A well-written, richly complicated, and deeply engaging coming-of-age tale.
In this literary novel set in England, a teenager learns startling revelations about people close to her.
In the sultry London of July 1969, Jane Hareman is 16 years old, making her first steps into maturity as humanity is taking its first steps on the moon. She has a comfortable relationship with her best friend, Karl Schmidt-Smith, a talented pianist and composer a year older than Jane. But then he says the words that turn her “whole world upside down: ‘Let’s go upstairs to my room.’ ” Jane, an intelligent girl who enjoys reading Kafka and philosophy, isn’t sure how she feels about that. She also has other things on her mind, such as the nearly 10-year anniversary of her mother’s death. Jane’s household consists of her father, George, once a magician known as “Mr. Magikoo,” and his girlfriend, Mia-Mia. A frequent visitor is George’s sister, Ada, a second mother to Jane. After the accidental onstage electrocution of his wife, for which neither Jane nor Ada has ever forgiven him, George eventually retired from performing to run his magic shop—but not before roping young Jane into appearing as “Little Magik Matchstick” in a terrifying theatrical illusion. Ada put a stop to this when Jane was 8, but the teen adds the experience to the list of things she can’t forgive. Returning home after watching the moonwalk on TV with Karl and his mother (who thinks it’s a hoax), Jane finds her world upended again when Mia-Mia reveals several important truths about herself, George, and Ada. Enlightened, Jane can now forgive her father, telling him: “I understand now that everything, even Little Magik Matchstick, was part of the madness of grief.” But Jane’s rapprochement and her understanding of the truth are soon upended yet again through betrayal and tragedy. Helped somewhat by the humanity of a few people in her world, Jane must find strength in turmoil. As in his previous novels, Cacoyannis (Polk, Harper & Who, 2017, etc.) again shows his perceptive understanding of the many layered elements that make up the psyche. Jane’s view of Karl, for example, undergoes seismic shifts after he attempts rape. Is he unforgivable? Is it his mother’s fault? Does his sublime piano composition in her honor excuse what he tried to do? As Jane yields “to what I felt like doing today, already one absolute certainty had sweepingly overridden another.” The uses, attractions, and dangers of lies, fictions, magic, and illusion run through the story in thought-provoking ways (“One of Mr. Magikoo’s best-known tricks involved pulling a rabbit out of two different hats…by sleight of hand the mutilation of the rabbit was concealed”). Telling the truth can have dire consequences; sometimes lying is necessary to protect the innocent; magic’s enthrallment depends on the audience’s feelings of horror. Cacoyannis’ characters, even minor ones, are equally complex and multifaceted, with histories that he brings out skillfully. Jane in particular is an appealing young person with her honesty, cleverness, openness, and desire to do the right thing. Flashes of absurdist dark humor provide a welcome note in the book’s dramatic events.
A well-written, richly complicated, and deeply engaging coming-of-age tale.Pub Date: April 1, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-980366-18-8
Page Count: 243
Publisher: Self
Review Posted Online: March 27, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A first novel, this is also a first person account of Scout's (Jean Louise) recall of the years that led to the ending of a mystery, the breaking of her brother Jem's elbow, the death of her father's enemy — and the close of childhood years. A widower, Atticus raises his children with legal dispassion and paternal intelligence, and is ably abetted by Calpurnia, the colored cook, while the Alabama town of Maycomb, in the 1930's, remains aloof to their divergence from its tribal patterns. Scout and Jem, with their summer-time companion, Dill, find their paths free from interference — but not from dangers; their curiosity about the imprisoned Boo, whose miserable past is incorporated in their play, results in a tentative friendliness; their fears of Atticus' lack of distinction is dissipated when he shoots a mad dog; his defense of a Negro accused of raping a white girl, Mayella Ewell, is followed with avid interest and turns the rabble whites against him. Scout is the means of averting an attack on Atticus but when he loses the case it is Boo who saves Jem and Scout by killing Mayella's father when he attempts to murder them. The shadows of a beginning for black-white understanding, the persistent fight that Scout carries on against school, Jem's emergence into adulthood, Calpurnia's quiet power, and all the incidents touching on the children's "growing outward" have an attractive starchiness that keeps this southern picture pert and provocative. There is much advance interest in this book; it has been selected by the Literary Guild and Reader's Digest; it should win many friends.
Pub Date: July 11, 1960
ISBN: 0060935464
Page Count: 323
Publisher: Lippincott
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1960
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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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