A rambling trickster of a book, full of convoluted questions and no easy answers.
Matthews’ debut fiction invokes the Great Flood of the Bible in the hallucinations and dreams of a half-Mexican carnie named Xavier.
On what he announces is the “last official day” as a carnie, Xavier leaves the “Ark-like existence” of his Airstream and heads out for a stiff drink. As he approaches the tavern, lightning strikes him down. Despite melted soles and charred clothing, he dusts himself off and joins his fairground brethren: the tattooed Cajun, Jacques; Six-Foot Alice; attractive, stuttering Ella; crooked-spined Crawdad; a roustabout named Chumba Cruz, and his twin brother, Gustavo. After sharing “180-proof hope” and PBRs with his companions, Xavier collapses in a filthy stall in the men’s room. When he comes to, he begins to experience what appear to be a series of psychotic, drink-induced episodes. As he carries on a Spanglish “dream conversation” with the disembodied voice of Chumba, a torrential rain begins to fall on the surrounding Texas landscape, causing death and destruction. Xavier and the voice of Chumba argue about hot dogs, luchadors and the fresh world they plan to create after the deluge. Chumba, calling himself El Jefe, tells Xavier, “Words are a drug mainlined by those swimming against the torrent.” “Truly deluded,” Xavier continues “babbling” to himself as the cresting waves consume the dreary desert outside the bathroom window of his “Tavern-acle.” Suddenly awakened by his buddies, Xavier thinks they’re figments of his insane dream. In a fight with Gustavo, he’s told to let his temporal spirit abandon him and “move on with the new you.” With faint echoes of Richard Brautigan and Tom Robbins, Matthews creates a unique universe of absurd situations, place-holder characters and rapid-fire, tangential dialogue. Passionate, but perplexing prose trumps any semblance of a plot. Despite its meager length, the work demands much patience to wade through what amounts to an incomprehensible hybrid of parable and parody—although what’s being taught or made fun of remains hazy.
A rambling trickster of a book, full of convoluted questions and no easy answers.Pub Date: March 23, 2013
ISBN: 978-1482736502
Page Count: 74
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: June 10, 2013
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
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