A tour de force.
Tim Acree, Brooklyn barkeep's boy, merchant sailor, entomologist, aka Professor Aloysius, flea-circus ringmaster, lies dead, a suicide, at the bottom of a tenement air shaft. And Isabelle Oystershifl mourns.
Keifetz's (Corrido, 1998) second novel, the winner of the 2010 AWP Award, simply dazzles. Izzy, a math geek, always reliant on "the sweet bounds of cold, clean, reason," now realizes that "my great belief has been in my love for Timmy." Izzy works for a large bank, but she isn't defined by her cubicle. Her connection with Tim shaped her world, soothed her psyche and soul. Now Tim's unexplained suicide, a leap into the abyss without word or note of despair, has unhinged Izzy. The novel is 23 chapters, titled with word-names beginning with letters from "A" to "W." The first is Altamont, the name of the couple's cat, and within it Keifetz delves into the human body falling "at 32-feet-per-second per second," the tenement where the two met and lived, the cat hoarder from whom they pilfered Altamont and a brief biographical sketch of Tim. And so it goes until Izzy arrives at "W," for the Wall, a concrete buttress near her childhood home. All that Izzy believes, all that surrounds her, all that she conjures up in her misery becomes a metaphor for Tim, for their love, for her life without him. Attempting to cope, Izzy plays classic logic games, contemplates William Blake, regards the evolution of megafauna. Sharing her world is Mark, Tim's bar-owner brother, who attempts to draw Izzy from despair, and Dr. Edward "Pudge" Goroguchi, another entomologist, inventor of the flea-breeding artificial dog, and owner of an Izzy-coveted dream car, a 1971 Plymouth Road Runner. Goroguchi becomes Izzy's lover, each of them fulfilling an oblique longing beyond love, despair and sex. The novel takes the reader to the dark place where reason and love collide and collapse under the oppressive weight of loss.
A tour de force.Pub Date: Jan. 1, 2012
ISBN: 978-1-936970-04-9
Page Count: 202
Publisher: New Issues
Review Posted Online: Nov. 22, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2011
These letters from some important executive Down Below, to one of the junior devils here on earth, whose job is to corrupt mortals, are witty and written in a breezy style seldom found in religious literature. The author quotes Luther, who said: "The best way to drive out the devil, if he will not yield to texts of Scripture, is to jeer and flout him, for he cannot bear scorn." This the author does most successfully, for by presenting some of our modern and not-so-modern beliefs as emanating from the devil's headquarters, he succeeds in making his reader feel like an ass for ever having believed in such ideas. This kind of presentation gives the author a tremendous advantage over the reader, however, for the more timid reader may feel a sense of guilt after putting down this book. It is a clever book, and for the clever reader, rather than the too-earnest soul.
Pub Date: Jan. 1, 1942
ISBN: 0060652934
Page Count: 53
Publisher: Macmillan
Review Posted Online: Oct. 17, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1943
Hoffman (The Red Garden, 2011, etc.) births literature from tragedy: the destruction of Jerusalem's Temple, the siege of Masada and the loss of Zion.
This is a feminist tale, a story of strong, intelligent women wedded to destiny by love and sacrifice. Told in four parts, the first comes from Yael, daughter of Yosef bar Elhanan, a Sicarii Zealot assassin, rejected by her father because of her mother's death in childbirth. It is 70 CE, and the Temple is destroyed. Yael, her father, and another Sicarii assassin, Jachim ben Simon, and his family flee Jerusalem. Hoffman's research renders the ancient world real as the group treks into Judea's desert, where they encounter Essenes, search for sustenance and burn under the sun. There too Jachim and Yael begin a tragic love affair. At Masada, Yael is sent to work in the dovecote, gathering eggs and fertilizer. She meets Shirah, her daughters, and Revka, who narrates part two. Revka's husband was killed when Romans sacked their village. Later, her daughter was murdered. At Masada, caring for grandsons turned mute by tragedy, Revka worries over her scholarly son-in-law, Yoav, now consumed by vengeance. Aziza, daughter of Shirah, carries the story onward. Born out of wedlock, Aziza grew up in Moab, among the people of the blue tunic. Her passion and curse is that she was raised as a warrior by her foster father. In part four, Shirah tells of her Alexandrian youth, the cherished daughter of a consort of the high priests. Shirah is a keshaphim, a woman of amulets, spells and medicine, and a woman connected to Shechinah, the feminine aspect of God. The women are irretrievably bound to Eleazar ben Ya'ir, Masada's charismatic leader; Amram, Yael's brother; and Yoav, Aziza's companion and protector in battle. The plot is intriguingly complex, with only a single element unresolved. An enthralling tale rendered with consummate literary skill.
Pub Date: Oct. 4, 2011
ISBN: 978-1-4516-1747-4
Page Count: 512
Publisher: Scribner
Review Posted Online: April 5, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2011
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