A sad but laudable story of a boy who endures more than he should have to bear.
In Ristau’s coming-of-age debut novel, a young boy, distraught over his father’s death, has trouble fitting in at summer camp, where he has unsettling visions and is comforted by a disembodied voice.
By 1976, as America celebrates its bicentennial, 10-year-old Ricky Williamson hasn’t quite recovered from losing his father two years ago. He’s prone to dreams and visions of tragic events, including some that he knows have already happened (such as a train accident) and others that are unfamiliar. Ricky is also less than thrilled when his mother announces that he and his 9-year-old little brother, Danny, will spend five weeks at a summer camp, six hours away from their hometown of South Orange, New Jersey. Danny, a talented baseball player, has no problem making friends, but it’s not as easy for Ricky. Soon, he’s torn between sticking his neck out for a frequently bullied new friend, Miles Romano, and keeping to himself. He finds solace in a voice in his head, which he thinks could be an angel that he saw after nearly drowning at the age of 4. “Have faith,” the voice repeatedly assures him. And faith he’ll surely need as he confronts his fears and suffers a terrible trauma. Ristau’s tale poignantly conveys Ricky’s struggle; the narration, by an older Ricky looking back on his past, retains the persistent and naïve hopefulness of his younger self: “Maybe, just maybe, I could belong to his group.” The scenes of Ricky seeing or hearing his angel, and sometimes his father, are profound but sorrowful. His real-life interactions, too, alternate between effectively upbeat moments and others that are outright depressing, as when Ricky feels that he somehow deserves his misfortunes. Though an early vision boldly validates the protagonist’s dreamlike images (with a future historical event that readers will recognize), the final act is more ambiguous. By the end, Ricky makes a decision that, while offering very little resolution, perfectly sets the stage for a continuing series.
A sad but laudable story of a boy who endures more than he should have to bear.Pub Date: Sept. 21, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-59298-803-7
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Beaver's Pond Press
Review Posted Online: Aug. 30, 2017
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
Suspenseful, full of incident, and not obviously necessary.
Atwood goes back to Gilead.
The Handmaid’s Tale (1985), consistently regarded as a masterpiece of 20th-century literature, has gained new attention in recent years with the success of the Hulu series as well as fresh appreciation from readers who feel like this story has new relevance in America’s current political climate. Atwood herself has spoken about how news headlines have made her dystopian fiction seem eerily plausible, and it’s not difficult to imagine her wanting to revisit Gilead as the TV show has sped past where her narrative ended. Like the novel that preceded it, this sequel is presented as found documents—first-person accounts of life inside a misogynistic theocracy from three informants. There is Agnes Jemima, a girl who rejects the marriage her family arranges for her but still has faith in God and Gilead. There’s Daisy, who learns on her 16th birthday that her whole life has been a lie. And there's Aunt Lydia, the woman responsible for turning women into Handmaids. This approach gives readers insight into different aspects of life inside and outside Gilead, but it also leads to a book that sometimes feels overstuffed. The Handmaid’s Tale combined exquisite lyricism with a powerful sense of urgency, as if a thoughtful, perceptive woman was racing against time to give witness to her experience. That narrator hinted at more than she said; Atwood seemed to trust readers to fill in the gaps. This dynamic created an atmosphere of intimacy. However curious we might be about Gilead and the resistance operating outside that country, what we learn here is that what Atwood left unsaid in the first novel generated more horror and outrage than explicit detail can. And the more we get to know Agnes, Daisy, and Aunt Lydia, the less convincing they become. It’s hard, of course, to compete with a beloved classic, so maybe the best way to read this new book is to forget about The Handmaid’s Tale and enjoy it as an artful feminist thriller.
Suspenseful, full of incident, and not obviously necessary.Pub Date: Sept. 10, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-385-54378-1
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Nan A. Talese
Review Posted Online: Sept. 3, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2019
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
This book sings with the terrible silence of dead civilizations in which once there was valor.
Written with quiet dignity that builds to a climax of tragic force, this book about the dissolution of an African tribe, its traditions, and values, represents a welcome departure from the familiar "Me, white brother" genre.
Written by a Nigerian African trained in missionary schools, this novel tells quietly the story of a brave man, Okonkwo, whose life has absolute validity in terms of his culture, and who exercises his prerogative as a warrior, father, and husband with unflinching single mindedness. But into the complex Nigerian village filters the teachings of strangers, teachings so alien to the tribe, that resistance is impossible. One must distinguish a force to be able to oppose it, and to most, the talk of Christian salvation is no more than the babbling of incoherent children. Still, with his guns and persistence, the white man, amoeba-like, gradually absorbs the native culture and in despair, Okonkwo, unable to withstand the corrosion of what he, alone, understands to be the life force of his people, hangs himself. In the formlessness of the dying culture, it is the missionary who takes note of the event, reminding himself to give Okonkwo's gesture a line or two in his work, The Pacification of the Primitive Tribes of the Lower Niger.
This book sings with the terrible silence of dead civilizations in which once there was valor.Pub Date: Jan. 23, 1958
ISBN: 0385474547
Page Count: 207
Publisher: McDowell, Obolensky
Review Posted Online: April 23, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 1958
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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