Freiner pushes his protagonist toward insights that he never quite realizes in this relentless survey of eroticism and drug...
A young addict chronicles his struggles with cocaine, alcohol, and especially sex in this debut novel in stories.
In the letter that opens this book, M., the narrator, pleads with a past lover, L., to “find this collection of short stories from my life as my sincere attempt to explain who you really lived with for more than ten years.” It’s a project that may be as important to M. as it is to his addressee, to whom he admits, “I don’t know why I almost shot you that night.” The stories are all linked by M.’s recollections of his idealization of and callousness toward women. As the book moves deeper into his past, details of M.’s faith and city provide additional context. Author Freiner refreshingly mixes up the usual beats of addiction narratives, beginning with M.’s successful attempt to get sober in the first full story, “Evil Eyes,” which chronicles his redemptive affair with the daughter of a woman whose sadism catches him off guard. The tales also have moments of droll humor; for example, as M. prepares for his first confession while in the throes of sexual awakening in “The Saint Sisters,” he reads a catalog of sins and notes that “the Catholic Church was a very detail-oriented organization.” M. is portrayed as a lively but repetitive narrator; he explains his categorization of women as “possible mothers of my future kids” or “sluts” at least twice in the collection, for instance. He also has a maddeningly muted sense of agency throughout, reporting that he feels “disconnected from my body” during a tryst and that a “mysterious power” leads him to pick one woman over another. He doesn’t seem to understand why he does things or even comprehend how disturbing his actions are, whether he’s threatening to kill African-Americans in chat rooms or concocting a scheme to seduce a 14-year-old girl—which raises questions about what readers are supposed to take away from this collection.
Freiner pushes his protagonist toward insights that he never quite realizes in this relentless survey of eroticism and drug abuse.Pub Date: Aug. 8, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-692-76618-7
Page Count: 262
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Sept. 2, 2016
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
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