When the daughter inadvertently breaks three dolls that are important to Miss Leal, Flit is able to finally get through to his child. The parallels between the two broken families never quite gel, though the idea that the ghosts can find healing and wholeness implies hope for the living. The majority of the book is comprised of “Cosmo’s Tale,” the story of Esther, an eighth-grader who wants more from her life than just following the rules. She’s selected Trish, a marijuana-smoking rebel, to be her new friend and recruits her for a school charity. When Trish takes the money for the fundraiser, leading to tragedy, Esther becomes an outcast, and it’s only through thoroughly messing up a potential friendship with another girl that she realizes that there are more important things than one’s reputation. Esther’s growth comes off as genuine, and her development from being a self-centered person to one who can reach out to others is well-drawn.
A genre-crossing short story collection that’s full of dark imagery.Pub Date: Aug. 25, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-9863647-2-3
Page Count: 50
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Nov. 10, 2015
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with...
Talk-show queen takes tumble as millions jeer.
Nora Bridges is a wildly popular radio spokesperson for family-first virtues, but her loyal listeners don't know that she walked out on her husband and teenaged daughters years ago and didn't look back. Now that a former lover has sold racy pix of naked Nora and horny himself to a national tabloid, her estranged daughter Ruby, an unsuccessful stand-up comic in Los Angeles, has been approached to pen a tell-all. Greedy for the fat fee she's been promised, Ruby agrees and heads for the San Juan Islands, eager to get reacquainted with the mom she plans to betray. Once in the family homestead, nasty Ruby alternately sulks and glares at her mother, who is temporarily wheelchair-bound as a result of a post-scandal car crash. Uncaring, Ruby begins writing her side of the story when she's not strolling on the beach with former sweetheart Dean Sloan, the son of wealthy socialites who basically ignored him and his gay brother Eric. Eric, now dying of cancer and also in a wheelchair, has returned to the island. This dismal threesome catch up on old times, recalling their childhood idylls on the island. After Ruby's perfect big sister Caroline shows up, there's another round of heartfelt talk. Nora gradually reveals the truth about her unloving husband and her late father's alcoholism, which led her to seek the approval of others at the cost of her own peace of mind. And so on. Ruby is aghast to discover that she doesn't know everything after all, but Dean offers her subdued comfort. Happy endings await almost everyone—except for readers of this nobly preachy snifflefest.
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with syrupy platitudes about life and love.Pub Date: March 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-609-60737-5
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2001
Britisher Swift's sixth novel (Ever After, 1992 etc.) and fourth to appear here is a slow-to-start but then captivating tale of English working-class families in the four decades following WW II. When Jack Dodds dies suddenly of cancer after years of running a butcher shop in London, he leaves a strange request—namely, that his ashes be scattered off Margate pier into the sea. And who could better be suited to fulfill this wish than his three oldest drinking buddies—insurance man Ray, vegetable seller Lenny, and undertaker Vic, all of whom, like Jack himself, fought also as soldiers or sailors in the long-ago world war. Swift's narrative start, with its potential for the melodramatic, is developed instead with an economy, heart, and eye that release (through the characters' own voices, one after another) the story's humanity and depth instead of its schmaltz. The jokes may be weak and self- conscious when the three old friends meet at their local pub in the company of the urn holding Jack's ashes; but once the group gets on the road, in an expensive car driven by Jack's adoptive son, Vince, the story starts gradually to move forward, cohere, and deepen. The reader learns in time why it is that no wife comes along, why three marriages out of three broke apart, and why Vince always hated his stepfather Jack and still does—or so he thinks. There will be stories of innocent youth, suffering wives, early loves, lost daughters, secret affairs, and old antagonisms—including a fistfight over the dead on an English hilltop, and a strewing of Jack's ashes into roiling seawaves that will draw up feelings perhaps unexpectedly strong. Without affectation, Swift listens closely to the lives that are his subject and creates a songbook of voices part lyric, part epic, part working-class social realism—with, in all, the ring to it of the honest, human, and true.
Pub Date: April 5, 1996
ISBN: 0-679-41224-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 1996
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