An “experimental” novel that manages mostly to be conventionally unconventional.
Bible delivers an elliptical, provocative novella about the profane and the spiritual, all of it drenched in sweat, sex, and booze.
In the American South, a reverend named Maloney (who also narrates) guzzles booze and indulges in sexual thoughts—not model behavior, surely. He spends a lot of time drunk at church and hangs with an assortment of down-on-their-luck types—most notably, his best friend, Eli, a chess genius whom one character accuses Maloney of using for money. Is this the case? Bible tells his story in short bursts, poetic and plainspoken; he shuffles readers from place to place, catapults them from nastiness to nastiness. Gradually a story develops, but this book is about tone: sometimes vulgar, sometimes romantic, always confrontational. In service to this tone, much of the book—characters, their back stories, their motivations—feels concealed. Certainly authors have done great work in such elliptical modes—marketing copy here cites Barry Hannah and Nicholson Baker—but the uninflected style and tone also recall newer books like Young God or Nowhere, not to mention plenty of brief, broken-seeming works emerging from indie presses. Bible wants to provoke—consider Maloney’s recurring sex dreams about the Holy Ghost or a moment when he grooms his pubic hair into the shape of a cross or musings on whether or not Jesus had wet dreams—but his attempts at provoking are, well, sort of dull and conventional. Familiar in form and profane content, the novella takes no real risks. “Failure is the most interesting trait,” Bible writes early on, and he has a point. Ultimately, this novella is too cloistered, too fashionable, too safe to do much failing, and Bible’s ambition to be interesting and different disappears into the book’s ellipses.
An “experimental” novel that manages mostly to be conventionally unconventional.Pub Date: Dec. 1, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-61219-472-1
Page Count: 128
Publisher: Melville House
Review Posted Online: Sept. 22, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2015
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
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
© Copyright 2024 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.
bookshelf
