In his debut novel, Cohen manages the impressive feat of memorably documenting obsession without surrendering to it.
A tale of romantic obsession filtered through its protagonist’s fixations on history and media.
Henry Folsom, our narrator, is a man with a lot on his mind. He's become increasingly obsessed with the Plains Indian Wars of the 19th century—particularly through the lens of Evan S. Connell’s book Son of the Morning Star. His work as a celebrity journalist is eating away at him. But the thing that occupies his mind above all else is his affair with a woman, now absent, who goes unnamed throughout the book. Instead, he speaks of her in the way that others refer to their deity of choice: Henry’s narration capitalizes words like She and Her when referring to his paramour. At times, Henry’s level of focus can be difficult to reckon with: this book is a deep dive into one character’s areas of interest and preoccupation, and the specifics can sometimes venture into the overly idiosyncratic. It’s notable, though, that Cohen maintains some distance between the story he’s recounting and the story as Henry remembers it. Frequently, Henry views events through another telling of them: he mentions the film adaptation of Milan Kundera’s The Unbearable Lightness of Being, and his view of the Indian Wars with which he’s obsessed is peppered with nods to Connell’s book rather than to the actual history. And periodically, the plot takes Henry down a notch or two: when he discovers that the object of his affection has Cherokee heritage, he responds, “And you let me go on like that? God, how embarrassing.” These scenes of self-awareness effectively balance Henry's more overwrought moments.
In his debut novel, Cohen manages the impressive feat of memorably documenting obsession without surrendering to it.Pub Date: June 15, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-9984092-0-7
Page Count: 215
Publisher: 7.13 Books
Review Posted Online: May 14, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2017
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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