A meditative debut novel in which two friends take a fateful trip into the Southern California wilderness.
Bean, a stream surveyor for the U.S. Forest Service, takes his lawyer friend Justin hiking through the Navarro River area of Southern California. The idea is get Justin away from the clamor of urban life and take his mind off of his separation from his wife, Medley. Their tale begins at the scorched remains of a cabin, where a man named Crawfurd once lived. The man survived for decades as a hermit, but to Bean’s deep regret, he recently died. Without the pleasure of the older man’s company, Justin and Bean (and his dog, Alice) move on, through a chaparral-covered landscape once occupied by the Chumash Indians. Suddenly, a rattlesnake bites Bean, causing him to stumble among rocks and break his leg. Justin is stunned, and waits for the snake to leave before treating Bean’s bites and setting the broken bone. He then carries his friend to their camp, where they agree that Justin will hike downstream for help from the ranger station. The trek, however, is fraught with perilous river narrows. Do the friends stand a chance of seeing each other again? Debut author Long captures the Navarro valley’s majestic aura on every page: “The bottoms of the canyons were rich green, the result of the alder, sycamore, and cottonwood that grew in the wetter recesses folded between the ridges.” After the snake bites Bean, Long creates tension that most thriller writers would envy; when Justin must drain the venom, for example, he wonders “whether he was saving or killing his friend.” The story also features spirit guides, Xewe and Saint Lucy, and their presence is a fascinating aspect of the narrative, but the author uses them sparingly. Instead, he prefers flashbacks into Bean’s and Justin’s pasts, and a few too many of these slow the pace. However, most of the novel is concerned with loftier subjects, such as how to attain true happiness, and how not to let mistakes weigh heavily on the soul.
A well-rounded, ambitious adventure tale.
Pub Date: June 9, 2014
ISBN: 978-1497537071
Page Count: 216
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: July 17, 2014
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.
Coelho is a Brazilian writer with four books to his credit. Following Diary of a Magus (1992—not reviewed) came this book, published in Brazil in 1988: it's an interdenominational, transcendental, inspirational fable—in other words, a bag of wind.
The story is about a youth empowered to follow his dream. Santiago is an Andalusian shepherd boy who learns through a dream of a treasure in the Egyptian pyramids. An old man, the king of Salem, the first of various spiritual guides, tells the boy that he has discovered his destiny: "to realize one's destiny is a person's only real obligation." So Santiago sells his sheep, sails to Tangier, is tricked out of his money, regains it through hard work, crosses the desert with a caravan, stops at an oasis long enough to fall in love, escapes from warring tribesmen by performing a miracle, reaches the pyramids, and eventually gets both the gold and the girl. Along the way he meets an Englishman who describes the Soul of the World; the desert woman Fatima, who teaches him the Language of the World; and an alchemist who says, "Listen to your heart" A message clings like ivy to every encounter; everyone, but everyone, has to put in their two cents' worth, from the crystal merchant to the camel driver ("concentrate always on the present, you'll be a happy man"). The absence of characterization and overall blandness suggest authorship by a committee of self-improvement pundits—a far cry from Saint- Exupery's The Little Prince: that flagship of the genre was a genuine charmer because it clearly derived from a quirky, individual sensibility.
Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.Pub Date: July 1, 1993
ISBN: 0-06-250217-4
Page Count: 192
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1993
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
© Copyright 2026 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
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.
