A bizarre tale that presses buttons—but perhaps not the ones that typical readers of erotica might hope for.
A problematically perverse erotic thriller.
As if the geopolitical situation of the Middle East were not already rife with literary possibility, this debut novel incorporates aliens, vampires, a talking dog, and page after page of disturbingly rendered nonconsensual sex into a tale centering on the titular undead al-Qaida leader. Although the industry standards of erotica usually exclude rape scenes, here they serve as incremental actions moving the plot forward, beginning with bin Laden’s rape of a deep-sea diver who recovers his corpse and unwittingly unleashes his sexually insatiable spirit upon the world. Bin Laden, as imagined here, is a man of unparalleled might who has sex with virtually every character he meets, drawing power from them as he forces them into submission. Meanwhile, Janet, a young woman who can talk to ghosts, works with the U.S. government to bring him down, and she receives help from the ghost of Naughty Bitch, a dog who, after being raped by a still-living bin Laden, jumped off a cliff in order to escape him. Admittedly, the sheer absurdity of the novel’s plot and concept may hold a sort of camp appeal, and fans of black humor may laugh at bin Laden’s insecurity about the size of his penis and his guileless, broken English. The characters’ logic may also amuse; for example, one of bin Laden’s willing sexual partners reasons: “OK, I will try because I want to be a celebrity who fucked bin Laden’s ghost.” That said, if erotic fiction’s central aim is to arouse, this book doesn’t fulfill that requirement. Although the content may be shocking and even offensive, its overall lack of nuance makes it more funny than sexy, and it’s more likely to stir outrage than desire.
A bizarre tale that presses buttons—but perhaps not the ones that typical readers of erotica might hope for.Pub Date: Oct. 7, 2013
ISBN: 978-1490372099
Page Count: 280
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Dec. 24, 2013
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
One of those rare thrillers whose revelations actually intensify its suspense instead of dissipating it. The final pages are...
A perfect wife’s disappearance plunges her husband into a nightmare as it rips open ugly secrets about his marriage and, just maybe, his culpability in her death.
Even after they lost their jobs as magazine writers and he uprooted her from New York and spirited her off to his childhood home in North Carthage, Mo., where his ailing parents suddenly needed him at their side, Nick Dunne still acted as if everything were fine between him and his wife, Amy. His sister Margo, who’d gone partners with him on a local bar, never suspected that the marriage was fraying, and certainly never knew that Nick, who’d buried his mother and largely ducked his responsibilities to his father, stricken with Alzheimer’s, had taken one of his graduate students as a mistress. That’s because Nick and Amy were both so good at playing Mr. and Ms. Right for their audience. But that all changes the morning of their fifth anniversary when Amy vanishes with every indication of foul play. Partly because the evidence against him looks so bleak, partly because he’s so bad at communicating grief, partly because he doesn’t feel all that grief-stricken to begin with, the tide begins to turn against Nick. Neighbors who’d been eager to join the police in the search for Amy begin to gossip about him. Female talk-show hosts inveigh against him. The questions from Detective Rhonda Boney and Detective Jim Gilpin get sharper and sharper. Even Nick has to acknowledge that he hasn’t come close to being the husband he liked to think he was. But does that mean he deserves to get tagged as his wife’s killer? Interspersing the mystery of Amy’s disappearance with flashbacks from her diary, Flynn (Dark Places, 2009, etc.) shows the marriage lumbering toward collapse—and prepares the first of several foreseeable but highly effective twists.
One of those rare thrillers whose revelations actually intensify its suspense instead of dissipating it. The final pages are chilling.Pub Date: June 5, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-307-58836-4
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: April 22, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2012
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Striking a far less hysterical tone than in The Shining, King has written his most sweeping horror novel in The Stand, though it may lack the spinal jingles of Salem's Lot. In part this is because The Stand, with its flow of hundreds of brand-name products, is a kind of inventory of American culture. "Superflu" has hit the U.S. and the world, rapidly wiping out the whole of civilization—excepting the one-half of one percent who are immune. Superflu is a virus with a shifting antigen base; that is, it can kill every type of antibody the human organism can muster against it. Immunity seems to be a gift from God—or the Devil. The Devil himself has become embodied in a clairvoyant called Randall Flagg, a phantom-y fellow who walks highways and is known variously as "the dark man" or "the Walking Dude" and who has set up a new empire in Las Vegas where he rules by fear, his hair giving off sparks while he floats in the lotus position. He is very angry because the immune folks in the Free Zone up at Boulder have sent a small force against him; they get their message from Him (God) through a dying black crone named Abigail, who is also clairvoyant. There are only four in this Boulder crew, led by Stu Redman from East Texas, who is in love with pregnant Fran back in the Free Zone. Good and Evil come to an atomic clash at the climax, the Book of Revelations working itself out rather too explicitly. But more importantly, there are memorable scenes of the superflu spreading hideously, Fifth Avenue choked with dead cars, Flagg's minions putting up fresh lightbulbs all over Vegas. . . . Some King fans will be put off by the pretensions here; most will embrace them along with the earthier chilis.
Pub Date: Nov. 3, 1978
ISBN: 0307743683
Page Count: 1450
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Sept. 26, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 1978
PERSPECTIVES
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
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