The further misadventures of Bluefeather Fellini offer good silly fun from noted western author Evans (The Rounders, not reviewed, etc.). Bluefeather, half Sicilian and half Taos Pueblo Indian, has just returned from WW II. His substantial earnings from his rich gold mine are gone, having been squandered in an enterprise to develop the medicinal potential of sage oil. He's flat busted. His car is gone. The phone and the electricity are turned off, and he's just gotten a notice of foreclosure on his house from the bank. He's also still haunted by the death of his wife, Miss Mary, whom he had accidentally killed in a mining mishap. At this definite low point in his life, his guiding spirit, Dancing Bear, a Cheshire catlike ghost of a scruffy Indian, reappears to help out. Bluefeather, who could have used his aid much earlier, wonders where he's been, but the apparition gleefully explains that the Authority has had him on a dozen other cases. Still, after the spirit's return, matters do seem to take a turn for the better. A message arrives from Ricardo Korbell, a mysterious and powerful millionaire with whose adopted daughter, Marsha, Bluefeather had a brief assignation earlier. Ricardo wants to see him, and Marsha is sent to fetch him. The millionaire needs Bluefeather's help in finding 60 cases of Mouton Rothschild 1880, and he is willing to pay handsomely. Soon, Bluefeather and Marsha are off on a merry chase for the rare wine, encountering colorful characters and getting up close and personal with each other. Dancing Bear and mystical mischief are never far away. An erotic and entertaining romp through the various cultures that make up the American Southwest. Despite a few minor missteps, this pseudo-noir send-up will hold the reader's attention until the raucous conclusion.
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1994
ISBN: 0-87081-345-5
Page Count: 377
Publisher: Univ. Press of Colorado
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1994
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
More of a detour than a natural progression for the author, whose fans will nevertheless find this as engaging as it is...
One of America’s finest fiction writers returns with an audaciously allegorical novella about sleep deprivation in an age of sensory overload.
As a recipient of a MacArthur Fellowship and the author of a critically acclaimed novel (Vampires in the Lemon Grove, 2013, etc.) and two story collections, Russell seems to be having some fun here, using the novella form and e-book format to put creative ingenuity to Orwellian use. The year is sometime in the near future, when the omnipresence of communication and connecting devices, the 24-hour news cycle and other sources of overstimulation have turned insomnia into an epidemic, even a plague. Sleep donors (like blood or plasma donors) can be a godsend for those suffering, particularly if those donors sleep undisturbed, without nightmares, like a baby. In this novella, Baby A is the ultimate donor, the silver bullet, the one whose sleep has universal benefits. (Other donors need to be more closely matched, as with blood types.) Our narrator, Trish, has recruited Baby A through the child’s parents and effectively sells the donor program to them by invoking the death of her own sister due to sleep deprivation. But the demands on Baby A eventually frustrate her father—a more reluctant participant than his wife—and he feels more concerned with what Baby A might suffer than with the benefits for society at large. At the other extreme from Baby A is Donor Y, whose nightmare-infected donation (an act of terrorism? an accident?) ultimately causes an international crisis, with many preferring the suicide of sleeplessness to a sleep that returns them to this nightmare. As the plot progresses, Trish feels that both she and Baby A have perhaps been equally exploited. Those who appreciate Russell’s literary alchemy might find this a little too close to science fiction, but it serves as a parable on a number of levels for a world that is recognizably our own.
More of a detour than a natural progression for the author, whose fans will nevertheless find this as engaging as it is provocative.Pub Date: March 25, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-937894-28-3
Page Count: 101
Publisher: Atavist Books
Review Posted Online: Feb. 5, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2014
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
PROFILES
The heroine of Dave’s newest post-feminist chick-lit romance (The Divorce Party, 2008, etc.) must choose between the quiet life offered by her new husband and the fast lane her former lover represents.
Only days after 32-year-old Annie gets dumped by longtime live-in boyfriend Nick, an up-and-coming movie director, she meets Griffin at the chichi L.A. restaurant she frequents—talk about romantic fantasy: Annie’s career as a monthly travel columnist pays well, apparently demands little time or difficult travel and is never seriously endangered—and where he is temporarily the chef. It seems to be love at first sight, although Annie’s best friend Jordan, who also happens to be Nick’s sister, calls Griffin “Rebound Guy.” Three months after they meet, he proposes. They marry in a Vegas chapel on their way across the country to Griffin’s western Massachusetts hometown, where he is about to open his own restaurant—Annie’s job with a New York paper also allows her to live anywhere. But Williamsburg requires a lot of adjusting on Annie’s part. Griffin’s genius brother Jesse and his 5-year-old twins move in with the newlyweds because Jesse’s wife has thrown him out for impregnating the MIT professor guiding his doctorate program. The twin’s art teacher turns out to be Gia, until recently Griffin’s girlfriend of 13 years, whom Griffin’s mother makes clear she’d much prefer as a daughter-in-law. Then Nick shows up from his new base in London to win Annie back; she turns him down, but she feels stirrings. When the new Rupert Murdocklike owner of her paper offers her a job in London, Griffin encourages her to try it out. Soon she’s settled in London in a fantastic apartment, the company is grooming her for a new dream job, the publisher’s dashing son is wooing her and Nick is just a call away. What’s a girl to do? A lightweight romance posing as something realistic and psychologically profound.
Pub Date: May 16, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-670-02267-0
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: April 3, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2011
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