The novel holds together surprisingly well considering the unusual genesis and process.
A novel that was created by the author in response to a selection of images taken by five photographers from around the country.
A fascinating endeavor, documented at spellsproject.com, this is the book version of a project that has also been presented as a multimedia installation at an art gallery and in addition might become a film. Rock, a novelist (The Shelter Cycle, 2013, etc.), wrote to five different photographers asking them to send him images, then spun his own characters and plot from the connections he made among them. Parts of what results can seem like dreams, fantasies, fairy tales, or hallucinations, though the plotline itself is fairly clear and straightforward. Alex and Sonja, who have known each other since second grade, have arrived at an age of sexual awakening. Or at least Alex has, as he confesses his desire for Sonja to her friend Naomi, who lives in the house where her grandmother recently died. Sonja seems to feel drawn to Naomi more than she is to Alex. So, there is that triangle of relationships, interrupted by two strange occurrences—an older man in a suit becomes obsessed with Naomi, after dreaming about this young woman he had yet to encounter in life, and he confesses to Alex that he's been stalking her. (The man also carries on a conversation with a stranger via notes exchanged by carrier pigeon.) And Naomi’s grandmother has decreed in her will that Naomi will take a voyage to who knows where for who knows how long, leaving Alex and Sonja to share the house she has left. There is also an “I” who may not necessarily represent the author, a “you” who stands for Naomi, and a pair of bears who may or may not exist beyond the minds and fears of some characters but whose images have been captured on film. “The images are not merely illustrations for a pre-existent story, then, but the conditions and possibilities and limitations of how the storytelling preceded,” the author explains in “A Preface of a Sort.” “The images came first. One way to think of it is that the stories herein, and the larger story they become, were already embedded in the photographs.”
The novel holds together surprisingly well considering the unusual genesis and process.Pub Date: May 9, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-61902-900-9
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Counterpoint
Review Posted Online: Jan. 22, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2017
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles...
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
Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.
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.Pub Date: July 1, 1993
ISBN: 0-06-250217-4
Page Count: 192
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1993
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
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