COWS

Name: COWS
Author: Matthew Stokoe
ISBN: 978-1-936070-70-1

by Matthew Stokoe ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 1, 2011

Transgressive fiction that begs to offend, and succeeds. Talking cows and startling wordplay can’t redeem a novel whose only...

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A dysfunctional 20-something soothes his uneasy soul with sex, blood and violence.

Underground literary shock-rocker Stokoe (Empty Mile, 2010, etc.) slaps his readers in the face with this bloody, truly disgusting diatribe against normalcy. On the bright side, there’s absolutely no pretense about what the book is aiming for, even from the opening lines. “In bed,” he writes. “Steven could feel the toxins tumbling slowly through his bloodstream, jagged black particles that rolled in a slow-motion undersea current, gouging soft tissue with their passing.” Stokoe’s muse is an immature, deeply disturbed young man with the scars of someone five times his age. His only true companion is Dog, a paraplegic mutt. His eternal nemesis is his mother, called only the Hagbeast, a swollen, caustic tormentor who ceaselessly berates her child for his disgusting habits, though hers are no better. It’s a far cry from the '50s television shows by which he measures happiness, and her abhorrent behavior inspires him to murderous thoughts. His new job gives him an outlet, of sorts. Steven takes a job working in a slaughterhouse, where a menacing overseer named Cripps wants to bring his new charge into the sacred work of cow-killing. “This is where things are real,” Cripps advises. Then there’s his new upstairs neighbor Lucy. Convinced that all of the world’s poisons are contained in foul black lumps hidden among the organs, she endlessly prods him to sift through the viscera at work for proof of her theory. Revolted yet? If not, the colonoscopy married to the couple’s sex scene should be plenty to push even jaundiced readers right over the edge.

Transgressive fiction that begs to offend, and succeeds. Talking cows and startling wordplay can’t redeem a novel whose only goal is to hit bottom.

Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2011

ISBN: 978-1-936070-70-1

Page Count: 190

Publisher: Akashic

Review Posted Online: Dec. 24, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2010

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

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SUMMER ISLAND

by Kristin Hannah ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 1, 2001

The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with...

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Talk-show queen takes tumble as millions jeer.

Nora Bridges is a wildly popular radio spokesperson for family-first virtues, but her loyal listeners don't know that she walked out on her husband and teenaged daughters years ago and didn't look back. Now that a former lover has sold racy pix of naked Nora and horny himself to a national tabloid, her estranged daughter Ruby, an unsuccessful stand-up comic in Los Angeles, has been approached to pen a tell-all. Greedy for the fat fee she's been promised, Ruby agrees and heads for the San Juan Islands, eager to get reacquainted with the mom she plans to betray. Once in the family homestead, nasty Ruby alternately sulks and glares at her mother, who is temporarily wheelchair-bound as a result of a post-scandal car crash. Uncaring, Ruby begins writing her side of the story when she's not strolling on the beach with former sweetheart Dean Sloan, the son of wealthy socialites who basically ignored him and his gay brother Eric. Eric, now dying of cancer and also in a wheelchair, has returned to the island. This dismal threesome catch up on old times, recalling their childhood idylls on the island. After Ruby's perfect big sister Caroline shows up, there's another round of heartfelt talk. Nora gradually reveals the truth about her unloving husband and her late father's alcoholism, which led her to seek the approval of others at the cost of her own peace of mind. And so on. Ruby is aghast to discover that she doesn't know everything after all, but Dean offers her subdued comfort. Happy endings await almost everyone—except for readers of this nobly preachy snifflefest.

The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with syrupy platitudes about life and love.

Pub Date: March 1, 2001

ISBN: 0-609-60737-5

Page Count: 336

Publisher: Crown

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2001

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

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TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD

by Harper Lee ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 11, 1960

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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.