Nonfiction author Sheimo’s (Stock Market Rules, 2012, etc.) first novel tracks a traveler’s motorcycle journey from Alaska to Minnesota on the treacherous Alcan Highway in the summer of 1970.
It doesn’t take much to convince Dan Johnson to embark on an adventure—just a couple of bucks. When his pal Jim loses a bet that he’d be the last to get married, Dan buys his first motorcycle and decides to go on a 3,000-mile journey to collect his $5 winnings and attend Jim’s wedding. Plus, he has a hunch his old flame Elaine might be there, which certainly sweetens the deal. Dan has only 10 days to travel from Fairbanks, Alaska, to Minneapolis on the Alcan Highway, a rugged and sometimes desolate route that could pose problems for an inexperienced motorcyclist. But Dan forges ahead, insisting, “[T]his might be my last chance to do something like this. At twenty-three years old, obligations will catch up to me.” The novel has an intriguing premise, and it may give motorcycle enthusiasts a nostalgia kick. However, the stiff, boilerplate dialogue quickly gives the odyssey a predictable, movie-of-the-week feel. Whether he’s battling angry bears, getting hassled by the border patrol or trying to save an out-of-control trucker, Dan always narrowly escapes injury, like James Bond or Indiana Jones. But unfortunately, Dan isn’t as interesting a character as those adventurers. Instead of requesting shaken martinis, Dan thinks about his preferred peanut-butter thickness on sandwiches (“one-half inch, a gourmet technique he learned a few years ago from his younger sister Anne”) and touts the benefits of “eyeball steaming”—that is, pressing his eye sockets against a hot coffee cup. Sheimo states in the acknowledgements that he actually traveled the Alcan Highway by motorcycle in 1970, but despite his firsthand knowledge of the terrain, the novel just doesn’t feel authentic enough to be completely believable. Instead, readers are left alone with the thinly sketched protagonist as he attempts to beat the odds, which seem always to be tipped in his favor.
A road trip that doesn’t feel dangerous or realistic enough to become a fully engaging adventure.
Pub Date: June 16, 2014
ISBN: 978-1499173512
Page Count: 198
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Aug. 26, 2014
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
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