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
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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