Born from the short story `The Kindness of Strangers` in her collection Traveling on into the Light and Other Stories (1994) Brooks builds a delicately tuned novel in three parts that pays homage to Capote in its treatment of characters, but stands strongly on its own. Good-looking Laker is an introspective teenager who's grown up with his mostly-single mom Audrey. Her new marriage and pregnancy drives a wedge into their close relationship, and Laker starts to stay away from home, drinking, punishing himself and his mom, until in a rage he physically attacks his stepfather, and then catches a bus out of town. Act two: enter Henry, an octogenarian still grieving for his wife, who takes in Laker mostly to spite his own daughter. Laker does some work for Henry in exchange for room and board, but by the time the two can both admit they're using each other, they've become attached. In the final section, Henry and Laker take a trip together that returns each to his own past, and is intended to set them each on his own way. Laker's voice is moody, melancholy, and intelligent. He reads plays voraciously—especially, of course, A Streetcar Named Desire, and his inner landscape is portrayed metaphorically in the outer one that Brooks details. She seems to employ an entirely different vocabulary than the rest of us, as her completely ordinary turns of phrase swell with the extraordinary. She has a keen eye for people, as Capote did, and every minor character comes alive instantly and fully. Laker's story is at once pedestrian and miraculous. Brooks deals with universal adolescent themes of home, self, and romance with a fresh hand, creating a memorable story that begs repeating. (Fiction. 12-14)
Pub Date: April 1, 2000
ISBN: 0-7894-2588-2
Page Count: 215
Publisher: DK Publishing
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2000
Josh, 15, lives with his father and older half-brother, Nathan, in a cabin in the wilderness 100 miles from Anchorage, Alaska. Living there was Nathan’s idea; he is full of high-minded ideas about nature that are rigorous but not always realistic. Josh, a pretty good woodsman, would rather live in a place where he could enjoy friends, girls, video games, and hockey, but when he kills a bear that is charging them, Nathan reacts with fury. Josh and his father—who, to Josh’s chagrin, would follow Nathan anywhere—learn that Nathan identifies closely with the bears; he decides that he can’t live with them because they are meat- eaters, and moves into an elderly neighbor’s empty cabin. When the neighbor’s relatives (including a pretty 14-year-old girl) come to spend a weekend at the cabin, Josh hopes the conflicts of interest will precipitate his move back to town. In the end, it is Nathan’s risky involvement with the bears that forces the issue. Vanasse (A Distant Enemy, 1997) pulls readers into the story from the outset, and her sensitively drawn characters display a realistic mix of love and loyalty. The complex interplay of feelings in this troubled family, set against the pristine beauty of backwoods Alaska, imbues an already compelling read with a refreshing combination of action and psychological depth. (Fiction. 10-14)
Pub Date: March 22, 1999
ISBN: 0-395-91421-3
Page Count: 165
Publisher: Clarion Books
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 1999
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
In this distinctly different take on the American Revolution, electrical experiments by Ben Franklin’s crazed son turn two young runaway slaves into human batteries capable for brief periods of amazing feats of speed, strength and intellect. Fortunately Graham and Brody come under the tutelage of (historical) abolitionist Quaker Benjamin Lay, whose misshapen body hides not only a fiery dedication to doing good but (not so historical) superb skill in Dambe, an African martial art. Having absorbed both the morals and the fighting techniques, along with a quick education, the boys hie off to Philadelphia to build new lives—packing cool masks that show off the way their eyes glow when they rev up for action. They go on to successfully take on a brutal slave hunter and his pack of ravening trained dogs, but when Lay is murdered an aborted attempt at revenge leaves them sad and confused. How will they fare against Franklin’s son and other enemies? Stay tuned. Printed on coated paper and framed in solid black, the deeply shadowed graphic panels explode with melodrama (and, occasionally, blood) from start to finish. Not a source of accurate history, but it’s hard to put down. (Graphic historical fantasy. 12-14)
Pub Date: May 25, 2010
ISBN: 978-0-375-85670-9
Page Count: 176
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: Jan. 13, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2010
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