Hyatt’s novel brings together the grittily realistic with the transcendent, and the result is a beguiling character study.
A solitary man has an emotional and sexual awakening when an unlikely couple arrives in his small Louisiana town.
Boz Matthews, the narrator, is a man in his mid-30s who remains troubled by childhood memories of his violent father and suicidal mother. As the story begins, he's working for his beloved grandfather at the local diner. Things change with the arrival of Catty Mills, a country singer best known for one late-1980s hit, and her companion, Kyle. Boz finds himself attracted to both of them in different ways, and a fourth point on this love quadrangle appears in the form of Meg, an old friend of Boz’s with a long history of depression. The novel opens with a haunting portrait of solitude and depression: the bond between Boz and his grandfather is neatly established with a few key gestures and is gradually expanded throughout the book. Hyatt is deft with parceling out information, whether it’s Boz’s attraction to La Dolce Vita–era Marcello Mastroianni or the fact that, at one point, he had enjoyed writing. And for all that the novel tells a deceptively simple story—that of Boz finding his place in the world—it never stints on the emotional complexity of the characters at its center. Each of them is, in his or her own way, damaged, and while the bond that develops among the quartet has the ability to heal, it also possesses the ability to hurt in equal measure. There are hard-earned moments of emotional triumph to be found here, but there are also gut-wrenchingly sad ones.
Hyatt’s novel brings together the grittily realistic with the transcendent, and the result is a beguiling character study.Pub Date: Oct. 4, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-9975923-0-6
Page Count: 224
Publisher: ANTIBOOKCLUB
Review Posted Online: July 19, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2016
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
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.
Coelho is a Brazilian writer with four books to his credit. Following Diary of a Magus (1992—not reviewed) came this book, published in Brazil in 1988: it's an interdenominational, transcendental, inspirational fable—in other words, a bag of wind.
The story is about a youth empowered to follow his dream. Santiago is an Andalusian shepherd boy who learns through a dream of a treasure in the Egyptian pyramids. An old man, the king of Salem, the first of various spiritual guides, tells the boy that he has discovered his destiny: "to realize one's destiny is a person's only real obligation." So Santiago sells his sheep, sails to Tangier, is tricked out of his money, regains it through hard work, crosses the desert with a caravan, stops at an oasis long enough to fall in love, escapes from warring tribesmen by performing a miracle, reaches the pyramids, and eventually gets both the gold and the girl. Along the way he meets an Englishman who describes the Soul of the World; the desert woman Fatima, who teaches him the Language of the World; and an alchemist who says, "Listen to your heart" A message clings like ivy to every encounter; everyone, but everyone, has to put in their two cents' worth, from the crystal merchant to the camel driver ("concentrate always on the present, you'll be a happy man"). The absence of characterization and overall blandness suggest authorship by a committee of self-improvement pundits—a far cry from Saint- Exupery's The Little Prince: that flagship of the genre was a genuine charmer because it clearly derived from a quirky, individual sensibility.
Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.Pub Date: July 1, 1993
ISBN: 0-06-250217-4
Page Count: 192
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1993
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
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