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SHELBY

Name: SHELBY
Author: Pete McCormack
ISBN: 1-877946-47-8

by Pete McCormack ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 1, 1994

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A genuine, sometimes harrowing coming-of-age saga by a young Canadian writer. McCormack's storyline traces the awakening of protagonist Shelby as he drops out of college, tries his hand in a rock band called Smegma Bomb!, and—most significantly—becomes involved with Lucy, a droll mystic who works as a stripper and suffers from migraines. She ultimately sets Shelby on the road to self- discovery, along which he spends one day working at a sausage factory. In his portrait of Lucy and the development of her relationship with Shelby, the author is at his best, moving beyond the mundane to some real wisdom and humor. Lucy takes Shelby away from his solitary masturbatory world and initiates him into an intense sexual communion. That eventually turns celibate and becomes a Zen path, forcing Shelby to look deeply into the nature of his own yearnings, but his continuing devotion to Lucy leads him to risk his life by standing up to her violent estranged husband, Frank. Issues such as child abuse are explored quite sensitively, but portions of this first novel have a cut-and-pasted quality, particularly when Shelby returns home for his grandmother's funeral and when he tries to reveal to his parents, Ed and Peg, his true status as a college drop-out. Some characters never come fully to life, including the grandmother, who is meant to be an important touchstone for Shelby, and Eric, manager of Smegma Bomb!, Shelby's best friend and ``partner-in-crime.'' However, Suzanne, the sculptor who creates a work called Fish-tail Pie, is a delight. In spite of occasionally flat prose, the narrative moves toward a convincing, albeit existential, ending and is ultimately quite entertaining. McCormack's philosophical stance is refreshing; one hopes he will continue honing his craft.

Pub Date: June 1, 1994

ISBN: 1-877946-47-8

Page Count: 196

Publisher: Permanent Press

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 1994

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

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BETWEEN SISTERS

by Kristin Hannah ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 1, 2003

Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles...

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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

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

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THE ALCHEMIST

by Paulo Coelho & translated by Margaret Jull Costa ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 1, 1993

Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.

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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.