Much more contrived and straining to be hip than Maxx’s debut (Sweet Man is Gone, 2008). Probably just as well if that CD...
The Manhattan blues scene—in more ways than one.
The CD Rick Schneider promised Maxx Maxwell that his company Prowling Rooster Records would make to launch her little blues band into the festival orbit hasn’t materialized. When Maxx goes looking for Rick to find out what happened to the CD and the $1,000 she paid him to produce it, he’s nowhere to be found, and his co-partners, Ben and Steve, claim they know nothing about it. Rick, as savvy readers will suspect, is, alas, a corpse, found by Maxx, who, in between waiting tables and gigs with her group, Maxximum Blues, is determined to find that CD master. If that means she has to unravel the mystery of Rick’s death, so be it. The cops think the mob hit him for pirating CDs. Maxx suspects everyone else, from Ben and Steve to Rick’s sweetie, Brenda Honeycut, and even his daughter. Her snooping leads back 20 years to Rick’s days with his own musical group, which broke up after some disagreements over who wrote which songs and who was sleeping with whose girl. Eventually Maxx, all kooky wardrobe and ear-grating slang, solves a mystery that baffles the cops and moves on to her next gig.
Much more contrived and straining to be hip than Maxx’s debut (Sweet Man is Gone, 2008). Probably just as well if that CD stays missing.Pub Date: Jan. 19, 2011
ISBN: 978-1-59414-932-9
Page Count: 242
Publisher: Five Star/Gale Cengage
Review Posted Online: Sept. 27, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2010
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
An extremely powerful story of a young Southern Negro, from his late high school days through three years of college to his life in Harlem.
His early training prepared him for a life of humility before white men, but through injustices- large and small, he came to realize that he was an "invisible man". People saw in him only a reflection of their preconceived ideas of what he was, denied his individuality, and ultimately did not see him at all. This theme, which has implications far beyond the obvious racial parallel, is skillfully handled. The incidents of the story are wholly absorbing. The boy's dismissal from college because of an innocent mistake, his shocked reaction to the anonymity of the North and to Harlem, his nightmare experiences on a one-day job in a paint factory and in the hospital, his lightning success as the Harlem leader of a communistic organization known as the Brotherhood, his involvement in black versus white and black versus black clashes and his disillusion and understanding of his invisibility- all climax naturally in scenes of violence and riot, followed by a retreat which is both literal and figurative. Parts of this experience may have been told before, but never with such freshness, intensity and power.
This is Ellison's first novel, but he has complete control of his story and his style. Watch it.
Pub Date: April 7, 1952
ISBN: 0679732764
Page Count: 616
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: Sept. 22, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 1952
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
IN THE NEWS
APPRECIATIONS
Fans weary of King's recent unwieldy tomes can rest easy: his newest is slim, slick, and razor-keen. His first novel without supernatural elements outside of the Richard Bachman series, this psychological terror tale laced with pitch-black humor tells the nerve-jangling story of a best-selling author kidnapped and tortured by his "number one fan." King opens on a disorienting note as writer Paul Sheldon drifts awake to find himself in bed, his legs shattered. A beefy woman, 40-ish Annie Wilkes, appears and feeds him barbiturates. During the hazy next week, Paul learns that Annie, an ex-nurse, carried him from a car wreck to her isolated house, where she plans to keep him indefinitely. She's a spiteful misanthrope subject to catatonic fits, but worships Paul because he writes her favorite books, historical novels featuring the heroine "Misery." As Annie pumps him with drugs and reads the script of his latest novel, also saved from the wreck, Paul waits with growing apprehension—he killed off Misery in this new one. tn time, Annie rushes into the room, howling: she demands that Paul write a new novel resurrecting Misery just for her. He refuses until she threatens to withhold his drugs; so he begins the book (tantalizing chunks of which King seeds throughout this novel). Days later, when Annie goes to town, Paul, who's now in a wheelchair, escapes his locked room and finds a scrapbook with clippings of Annie's hobby: she's a mass-murderer. Up to here, King has gleefully slathered on the tension: now he slams on the shocks as Annie returns swinging an axe and chops off Paul's foot. Soon after, off comes his thumb; when a cop looking for Paul shows up, Annie lawnmowers his head. Burning for revenge, Paul finishes his novel, only to use the manuscript as a weapon against his captor in the ironic, ferocious climax. Although lacking the psychological richness of his best work, this nasty shard of a novel with its weird autobiographical implications probably will thrill and chill King's legion of fans. Note: the publisher plans an unprecedented first printing of one-million copies.
Pub Date: June 8, 1987
ISBN: 0451169522
Page Count: 356
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: Sept. 26, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 1987
BOOK TO SCREEN
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