Canadian poet Cook debuts with a teasing, lyrical inquest into a modern case of stigmata. Nothing’s ever happened in the life of schoolgirl Donna Desjardins to explain why she should suddenly, in the week before Easter, begin bleeding from the palm of her left hand. As the week goes on, the spontaneous bleeding, for which doctors can find no source in any wound, migrates to one foot, then the other, then her side, then the crown of her head, before stopping just as abruptly and mysteriously. An empathetic imitation of the wounds of the suffering Christ? A product of hysterical neurosis? An elaborate fraud? Hard-bitten journalist Daniel Halpern, sent from the Winnipeg Herald to Donna’s small town of Annex to investigate after the first frenzy of reporters has ebbed, learns that this isn’t the first case of stigmata in Annex history. Over 60 years ago, Alisha Hukic developed similar wounds a year before she died of multiple sclerosis—a condition that would have made it impossible for her to inflict such wounds on herself. And as Daniel, himself suffering from a debilitating liver tumor, gathers testimony from the locals, from circumspect Father Massimo Ricci to Donna’s protective mother Kennedy, Alisha’s niece Regina develops similar symptoms. Cook builds the story of Donna, “the book we are all trying to read,” through a kaleidoscopic dossier of evidence that ranges from the “Gentle Reader” letters of Regina’s companion Molly Rhutabaga to a life of the 14th-century saint Bella-Marie Lambe to the claim of an Indiana housewife to have seen Jesus’ face in a spray of detergent on a windowpane. It all leads to a murder, described with insolent casualness, that raises more questions than it answers. An enigmatic palimpsest of a novel reminiscent of D.M. Thomas’s The White Hotel. But where Thomas was determined to penetrate to the heart of his mystery, Cook seems equally set on preserving her mystery all inviolate.
Pub Date: June 10, 1999
ISBN: 0-87951-945-2
Page Count: 215
Publisher: Overlook
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1999
These letters from some important executive Down Below, to one of the junior devils here on earth, whose job is to corrupt mortals, are witty and written in a breezy style seldom found in religious literature. The author quotes Luther, who said: "The best way to drive out the devil, if he will not yield to texts of Scripture, is to jeer and flout him, for he cannot bear scorn." This the author does most successfully, for by presenting some of our modern and not-so-modern beliefs as emanating from the devil's headquarters, he succeeds in making his reader feel like an ass for ever having believed in such ideas. This kind of presentation gives the author a tremendous advantage over the reader, however, for the more timid reader may feel a sense of guilt after putting down this book. It is a clever book, and for the clever reader, rather than the too-earnest soul.
Pub Date: Jan. 1, 1942
ISBN: 0060652934
Page Count: 53
Publisher: Macmillan
Review Posted Online: Oct. 17, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1943
This first novel, ostensibly about the friendship between two boys, Reuven and Danny, from the time when they are fourteen on opposing yeshiva ball clubs, is actually a gently didactic differentiation between two aspects of the Jewish faith, the Hasidic and the Orthodox. Primarily the Hasidic, the little known mystics with their beards, earlocks and stringently reclusive way of life. According to Reuven's father who is a Zionist, an activist, they are fanatics; according to Danny's, other Jews are apostates and Zionists "goyim." The schisms here are reflected through discussions, between fathers and sons, and through the separation imposed on the two boys for two years which still does not affect their lasting friendship or enduring hopes: Danny goes on to become a psychiatrist refusing his inherited position of "tzaddik"; Reuven a rabbi.... The explanation, in fact exegesis, of Jewish culture and learning, of the special dedication of the Hasidic with its emphasis on mind and soul, is done in sufficiently facile form to engage one's interest and sentiment. The publishers however see a much wider audience for The Chosen. If they "rub their tzitzis for good luck,"—perhaps—although we doubt it.
Pub Date: April 28, 1967
ISBN: 0449911543
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: April 6, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 1967
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
