Chomel’s debut collection combines poetry, personal essays and magical-realist short stories.
Chomel delves into personal experience in crafting this diverse compendium. Friendships, career, observations on modern mores and exotic travels all serve as sources of inspiration. The poetry is full of alliteration and striking word choices—“bougainvillea,” “sophisticate” and “bellwether”—but can occasionally feel trivial in subject matter, as when the author recalls locking his dog and the keys in his car at a gas station or gives a superficial tourist’s account of a trip to Indonesia. The eroticism is strained in “Her” and a few other poems. Still, there are beautiful lines, such as “Whippoorwills of indecision bat around my brain” and “A gardener’s shears soon discipline / Libertine shoots of June’s reckless weed.” Chomel is best when drawing on his professional expertise as a deputy district attorney. The standout piece, therefore, is the essay “Lifers,” in which he re-creates his visit to the state prison in San Luis Obispo, where he interviewed violent criminals. The author does seem to stereotype an inmate or two, however, calling one “the epitome of the hardened criminal, a gruff white male in his forties.” Moreover, the balance between observation and experience is slightly off; there is too much first-person writing for journalism: “I dined on a dull fish while reviewing the cases for the next day.” The essays portray a narrator who is an old-fashioned curmudgeon who struggles to remember passwords, resents slang and disrespect, and dismisses body piercing as exhibitionism. “I would personally prefer to revert to the caveman era of cash-filled mattresses,” he insists. The lighthearted tone resembles Nora Ephron’s, but these articles feel redundant and lack narrative energy. The short story “Henry,” on the other hand, is an engaging satire about a man’s friendship with his GPS during a European road trip; Henry, like Hal (2001: A Space Odyssey), has a mind of his own. That pleasant tinge of surrealism also infuses the two tales that follow, though neither is quite as inventive.
An unusual blend of genres; as varied in quality as in content.
Pub Date: Feb. 19, 2014
ISBN: 978-1434936912
Page Count: 144
Publisher: Dorrance Publishing Co.
Review Posted Online: July 14, 2014
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.
Sisters work together to solve a child-abandonment case.
Ellie and Julia Cates have never been close. Julia is shy and brainy; Ellie gets by on charm and looks. Their differences must be tossed aside when a traumatized young girl wanders in from the forest into their hometown in Washington. The sisters’ professional skills are put to the test. Julia is a world-renowned child psychologist who has lost her edge. She is reeling from a case that went publicly sour. Though she was cleared of all wrongdoing, Julia’s name was tarnished, forcing her to shutter her Beverly Hills practice. Ellie Barton is the local police chief in Rain Valley, who’s never faced a tougher case. This is her chance to prove she is more than just a fading homecoming queen, but a scarcity of clues and a reluctant victim make locating the girl’s parents nearly impossible. Ellie places an SOS call to her sister; she needs an expert to rehabilitate this wild-child who has been living outside of civilization for years. Confronted with her professional demons, Julia once again has the opportunity to display her talents and salvage her reputation. Hannah (The Things We Do for Love, 2004, etc.) is at her best when writing from the girl’s perspective. The feral wolf-child keeps the reader interested long after the other, transparent characters have grown tiresome. Hannah’s torturously over-written romance passages are stale, but there are surprises in store as the sisters set about unearthing Alice’s past and creating a home for her.
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.Pub Date: March 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-345-46752-3
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2005
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
© Copyright 2024 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.
bookshelf
