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ESCARDY GAP

Name: ESCARDY GAP
Author: Peter Crowther
ISBN: 0-312-86210-5

by Peter Crowther & James Lovegrove ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 1, 1996

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Very long fantasy/horror debut novel that doesn't pick up steam for 250 pages, then becomes passably inventive of its kind. Crowther and Lovegrove's story burdens itself with a dreary, clichÇ-strewn opening (a novel-within-the-novel) about an old, self-pitying, burned-out Manhattan novelist suffering with writer's block. When he does suddenly begin to write again, he tells about the arrival of a mysterious train at Escardy Gap, an idyllic village. For the next several hundred pages, the authors paste together genre banalities; Escardy Gap itself is a flimsy site, filled with stereotypical townsfolk/murder victims. The train brings a fairly (by contrast) distinct crew of demons, called The Company, who are deceptively pleasant before they begin maiming, disembowelling, or poisoning the innocent people who welcome them into their homes. Their leader is the aimless but murderous Jeremiah Rackstraw. His troupe includes Mr. Olesqui, a midget who kills with tobacco smoke; Boy, whose handless arms create their own forms of energy; Buzz Beaumont, who spews great fireballs of electricity; Agnes Destiny, who trails bunches of limp phalli (her own) along the floor; Clarence, a shapechanger who can mimic anybody or reinvent himself as a monster; Felcher the poisoner; and rhymester Neville N. Nolan, Rackstaw's Ariel, who can transform himself into a giant horsefly with gemlike eyes, capable of finding anyone anywhere. Also appearing: Alecto, Atrops, and Aegle, ravishingly beautiful Man-eaters who give new meaning to the term vagina dentata. The more-or-less heroine is beautiful young Sara Sienkeiwicz, who publishes stories in Weird Tales and, like Faulkner's Eula Mae Varner, drives all men mad. Her role is entirely passive, since the old writer (who increasingly loses control of his own story to The Company) tries to frustrate the efforts of his own youthful hero, Josh Knight, to save her, preserving Sara for himself. Lighthearted butchery, an intermittently lively dance around the maypole staged in an abattoir.

Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1996

ISBN: 0-312-86210-5

Page Count: 544

Publisher: Tor

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 1996

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

- BOOK REVIEW
DANTE'S DISCIPLES
edited by Peter Crowther & Edward E. Kramer

- BOOK REVIEW
TOMBS
by Edward E. Kramer & Peter Crowther

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SUMMER ISLAND

by Kristin Hannah ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 1, 2001

The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with...

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Talk-show queen takes tumble as millions jeer.

Nora Bridges is a wildly popular radio spokesperson for family-first virtues, but her loyal listeners don't know that she walked out on her husband and teenaged daughters years ago and didn't look back. Now that a former lover has sold racy pix of naked Nora and horny himself to a national tabloid, her estranged daughter Ruby, an unsuccessful stand-up comic in Los Angeles, has been approached to pen a tell-all. Greedy for the fat fee she's been promised, Ruby agrees and heads for the San Juan Islands, eager to get reacquainted with the mom she plans to betray. Once in the family homestead, nasty Ruby alternately sulks and glares at her mother, who is temporarily wheelchair-bound as a result of a post-scandal car crash. Uncaring, Ruby begins writing her side of the story when she's not strolling on the beach with former sweetheart Dean Sloan, the son of wealthy socialites who basically ignored him and his gay brother Eric. Eric, now dying of cancer and also in a wheelchair, has returned to the island. This dismal threesome catch up on old times, recalling their childhood idylls on the island. After Ruby's perfect big sister Caroline shows up, there's another round of heartfelt talk. Nora gradually reveals the truth about her unloving husband and her late father's alcoholism, which led her to seek the approval of others at the cost of her own peace of mind. And so on. Ruby is aghast to discover that she doesn't know everything after all, but Dean offers her subdued comfort. Happy endings await almost everyone—except for readers of this nobly preachy snifflefest.

The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with syrupy platitudes about life and love.

Pub Date: March 1, 2001

ISBN: 0-609-60737-5

Page Count: 336

Publisher: Crown

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2001

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

- BOOK REVIEW
THE WOMEN
by Kristin Hannah

- BOOK REVIEW
THE FOUR WINDS
by Kristin Hannah

- BOOK REVIEW
THE GREAT ALONE
by Kristin Hannah

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TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD

by Harper Lee ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 11, 1960

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A first novel, this is also a first person account of Scout's (Jean Louise) recall of the years that led to the ending of a mystery, the breaking of her brother Jem's elbow, the death of her father's enemy — and the close of childhood years. A widower, Atticus raises his children with legal dispassion and paternal intelligence, and is ably abetted by Calpurnia, the colored cook, while the Alabama town of Maycomb, in the 1930's, remains aloof to their divergence from its tribal patterns. Scout and Jem, with their summer-time companion, Dill, find their paths free from interference — but not from dangers; their curiosity about the imprisoned Boo, whose miserable past is incorporated in their play, results in a tentative friendliness; their fears of Atticus' lack of distinction is dissipated when he shoots a mad dog; his defense of a Negro accused of raping a white girl, Mayella Ewell, is followed with avid interest and turns the rabble whites against him. Scout is the means of averting an attack on Atticus but when he loses the case it is Boo who saves Jem and Scout by killing Mayella's father when he attempts to murder them. The shadows of a beginning for black-white understanding, the persistent fight that Scout carries on against school, Jem's emergence into adulthood, Calpurnia's quiet power, and all the incidents touching on the children's "growing outward" have an attractive starchiness that keeps this southern picture pert and provocative. There is much advance interest in this book; it has been selected by the Literary Guild and Reader's Digest; it should win many friends.