A lively and beautifully crafted novel about the anguish of belief.
An astute novel that asks us to take seriously the possibility that Harold Peeks, a relatively mild-mannered computer salesman, is in fact the Son of God, as he announces.
Egerton (stories: How Best to Avoid Dying, 2007, etc.) keeps us deftly balanced between two equally plausible possibilities—that Harold is divine and capable of miracles or that he’s an authentic wacko. In accepting an award for Most Improved Sales Analyst, for example, Harold claims that he might indeed have “an unfair advantage since I am Christ, the Son of God. But thank you all the same.” One thing’s for sure—he’s here to challenge the way we live our lives, and no one is more aware of this fact than fellow computer salesman Blake Waterson. At the beginning of the novel, Blake lives a quintessentially American existence—he’s married to Jennifer, a woman he adores, and has an adolescent daughter named Tammy. They have a comfortable life in Houston, and we infer that Blake has never been inspired to question the general rightness of his life. When Harold quits the computer company, he turns to Blake and tells him he should quit as well because it’s not his vocation. While it might be an exaggeration to say that Harold “performs” miracles, they certainly seem to follow in his wake. When Harold decides to make a pilgrimage from Houston to Austin, Blake and a few ragged others follow him. Toward the end of the journey, Blake finds out that Jennifer, who has been estranged from Blake since he unfathomably began believing in Harold, is ill. Blake rushes back to be with her, but when she dies, he begins to question the nature of a universe—and a God—that could let such suffering happen. The story is narrated with consummate skill, moving nimbly from Blake’s narrative, told in retrospect, to documents from the church of “Haroldism” that grow up around its enigmatic founder.
A lively and beautifully crafted novel about the anguish of belief.Pub Date: May 1, 2010
ISBN: 978-0-9844488-0-7
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Dalton
Review Posted Online: Oct. 12, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2010
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles...
Sisters in and out of love.
Meghann Dontess is a high-powered matrimonial lawyer in Seattle who prefers sex with strangers to emotional intimacy: a strategy bound to backfire sooner or later, warns her tough-talking shrink. It’s advice Meghann decides to ignore, along with the memories of her difficult childhood, neglectful mother, and younger sister. Though she managed to reunite Claire with Sam Cavenaugh (her father but not Meghann’s) when her mother abandoned both girls long ago, Meghann still feels guilty that her sister’s life doesn’t measure up, at least on her terms. Never married, Claire ekes out a living running a country campground with her dad and is raising her six-year-old daughter on her own. When she falls in love for the first time with an up-and-coming country musician, Meghann is appalled: Bobby Austin is a three-time loser at marriage—how on earth can Claire be so blind? Bobby’s blunt explanation doesn’t exactly satisfy the concerned big sister, who busies herself planning Claire’s dream wedding anyway. And, to relieve the stress, she beds various guys she picks up in bars, including Dr. Joe Wyatt, a neurosurgeon turned homeless drifter after the demise of his beloved wife Diane (whom he euthanized). When Claire’s awful headache turns out to be a kind of brain tumor known among neurologists as a “terminator,” Joe rallies. Turns out that Claire had befriended his wife on her deathbed, and now in turn he must try to save her. Is it too late? Will Meghann find true love at last?
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles (Distant Shores, 2002, etc.). Kudos for skipping the snifflefest this time around.Pub Date: May 1, 2003
ISBN: 0-345-45073-6
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2003
Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.
Coelho is a Brazilian writer with four books to his credit. Following Diary of a Magus (1992—not reviewed) came this book, published in Brazil in 1988: it's an interdenominational, transcendental, inspirational fable—in other words, a bag of wind.
The story is about a youth empowered to follow his dream. Santiago is an Andalusian shepherd boy who learns through a dream of a treasure in the Egyptian pyramids. An old man, the king of Salem, the first of various spiritual guides, tells the boy that he has discovered his destiny: "to realize one's destiny is a person's only real obligation." So Santiago sells his sheep, sails to Tangier, is tricked out of his money, regains it through hard work, crosses the desert with a caravan, stops at an oasis long enough to fall in love, escapes from warring tribesmen by performing a miracle, reaches the pyramids, and eventually gets both the gold and the girl. Along the way he meets an Englishman who describes the Soul of the World; the desert woman Fatima, who teaches him the Language of the World; and an alchemist who says, "Listen to your heart" A message clings like ivy to every encounter; everyone, but everyone, has to put in their two cents' worth, from the crystal merchant to the camel driver ("concentrate always on the present, you'll be a happy man"). The absence of characterization and overall blandness suggest authorship by a committee of self-improvement pundits—a far cry from Saint- Exupery's The Little Prince: that flagship of the genre was a genuine charmer because it clearly derived from a quirky, individual sensibility.
Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.Pub Date: July 1, 1993
ISBN: 0-06-250217-4
Page Count: 192
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1993
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
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