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THE MITT MAN

Name: THE MITT MAN
Author: Mel Taylor
ISBN: 0-688-16094-8

by Mel Taylor ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 1, 1999

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Feverishly overwritten and densely plotted but nonetheless strongly compelling African-American southern gothic of a cardsharp whose scams against friends and foes become a metaphor for the paradoxical nature of religious faith. Born around 1900 into a poor farming family on the outskirts of New Orleans, James Cook runs away from home when he sees his father fatally beaten by a white sheriff who had designs on Cook’s mother. Though well-schooled in the Bible, the boy can—t accept a world in which God seems to permit black people to be savaged. And so he flees to the city, where he soon becomes the King Fish—a pimp, a pickpocket, a true ’slickster— like his hustler uncle Ed. While visiting the black shantytown of Gator Creek, he falls for the innocent affections of Sue Ellen, who not only marries him but follows him into a life of petty crime, then leaves him when he won’t have a family with her. King Fish next begins trafficking with the mad Reverend Malcom Cage, a wealthy white fundamentalist preacher whose missionary work often serves to swindle disaffected blacks. As a preacher, he learns both sides of the scam but yearns for a better life among Harlem’s swank cats. A return to his hustling ways lands him in prison, though, where he discovers that, even if he doesn’t believe in God, he has the power to redeem others. Once out of the slammer, King Fish makes his way to Harlem, then undergoing its famed renaissance. There, he meets Jimmie Lamar, the story’s narrator, who, despite a few wayward tendencies, feels that God has handed him a charmed life. He and King Fish try (optimistically) to defraud a wealthy French countess, but the scheme goes sour and Lamar loses the woman he loves—along with his ability to preach. Discursive, overly complex, but, despite occasionally cumbersome prose, a debut that makes a moving statement about redemption and loss.

Pub Date: Feb. 1, 1999

ISBN: 0-688-16094-8

Page Count: 352

Publisher: Morrow/HarperCollins

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 1998

Categories:

HISTORICAL FICTION | GENERAL FICTION

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WE WERE THE LUCKY ONES

by Georgia Hunter ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 14, 2017

Too beholden to sentimentality and cliché, this novel fails to establish a uniquely realized perspective.

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Hunter’s debut novel tracks the experiences of her family members during the Holocaust.

Sol and Nechuma Kurc, wealthy, cultured Jews in Radom, Poland, are successful shop owners; they and their grown children live a comfortable lifestyle. But that lifestyle is no protection against the onslaught of the Holocaust, which eventually scatters the members of the Kurc family among several continents. Genek, the oldest son, is exiled with his wife to a Siberian gulag. Halina, youngest of all the children, works to protect her family alongside her resistance-fighter husband. Addy, middle child, a composer and engineer before the war breaks out, leaves Europe on one of the last passenger ships, ending up thousands of miles away. Then, too, there are Mila and Felicia, Jakob and Bella, each with their own share of struggles—pain endured, horrors witnessed. Hunter conducted extensive research after learning that her grandfather (Addy in the book) survived the Holocaust. The research shows: her novel is thorough and precise in its details. It’s less precise in its language, however, which frequently relies on cliché. “You’ll get only one shot at this,” Halina thinks, enacting a plan to save her husband. “Don’t botch it.” Later, Genek, confronting a routine bit of paperwork, must decide whether or not to hide his Jewishness. “That form is a deal breaker,” he tells himself. “It’s life and death.” And: “They are low, it seems, on good fortune. And something tells him they’ll need it.” Worse than these stale phrases, though, are the moments when Hunter’s writing is entirely inadequate for the subject matter at hand. Genek, describing the gulag, calls the nearest town “a total shitscape.” This is a low point for Hunter’s writing; elsewhere in the novel, it’s stronger. Still, the characters remain flat and unknowable, while the novel itself is predictable. At this point, more than half a century’s worth of fiction and film has been inspired by the Holocaust—a weighty and imposing tradition. Hunter, it seems, hasn’t been able to break free from her dependence on it.

Too beholden to sentimentality and cliché, this novel fails to establish a uniquely realized perspective.

Pub Date: Feb. 14, 2017

ISBN: 978-0-399-56308-9

Page Count: 416

Publisher: Viking

Review Posted Online: Nov. 21, 2016

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2016

Categories:

RELIGIOUS FICTION | HISTORICAL FICTION

- BOOK TO SCREEN
Hulu’s ‘We Were the Lucky Ones’ Adds To Cast

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MAGIC HOUR

by Kristin Hannah ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 1, 2006

Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.

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Sisters work together to solve a child-abandonment case.

Ellie and Julia Cates have never been close. Julia is shy and brainy; Ellie gets by on charm and looks. Their differences must be tossed aside when a traumatized young girl wanders in from the forest into their hometown in Washington. The sisters’ professional skills are put to the test. Julia is a world-renowned child psychologist who has lost her edge. She is reeling from a case that went publicly sour. Though she was cleared of all wrongdoing, Julia’s name was tarnished, forcing her to shutter her Beverly Hills practice. Ellie Barton is the local police chief in Rain Valley, who’s never faced a tougher case. This is her chance to prove she is more than just a fading homecoming queen, but a scarcity of clues and a reluctant victim make locating the girl’s parents nearly impossible. Ellie places an SOS call to her sister; she needs an expert to rehabilitate this wild-child who has been living outside of civilization for years. Confronted with her professional demons, Julia once again has the opportunity to display her talents and salvage her reputation. Hannah (The Things We Do for Love, 2004, etc.) is at her best when writing from the girl’s perspective. The feral wolf-child keeps the reader interested long after the other, transparent characters have grown tiresome. Hannah’s torturously over-written romance passages are stale, but there are surprises in store as the sisters set about unearthing Alice’s past and creating a home for her.

Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.