Whether read as thriller or allegory, Ishmael’s fall from grace has a lacerating power.
A psychologically harrowing and literarily provocative portrait of a mind unraveling from tragedy.
Though the prolific Everett (Wounded, 2005, etc.) has employed a variety of different narrative strategies, this first-person confession finds the novelist at his metafictional best. In almost claustrophobic fashion, the reader inhabits the mind of “Call me Ishmael” Kidder, who steeps his narrative in the richness of literary and philosophical allusion. While pondering the essence of storytelling, of identity, of words themselves, Ishmael continues to circle around his plot’s pivot: the rape and murder of his 11-year-old daughter, Lane. The incident followed Ishmael’s separation from his wife, Charlotte, which may or may not have been preceded by Ishmael’s infidelity (he can’t be sure whether he cheated in his mind or in truth, wherever truth may lie). Yet living apart from her father plainly had a disturbing effect on Lane, making Ishmael feel complicit (though not of rape or murder) well before the fatal brutality suffered by his daughter. “I may not be at fault or to blame, but I am guilty for the death of my child,” he confesses. Ishmael is also a storyteller, a writer of romance novels using a woman’s name, and the rest of the story he tells concerns the revenge he wreaks on his daughter’s murderer, a diabolically deliberate process that takes as much toll on Ishmael as it does on his prey (unnamed, perhaps even imaginary, whom Ishmael ultimately refers to as his “victim”). Within what Ishmael refers to as “this sick thing I call a mind,” there is wordplay that evokes Joyce, Chaucer and Lewis Carroll. There are philosophical debates between Plato and Socrates. There are meditations on what Ishmael calls “the functions of language,” the last of which he asserts is “to cause pain.” For Ishmael, there is no escape from his mind in this novel. And none for the reader as well.
Whether read as thriller or allegory, Ishmael’s fall from grace has a lacerating power.Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2007
ISBN: 978-1-55597-476-3
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Graywolf
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2007
Great fun, and with a few poignant moments too.
Nantucket in summer, four chummy couples, romantic intrigue and a possible murder, in the latest from Hilderbrand (A Summer Affair, 2008, etc.).
The book opens with the death of Greg and Tess MacAvoy. Sailing from Nantucket to Martha’s Vineyard for their 12th anniversary, the beloved couple is found drowned, trapped under their boat. Ed Kapenash, Nantucket Chief of Police and one of Greg’s best friends, has to break the news to his wife Andrea, Tess’s cousin. They are joined in mourning by rich, cultured Addison Wheeler; his wife Phoebe, a pill-popping zombie since her twin’s death on 9/11; wild Delilah Drake (in love with Greg); and her stoic husband Jeff. Inseparable for years, the four couples loved and respected each other, vacationed together, watched each other’s children; in fact, they seemed to have an idyllic life of friendship on the island—until the death of Greg and Tess uncovers all their dirty secrets. The toxicology report finds heroin in the bloodstream of sweet, overcautious Tess, a kindergarten teacher and doting mother of twins. Ed also finds five phone calls on Tess’s phone from Addison the morning of the sail. Were the MavAvoys’ deaths an accident or a murder plot gone wrong? Much of the mystery hinges on what happened between Greg, a music teacher at the local high school, and April Peck, a student who several months earlier accused him of sexual misconduct. With a few strings pulled by Ed, Greg’s career was saved, but the strain of the scandal has unforeseen consequences on the surviving friends. In mourning, each feels somehow culpable; slowly they confront together the sordid underbelly of their seemingly respectable lives. If the plot becomes a bit stretched at the end, never mind: Hilderbrand has a master’s touch at characterization, making the novel’s players seem so familiar that the revelation of their secrets is irresistible.
Great fun, and with a few poignant moments too.Pub Date: July 7, 2009
ISBN: 978-0-316-04389-2
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2009
Sneering tone and choppy style mar this first novel, set in Sydney, from Australian author Moriarty.
Meet the Kettle sisters: 33-year-old triplets.
Gemma, Cat, and Lynne had the childhood from hell, thanks to their battling parents, and they still haven’t decided what they want to be when they grow up—if they grow up. They haven’t forgiven Mum and Dad and they can’t forget, for example, their sixth birthday party, when their father lit a firecracker and blew his finger off (it was preserved in Formaldehyde as a gruesome memento of the occasion). How ironic: it was his ring finger—an apt symbol of an explosive marriage. Some years later, after their parents’ divorce, the sisters leave home to confront hard truths about life and love. Family secrets and garden-variety troubles are trotted out in no particular order: Mum’s miscarriage. Frail but feisty granny. Unfaithful husbands and useless boyfriends. Happy ending? Oh, why not.
Sneering tone and choppy style mar this first novel, set in Sydney, from Australian author Moriarty.Pub Date: June 1, 2004
ISBN: 0-06-058612-5
Page Count: 352
Publisher: HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2004
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
