A bold, stylized debut that doesn’t always work, yet is mainly compelling.
A first novel from Australian author Meehan, whose young protagonist, like a Cormac McCarthy boy, is compelled by enormous emotional confusion to undertake a perilous journey that pits him against nature for survival.
Skinny, uncomfortable in his skin, the boy “wrapped himself in his father’s heavy peajacket and wore it even through the high heat of the day,” along with a “battered army slouch” and “heavy boots that . . . needed the aid of rolled newspaper and bandages just to stay on his feet.” He has two idols: Joe Spencer, a strong, muscular farmhand; and Cabel Singh, a storytelling hawker from India with legendary knowledge of the Outback. As the boy tries to understand through them the route to manhood, into his seething thoughts and the family farm stumbles Eileen, a wild, sensual girl-woman. When she disappears, leaving behind a bloody dress, the boy’s journey into the Outback begins. When a writer like Meehan is compared to Faulkner and McCarthy, a reader expects stylish prose to abound. And it does here. In the night, the boy steals from his bed and rounds up his old pony and “pup” and leaves to track Cabel, hoping to find Eileen—the action spans 11 pages. Faulkner reigns here. But at the end of the second act, the story broadens jarringly. Across the rough Outback terrain, a man comes peddling strenuously on an old, decrepit bike. They meet, and soon the man philosophizes about Cabel Singh and life, especially his own war experience and subsequent stay in Paris. Becket! From philosopher to dead man in a tree dressed in red-and-white striped pajamas, from beginning to fiery end, the boy encounters bizarre situations, following in the footsteps of his storytelling idol, physically and metaphorically.
A bold, stylized debut that doesn’t always work, yet is mainly compelling.Pub Date: May 1, 2001
ISBN: 1-55970-567-1
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Arcade
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2001
BOOK REVIEW
A first novel, this is also a first person account of Scout's (Jean Louise) recall of the years that led to the ending of a mystery, the breaking of her brother Jem's elbow, the death of her father's enemy — and the close of childhood years. A widower, Atticus raises his children with legal dispassion and paternal intelligence, and is ably abetted by Calpurnia, the colored cook, while the Alabama town of Maycomb, in the 1930's, remains aloof to their divergence from its tribal patterns. Scout and Jem, with their summer-time companion, Dill, find their paths free from interference — but not from dangers; their curiosity about the imprisoned Boo, whose miserable past is incorporated in their play, results in a tentative friendliness; their fears of Atticus' lack of distinction is dissipated when he shoots a mad dog; his defense of a Negro accused of raping a white girl, Mayella Ewell, is followed with avid interest and turns the rabble whites against him. Scout is the means of averting an attack on Atticus but when he loses the case it is Boo who saves Jem and Scout by killing Mayella's father when he attempts to murder them. The shadows of a beginning for black-white understanding, the persistent fight that Scout carries on against school, Jem's emergence into adulthood, Calpurnia's quiet power, and all the incidents touching on the children's "growing outward" have an attractive starchiness that keeps this southern picture pert and provocative. There is much advance interest in this book; it has been selected by the Literary Guild and Reader's Digest; it should win many friends.
Pub Date: July 11, 1960
ISBN: 0060935464
Page Count: 323
Publisher: Lippincott
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1960
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with...
Talk-show queen takes tumble as millions jeer.
Nora Bridges is a wildly popular radio spokesperson for family-first virtues, but her loyal listeners don't know that she walked out on her husband and teenaged daughters years ago and didn't look back. Now that a former lover has sold racy pix of naked Nora and horny himself to a national tabloid, her estranged daughter Ruby, an unsuccessful stand-up comic in Los Angeles, has been approached to pen a tell-all. Greedy for the fat fee she's been promised, Ruby agrees and heads for the San Juan Islands, eager to get reacquainted with the mom she plans to betray. Once in the family homestead, nasty Ruby alternately sulks and glares at her mother, who is temporarily wheelchair-bound as a result of a post-scandal car crash. Uncaring, Ruby begins writing her side of the story when she's not strolling on the beach with former sweetheart Dean Sloan, the son of wealthy socialites who basically ignored him and his gay brother Eric. Eric, now dying of cancer and also in a wheelchair, has returned to the island. This dismal threesome catch up on old times, recalling their childhood idylls on the island. After Ruby's perfect big sister Caroline shows up, there's another round of heartfelt talk. Nora gradually reveals the truth about her unloving husband and her late father's alcoholism, which led her to seek the approval of others at the cost of her own peace of mind. And so on. Ruby is aghast to discover that she doesn't know everything after all, but Dean offers her subdued comfort. Happy endings await almost everyone—except for readers of this nobly preachy snifflefest.
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with syrupy platitudes about life and love.Pub Date: March 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-609-60737-5
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2001
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