A manically careening debut collection from Davies, the lead singer and songwriter for the 1960s band The Kinks and author of his 'unauthorized' autobiography, X-Ray (1995). Davies devotes the first half of the volume to his apparent doppelgÑnger, the former British pop/rock icon and current has- been Les Mulligan, and Mulligan’s nebbish of an agent, Richard Tennent. Impoverished and always near mental breakdown, Mulligan resists attempts by Tennent and others to revive his career and instead 'confront[s] the demons' by panhandling in public parks and undertaking other misadventures that presume to paint the tortured soul of an insecure true artist. With a confused structure and lines like 'He turned to another lyric. Or was it a new chapter in his life?,' this first section seems a mixed-up, unfinished mess. What follows, however, appears to have unaccountably sprung from the mind of a seasoned and mature author, not the aging hipster who wrote the aforementioned. This series of vaguely connected pieces includes the charming “Mr. Pleasant,” in which a dandy accountant at the end of his career briefly considers a dalliance with a dominatrix for hire, discovers his inability to empathize, and, as do many characters here, reconciles himself with the Faustian bargains he’s made. Muriel, a silent vagrant who passed briefly through the narrative of Les Mulligan, is awarded a magical account of her own, 'Voices in the Dark,' in which she serves as the mute therapist who hears everyone and judges no one. In 'Return to Waterloo,' the final'and finest'entry, Davies writes a gem of a character study. Frightening and funny, it portrays the quiet, seething rage and misogyny of a serial rapist who just wants some respect. When Davies abandons the embarrassing navel-gazing of a musician gone stale, he creates storytelling as surprising and unique as the song lyrics he wrote decades ago.
Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2000
ISBN: 0-7868-6535-0
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Hyperion
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2000
BOOK REVIEW
It's being called a novel, but it is more a hybrid: short-stories/essays/confessions about the Vietnam War—the subject that O'Brien reasonably comes back to with every book. Some of these stories/memoirs are very good in their starkness and factualness: the title piece, about what a foot soldier actually has on him (weights included) at any given time, lends a palpability that makes the emotional freight (fear, horror, guilt) correspond superbly. Maybe the most moving piece here is "On The Rainy River," about a draftee's ambivalence about going, and how he decided to go: "I would go to war—I would kill and maybe die—because I was embarrassed not to." But so much else is so structurally coy that real effects are muted and disadvantaged: O'Brien is writing a book more about earnestness than about war, and the peekaboos of this isn't really me but of course it truly is serve no true purpose. They make this an annoyingly arty book, hiding more than not behind Hemingwayesque time-signatures and puerile repetitions about war (and memory and everything else, for that matter) being hell and heaven both. A disappointment.
Pub Date: March 28, 1990
ISBN: 0618706410
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin
Review Posted Online: Oct. 2, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 1990
SEEN & HEARD
IN THE NEWS
SEEN & HEARD
Visionary speculative stories that will change the way readers see themselves and the world around them: This book delivers...
Exploring humankind's place in the universe and the nature of humanity, many of the stories in this stellar collection focus on how technological advances can impact humanity’s evolutionary journey.
Chiang's (Stories of Your Life and Others, 2002) second collection begins with an instant classic, “The Merchant and the Alchemist’s Gate,” which won Hugo and Nebula awards for Best Novelette in 2008. A time-travel fantasy set largely in ancient Baghdad, the story follows fabric merchant Fuwaad ibn Abbas after he meets an alchemist who has crafted what is essentially a time portal. After hearing life-changing stories about others who have used the portal, he decides to go back in time to try to right a terrible wrong—and realizes, too late, that nothing can erase the past. Other standout selections include “The Lifecycle of Software Objects,” a story about a software tester who, over the course of a decade, struggles to keep a sentient digital entity alive; “The Great Silence,” which brilliantly questions the theory that humankind is the only intelligent race in the universe; and “Dacey’s Patent Automatic Nanny,” which chronicles the consequences of machines raising human children. But arguably the most profound story is "Exhalation" (which won the 2009 Hugo Award for Best Short Story), a heart-rending message and warning from a scientist of a highly advanced, but now extinct, race of mechanical beings from another universe. Although the being theorizes that all life will die when the universes reach “equilibrium,” its parting advice will resonate with everyone: “Contemplate the marvel that is existence, and rejoice that you are able to do so.”
Visionary speculative stories that will change the way readers see themselves and the world around them: This book delivers in a big way.Pub Date: May 8, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-101-94788-3
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Feb. 16, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
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