An ambitious but often unexciting mystery and investigation of Southern race relations.
A Southern son searches for a long-lost friend amid the racial tensions of the 1960s in Valentine’s (Dark Epiphany, 2000, etc.) latest novel.
In 1970, Southern journalist Arlis Morrow goes on a mission after his mother, on her deathbed, reveals that his childhood friend, Jesse, once saved her from a snakebite. His act of bravery remained secret, however, because Jesse was black, and Arlis’ father was affiliated with the Ku Klux Klan. Arlis’ mother’s dying wish is for her son to find out what happened to Jesse. The mission is tough, however, as he can’t remember Jesse’s last name, and his neighbors are little help. A whole cast of characters, black and white, try to dissuade him from digging around in the past, but their resistance only makes him search harder. He tells everyone that he wants to write about the divergence of his and Jesse’s lives, how the civil rights movement and the disorder of the 1960s have impacted them both; his goal, he says, is “to trace the life of just one single person…and place its imprint on another single human being.” It’s a fascinating idea and a plausible pitch but seems strikingly modern and suggests hindsight that readers may not find believable for the time, as the story takes place only two years after Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassination. However, Arlis has other motives for finding Jesse, as he suspects that Jesse may have some information about his father’s mysterious death two years earlier. At times, the story could use some editing; for example, one single paragraph clocks in at four pages long. The book is largely well-written, however; the characters are well-rounded, and Valentine is wonderfully committed to the language and landscape of the South. However, Arlis’ many interactions are often similar—he meets initial resistance from nearly everyone he meets, and then receives an explanation, vague information and a warning. By the end, readers may be eager for Arlis to find Jesse just so something new will happen.
An ambitious but often unexciting mystery and investigation of Southern race relations.Pub Date: Sept. 17, 2013
ISBN: 978-1482591446
Page Count: 194
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Dec. 11, 2013
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Suspenseful, full of incident, and not obviously necessary.
Atwood goes back to Gilead.
The Handmaid’s Tale (1985), consistently regarded as a masterpiece of 20th-century literature, has gained new attention in recent years with the success of the Hulu series as well as fresh appreciation from readers who feel like this story has new relevance in America’s current political climate. Atwood herself has spoken about how news headlines have made her dystopian fiction seem eerily plausible, and it’s not difficult to imagine her wanting to revisit Gilead as the TV show has sped past where her narrative ended. Like the novel that preceded it, this sequel is presented as found documents—first-person accounts of life inside a misogynistic theocracy from three informants. There is Agnes Jemima, a girl who rejects the marriage her family arranges for her but still has faith in God and Gilead. There’s Daisy, who learns on her 16th birthday that her whole life has been a lie. And there's Aunt Lydia, the woman responsible for turning women into Handmaids. This approach gives readers insight into different aspects of life inside and outside Gilead, but it also leads to a book that sometimes feels overstuffed. The Handmaid’s Tale combined exquisite lyricism with a powerful sense of urgency, as if a thoughtful, perceptive woman was racing against time to give witness to her experience. That narrator hinted at more than she said; Atwood seemed to trust readers to fill in the gaps. This dynamic created an atmosphere of intimacy. However curious we might be about Gilead and the resistance operating outside that country, what we learn here is that what Atwood left unsaid in the first novel generated more horror and outrage than explicit detail can. And the more we get to know Agnes, Daisy, and Aunt Lydia, the less convincing they become. It’s hard, of course, to compete with a beloved classic, so maybe the best way to read this new book is to forget about The Handmaid’s Tale and enjoy it as an artful feminist thriller.
Suspenseful, full of incident, and not obviously necessary.Pub Date: Sept. 10, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-385-54378-1
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Nan A. Talese
Review Posted Online: Sept. 3, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2019
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
This book sings with the terrible silence of dead civilizations in which once there was valor.
Written with quiet dignity that builds to a climax of tragic force, this book about the dissolution of an African tribe, its traditions, and values, represents a welcome departure from the familiar "Me, white brother" genre.
Written by a Nigerian African trained in missionary schools, this novel tells quietly the story of a brave man, Okonkwo, whose life has absolute validity in terms of his culture, and who exercises his prerogative as a warrior, father, and husband with unflinching single mindedness. But into the complex Nigerian village filters the teachings of strangers, teachings so alien to the tribe, that resistance is impossible. One must distinguish a force to be able to oppose it, and to most, the talk of Christian salvation is no more than the babbling of incoherent children. Still, with his guns and persistence, the white man, amoeba-like, gradually absorbs the native culture and in despair, Okonkwo, unable to withstand the corrosion of what he, alone, understands to be the life force of his people, hangs himself. In the formlessness of the dying culture, it is the missionary who takes note of the event, reminding himself to give Okonkwo's gesture a line or two in his work, The Pacification of the Primitive Tribes of the Lower Niger.
This book sings with the terrible silence of dead civilizations in which once there was valor.Pub Date: Jan. 23, 1958
ISBN: 0385474547
Page Count: 207
Publisher: McDowell, Obolensky
Review Posted Online: April 23, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 1958
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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