An original, compelling hybrid of period novel, murder mystery and bildungsroman.
Hula’s debut novel portrays the fear, violence and small acts of grace in a small coal-mining town during early union-busting efforts.
In 1931 Moss Creek, a coal-mining town where men as young as 14 are expected to “go under ground or leave,” young Johnny Marko witnesses the torture of a miner by company thugs and fears for his father’s safety. With best friend Andy Strovos—an adventurous Huckleberry Finn to Johnny’s cerebral Tom Sawyer—he observes adults’ behavior, although he’s not yet old enough to understand the brutality and desperation shadowing his idyllic childhood. When Johnny’s father dies in a suspicious mining accident, the boy suspects Ray Kruger, the company’s “bitter” and “shameless” supervisor, to be the man responsible. Given a chance to avenge his father’s death, young Johnny chooses, as his father taught him, to do the right thing and avoid violence. But the memories haunt him, and many years—and a world war—later, Johnny returns to his “older, dirtier and more decayed” hometown, under an assumed name, to finish the “game” Ray began. With the help of Andy and the love of a local girl, Anna Alberston, Johnny soon discovers that the limited time he and his father spent together was more valuable than the lifetimes most fathers and sons get. Hula’s tale is long on misery and short on humor, but it transcends its melancholy through honest observation and rich, evocative details of a bygone era: freshly baked bread, homemade root beer, storage cellars, spittoons. The author handles each scene with a delicate hand, establishing just the right atmosphere with steady brush strokes of detail. Along the way, he introduces a caravan of characters, including Danny, an 8-year-old boy who reminds Johnny of himself as a child, who instinctually makes the best of his decrepit environment. The most memorable character, Maggie—a thoroughly modern cashier at the company store—serves as the “town’s central news agency” and a selfless matchmaker. Because of her kindness, Johnny’s odyssey ends with love, justice and peace.
An original, compelling hybrid of period novel, murder mystery and bildungsroman.Pub Date: Feb. 23, 2013
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: 261
Publisher: Dog Ear Publisher
Review Posted Online: Feb. 23, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2013
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy.
Are we not men? We are—well, ask Bigfoot, as Brooks does in this delightful yarn, following on his bestseller World War Z(2006).
A zombie apocalypse is one thing. A volcanic eruption is quite another, for, as the journalist who does a framing voice-over narration for Brooks’ latest puts it, when Mount Rainier popped its cork, “it was the psychological aspect, the hyperbole-fueled hysteria that had ended up killing the most people.” Maybe, but the sasquatches whom the volcano displaced contributed to the statistics, too, if only out of self-defense. Brooks places the epicenter of the Bigfoot war in a high-tech hideaway populated by the kind of people you might find in a Jurassic Park franchise: the schmo who doesn’t know how to do much of anything but tries anyway, the well-intentioned bleeding heart, the know-it-all intellectual who turns out to know the wrong things, the immigrant with a tough backstory and an instinct for survival. Indeed, the novel does double duty as a survival manual, packed full of good advice—for instance, try not to get wounded, for “injury turns you from a giver to a taker. Taking up our resources, our time to care for you.” Brooks presents a case for making room for Bigfoot in the world while peppering his narrative with timely social criticism about bad behavior on the human side of the conflict: The explosion of Rainier might have been better forecast had the president not slashed the budget of the U.S. Geological Survey, leading to “immediate suspension of the National Volcano Early Warning System,” and there’s always someone around looking to monetize the natural disaster and the sasquatch-y onslaught that follows. Brooks is a pro at building suspense even if it plays out in some rather spectacularly yucky episodes, one involving a short spear that takes its name from “the sucking sound of pulling it out of the dead man’s heart and lungs.” Grossness aside, it puts you right there on the scene.
A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy.Pub Date: June 16, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-9848-2678-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Del Rey/Ballantine
Review Posted Online: Feb. 9, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK TO SCREEN
Amateurish, with a twist savvy readers will see coming from a mile away.
A woman accused of shooting her husband six times in the face refuses to speak.
"Alicia Berenson was thirty-three years old when she killed her husband. They had been married for seven years. They were both artists—Alicia was a painter, and Gabriel was a well-known fashion photographer." Michaelides' debut is narrated in the voice of psychotherapist Theo Faber, who applies for a job at the institution where Alicia is incarcerated because he's fascinated with her case and believes he will be able to get her to talk. The narration of the increasingly unrealistic events that follow is interwoven with excerpts from Alicia's diary. Ah, yes, the old interwoven diary trick. When you read Alicia's diary you'll conclude the woman could well have been a novelist instead of a painter because it contains page after page of detailed dialogue, scenes, and conversations quite unlike those in any journal you've ever seen. " 'What's the matter?' 'I can't talk about it on the phone, I need to see you.' 'It's just—I'm not sure I can make it up to Cambridge at the minute.' 'I'll come to you. This afternoon. Okay?' Something in Paul's voice made me agree without thinking about it. He sounded desperate. 'Okay. Are you sure you can't tell me about it now?' 'I'll see you later.' Paul hung up." Wouldn't all this appear in a diary as "Paul wouldn't tell me what was wrong"? An even more improbable entry is the one that pins the tail on the killer. While much of the book is clumsy, contrived, and silly, it is while reading passages of the diary that one may actually find oneself laughing out loud.
Amateurish, with a twist savvy readers will see coming from a mile away.Pub Date: Feb. 5, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-250-30169-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Celadon Books
Review Posted Online: Nov. 3, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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