Brilliantly imagined and infused with a raw spirituality that cuts to the bone. Thon writes with lyric power about the lives...
A child of rape grows up to become a killer, in this third novel by the Whiting Award–winning author of First, Body (1997).
Frances Zimmer, a Native American girl of mixed heritage, was only 15 when she gave birth to Flint, while the white man who violated her and fathered the boy went unpunished. Frances’s strange, sad son has a taste for violence from a very young age; he sets fires and steals until an unforgiving judge sends him to a brutal reformatory for the next seven years. Isolated in solitary confinement much of the time, the rest terrorized by the other boys (whom he terrorizes in turn), Flint is nearly psychotic by the age of 16. He's cunning enough to stay alive, though, and he cherishes memories of his feckless, alcoholic mother and younger half-sister Cecile, carving their names into the walls of his cell. When Flint is released, his frightened mother, pregnant again, keeps him at a safe distance—literally. Banished under her porch, he sleeps rolled up in a filthy scrap of carpet, emerging only to steal food, money, and small objects, with gleefully amoral Cecile as his willing partner. But no one believes a little girl could be the culprit, and everyone blames Flint. Their mother's deaf sister, Marie, knows instinctively that the troubled boy is doomed, as were so many other family members, including grandmother Rina, who drowned herself. Rina’s poetic recollections of Native American ancestors form a dreamlike subtext to the narrative as Flint sinks deeper into madness and runs wild, taking Cecile with him. The severity of the crimes escalates—until a shattering, bloody climax.
Brilliantly imagined and infused with a raw spirituality that cuts to the bone. Thon writes with lyric power about the lives of lost souls who nonetheless passionately believe in a God “no longer capable of even the smallest miracles.”Pub Date: Jan. 14, 2001
ISBN: 0-395-78589-8
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2000
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.
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.Pub Date: March 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-345-46752-3
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2005
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.
A violent surfacing of adolescence (which has little in common with Tarkington's earlier, broadly comic, Seventeen) has a compulsive impact.
"Nobody big except me" is the dream world of Holden Caulfield and his first person story is down to the basic, drab English of the pre-collegiate. For Holden is now being bounced from fancy prep, and, after a vicious evening with hall- and roommates, heads for New York to try to keep his latest failure from his parents. He tries to have a wild evening (all he does is pay the check), is terrorized by the hotel elevator man and his on-call whore, has a date with a girl he likes—and hates, sees his 10 year old sister, Phoebe. He also visits a sympathetic English teacher after trying on a drunken session, and when he keeps his date with Phoebe, who turns up with her suitcase to join him on his flight, he heads home to a hospital siege. This is tender and true, and impossible, in its picture of the old hells of young boys, the lonesomeness and tentative attempts to be mature and secure, the awful block between youth and being grown-up, the fright and sickness that humans and their behavior cause the challenging, the dramatization of the big bang. It is a sorry little worm's view of the off-beat of adult pressure, of contemporary strictures and conformity, of sentiment….
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.Pub Date: June 15, 1951
ISBN: 0316769177
Page Count: -
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1951
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
APPRECIATIONS
© 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.
