A kind of Holden Caulfield who speaks bravely and winningly from inside the sorrows of autism: wonderful, simple, easy,...
Britisher Haddon debuts in the adult novel with the bittersweet tale of a 15-year-old autistic who’s also a math genius.
Christopher Boone has had some bad knocks: his mother has died (well, she went to the hospital and never came back), and soon after he found a neighbor’s dog on the front lawn, slain by a garden fork stuck through it. A teacher said that he should write something that he “would like to read himself”—and so he embarks on this book, a murder mystery that will reveal who killed Mrs. Shears’s dog. First off, though, is a night in jail for hitting the policeman who questions him about the dog (the cop made the mistake of grabbing the boy by the arm when he can’t stand to be touched—any more than he can stand the colors yellow or brown, or not knowing what’s going to happen next). Christopher’s father bails him out but forbids his doing any more “detecting” about the dog-murder. When Christopher disobeys (and writes about it in his book), a fight ensues and his father confiscates the book. In time, detective-Christopher finds it, along with certain other clues that reveal a very great deal indeed about his mother’s “death,” his father’s own part in it—and the murder of the dog. Calming himself by doing roots, cubes, prime numbers, and math problems in his head, Christopher runs away, braves a train-ride to London, and finds—his mother. How can this be? Read and see. Neither parent, if truth be told, is the least bit prepossessing or more than a cutout. Christopher, though, with pet rat Toby in his pocket and advanced “maths” in his head, is another matter indeed, and readers will cheer when, way precociously, he takes his A-level maths and does brilliantly.
A kind of Holden Caulfield who speaks bravely and winningly from inside the sorrows of autism: wonderful, simple, easy, moving, and likely to be a smash.Pub Date: June 17, 2003
ISBN: 0-385-50945-6
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2003
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
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
Intriguing first novel, by a Miami Herald syndicated ``dating'' columnist, that dances among horror, the occult, and a rational explanation for its weird moments, . At seven, Hilton James found his grandmother Nana dead on the kitchen floor and ran for help. But Nana was up and cooking dinner by the time he returned with help. Then, the next year, Hilton disobeyed Nana while swimming, got caught in the undertow, and was saved from drowning by Nana, who in turn allowed herself to be sucked under. Now, nearing 40, Hilton, an African-American, is head social worker at a Miami recovery center, has married Dede Campbell, the newly elected first black female circuit court judge in Dade County, and has two children. Hilton, however, fears that he's lived 30 years on borrowed time and that that time's up. Clairvoyant events point to Nana's having refused to die because she foresaw Hilton's drowning and stayed alive to save him. As a blind homeless man at the clinic tells him, there is a place between life and death called The Between, where ``travelers'' wait before entering the final door—all this from a blind man who actually died about two hours before Hilton had his talk with him! And what of Hilton's seduction by a supersexy client—a seduction he later finds never took place? Hilton undergoes still more fantasies bordering on virtual reality as, meanwhile, Dede receives racist death threats by mail—threats that, psychically, Hilton sees come from Charles Ray Goode, a released rapist whom Dede once sent to jail. With a psychiatrist, Hilton hashes over ``death cultures'' brought to this country from Africa, but chooses to agree that it's more likely that he's a schizophrenic. Later, Dede throws him out of the house for neglecting his children and physically hurting his son, but takes him back when told of Hilton's seeming illness. Together, they will face the man terrorizing them.... Neatly plotted and smoothly told, with an ending that avoids concrete explanations about Hilton's mental state.
Pub Date: May 1, 1995
ISBN: 0-06-017250-9
Page Count: 288
Publisher: HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 1995
SEEN & HEARD
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