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ADAM RUNAWAY

Name: ADAM RUNAWAY
Author: Peter Prince
ISBN: 0-7432-7101-7

by Peter Prince ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 5, 2005

Not especially profound, but a pleasing and well-written confection.

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An English Candide wanders into 18th-century Lisbon. Complications ensue.

Voltaire’s hero had a sweet nature and kindly disposition, as well as a talent for getting into tight spots. Adam Hanaway, dubbed “Adam Runaway” early on, is a nice guy, too. His favorite book, Prince (The Great Circle, 1997) tells us, is Robinson Crusoe, and there’s a Crusoe-like quality to Adam, more or less marooned in Portugal after his father dies penniless and he’s sent off to earn a living in his uncle’s emporium. Soon Adam gets himself into trouble; he proves a social naïf among the dour English expatriates who come to tea, has an awkward run-in with a freed black whom he calls Wednesday, earns the dislike of his uncle’s closest assistant and butts heads with one Dom Jeronymo, who is in a position to make his life miserable. Indeed, Adam is positively dense at points, as when he decides to argue with Dom Jeronymo about “what sort of religion was being served by the excesses of the 'so-called Holy Office,’ ” that office being the seat of the Inquisition, with which the Dom is a familiar. Dom Jeronymo tries to inform Adam, ever so gently, that autos-da-fé are not really meant to kill people but to celebrate the return of sinners to the arms of the church. Unconvinced, Adam blithely goes about his rounds, not quite comprehending how his slight will affect the lives of those around him—including, by now, a lovely young lass called Maria Beatriz. Other lovely lasses introduce bits of intrigue into the stew, but it takes a worldly compatriot to set him up for a bigger fall. Some of Prince’s story can be seen coming from a long way away, but in general the tale carves an entertainingly twisty-and-turny path that plays on the foibles of youth and age and hints at some of the religious tensions that were tearing Europe apart at the dawn of the modern era—oh, and that features some nice swordplay, too.

Not especially profound, but a pleasing and well-written confection.

Pub Date: July 5, 2005

ISBN: 0-7432-7101-7

Page Count: 496

Publisher: N/A

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2005

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

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TO HAVE AND HAVE NOT

by Ernest Hemingway ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 15, 1937

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A somewhat puzzling book, but — all in all — it is good Hemingway, and a sure sale. Key West and Cuba form the settings for a tough story of men at the end of their tether, grasping at any straw, regardless of risk, to turn a few dollars. Rum-running, smuggling aliens, carrying revolutionary arms. Gangsters, rich sportsmen, sated with routine, dissipated women and men — they are not an incentive to belief in the existence of decent people. But in spite of the hard-boiled, bitter and cruel streak, there is a touch of tenderness, sympathy, humanity. Adventure — somewhat disjointed. The first section seems simply to set the stage — the story starting after the prelude is over. The balance forms a unit, working up to a tragic climax and finale. There is something of The Sun Also Rises,and a Faulkner quality, Faulkner at his best. A book for men — and not for the squeamish. You know your Hemingway market. His first novel in 8 years.

Pub Date: Oct. 15, 1937

ISBN: 0684859238

Page Count: 177

Publisher: Scribner

Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 1937

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

- BOOK REVIEW
THE LETTERS OF ERNEST HEMINGWAY
by Ernest Hemingway & edited by Verna Kale ; Sandra Spanier & Miriam B. Mandel

- BOOK REVIEW
DEAR PAPA
by Ernest Hemingway with Patrick Hemingway ; edited by Brendan Hemingway & Stephen Adams

- BOOK REVIEW
THE SHORT STORIES OF ERNEST HEMINGWAY
by Ernest Hemingway ; edited by Seán Hemingway

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THE PATRON SAINT OF LIARS

by Ann Patchett ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 1, 1992

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Patchett's first novel, set in rural Kentucky in a castle-like home for unwed mothers—where a good woman finds she cannot lie her way beyond love—has a quiet summer-morning sensibility that reminds one of the early work of Anne Tyler. Within the security of everydayness, minds and hearts take grievous risks. ``Maybe I was born to lie,'' thinks Rose, who, after a three- year marriage to nice Tom Clinton, realizes that she's misread the sign from God pointing to the wedding: she married a man she didn't love. From San Diego, then, Rose drives—``nothing behind me and nothing ahead of me''—all the way to Kentucky and St. Elizabeth's home for unwed mothers, where she plans to have the baby Tom will never know about, and to give it clean away. But in the home, once a grand hotel, Rose keeps her baby, Cecilia; marries ``Son,'' the handyman (``God was right after all...I was supposed to live a small life with a man I didn't love''); and becomes the cook after briefly assisting that terrible cook, sage/seeress, and font of love, Sister Evangeline. The next narrative belongs to Son, a huge man originally from Tennessee—like Rose, gone forever from home- -who recounts the last moments of his fiancÇe's life long ago (Sister Evangeline absolves him of responsibility) and who loves Rose. The last narrator is teenaged Cecilia, struggling to find her elusive mother within the competent Rose, who's moved into her own house away from husband and daughter. Like Rose years before, her daughter considers the benefits of not knowing ``what was going on''...as the recent visitor—small, sad Tom Clinton—drives off, and Cecilia knows that Rose, who left before he came, will never return. In an assured, warm, and graceful style, a moving novel that touches on the healing powers of chance sanctuaries of love and fancy in the acrid realities of living.