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DIVINING BLOOD

Name: DIVINING BLOOD
Author: Maureen McCoy
ISBN: 0-671-75065-8

by Maureen McCoy ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 1, 1992

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All McCoy's strengths—a feisty heroine, a strong regional presence, and much colorful writing—are here, but again the premise and resolution, in this her third novel (Summertime, Walking After Midnight), seem imposed rather than naturally evolving. At 24, along with month-old baby and lover Johnny, runaway Delana Mae Walsh is returning to the family home on the Mississippi River, a place she left seven years ago in a moment of shame and anguish. During the seven years, she has worked as a cook and then as a pilot on the boats that tow the barges up and down the Mississippi. But despite her love for Johnny, an engineer on the boat, and the affection of the crew, Delana Mae has been haunted by the unresolved mysteries in her family: the drowning of a four- year-old sister Sally; her own conception right after the accident; and her doctor father's longtime relationship with his office nurse, whom he married when her own mother, Dovie died. The family home becomes a setting for an updated Showboat as members of the crew, delayed by a mechanical fault, interact in a series of set- pieces, with the Walsh family, including the deeply religious Marcia, dissatisfied with her marriage and yearning to speak in tongues. All ends well as Marcia finds spiritual and sexual joy; Delana Mae learns the truth about her parents; the past is absolved as the baby is baptized at the spot where sister Sally had drowned; and Delana Mae realizes that Johnny is tied to the river, but will come back to visit, until ``the day the river will run dry on him, [and] wash him up to her'' for good. At times McCoy seems to be trying too hard to be the serious novelist, concerned with big issues like incest, religious faith, and the differences between the sexes, and writing as if acclaim were merely a matter of accruing metaphors and similes. But still much to enjoy.

Pub Date: May 1, 1992

ISBN: 0-671-75065-8

Page Count: 240

Publisher: Simon & Schuster

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 1992

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

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CARRIE

by Stephen King ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 8, 1974

King handles his first novel with considerable accomplishment and very little hokum—it's only too easy to believe that these...

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Figuratively and literally shattering moments of hoRRRRRipilication in Chamberlain, Maine where stones fly from the sky rather than from the hands of the villagers (as they did in "The Lottery," although the latter are equal to other forms of persecution).

All beginning when Carrie White discovers a gift with telekinetic powers (later established as a genetic fact), after she menstruates in full ignorance of the process and thinks she is bleeding to death while the other monsters in the high school locker room bait and bully her mercilessly. Carrie is the only child of a fundamentalist freak mother who has brought her up with a concept of sin which no blood of the Lamb can wash clean. In addition to a sympathetic principal and gym teacher, there's one girl who wishes to atone and turns her date for the spring ball over to Carrie who for the first time is happy, beautiful and acknowledged as such. But there will be hell to pay for this success—not only her mother but two youngsters who douse her in buckets of fresh-killed pig blood so that Carrie once again uses her "wild talent," flexes her mind and a complete catastrophe (explosion and an uncontrolled fire) virtually destroys the town.

King handles his first novel with considerable accomplishment and very little hokum—it's only too easy to believe that these youngsters who once ate peanut butter now scrawl "Carrie White eats shit." But as they still say around here, "Sit a spell and collect yourself."

Pub Date: April 8, 1974

ISBN: 0385086954

Page Count: 216

Publisher: Doubleday

Review Posted Online: Sept. 26, 2011

Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 1974

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

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OTHER WORLDS THAN THESE
by Stephen King & Peter Straub

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NEVER FLINCH
by Stephen King

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YOU LIKE IT DARKER
by Stephen King

- PERSPECTIVES
Appreciations: Carrie Turns 40

- SEEN & HEARD
Stephen King Used ‘Carrie’ Advance To Support Mom

- BOOK TO SCREEN
New ‘Carrie’ Series in the Works at Amazon

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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.