A profound, dramatic, and emotionally resonant book.
Peterson (Snow-Blind, 2018) offers a pair of stories about characters coming to terms with death.
In “A Sight to See,” the shorter of this book’s two narratives, Adam is one of four astronauts on a one-way flight to Mars. When something collides with the spaceship, his three companions die, and Adam’s injury renders him blind. As the ship continues its course to the red planet, he sits alone in darkness and periodically communicates with Mission Control. He accepted the mission knowing that he would never again see his wife, Penny, but as he awaits what he believes is an imminent demise, he debates whether he made the right decision. In “The Boatman,” Charles is a professional guide for people who wish to die. He works at a company that constructs “death dreams,” in which people can choose the specific manner of their passing. He keeps his job a secret from his father, who wouldn’t approve; Charles’ mother committed suicide a decade earlier. But his dad isn’t well himself, and he may soon decide how he wants to pass on—with or without Charles’ guidance. Peterson’s death-centered stories, while occasionally gloomy, are still filled with hope. The author shows how Adam, for instance, doesn’t fear his demise, which he seems to view as a journey’s end; although his longing for Penny is sorrowful, he achieves a sense of closure before the tale concludes. Similarly, “death dreams” allow characters to experience happiness or heroism before they die. At times, the author’s lyrical prose cushions the bleaker concepts; for example, Adam believes that the Earth’s first living cell is continually reborn in each living thing: “We are an unbroken echo of all life before us,” he muses, “locked in a closed-loop system of death and resurrection.” Overall, Peterson’s stories promote an appreciation of life—although some readers may still shed tears.
A profound, dramatic, and emotionally resonant book.Pub Date: March 21, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-09-119910-1
Page Count: 85
Publisher: Time Tunnel Media
Review Posted Online: Jan. 29, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2019
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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