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DARK CARD

Name: DARK CARD
Author: Rebecca Foust
ISBN: 978-1-933896-14-4

by Rebecca Foust ‧ RELEASE DATE: Nov. 30, 2008

Scrupulous, compelling poetry.

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A tremendously moving, carefully considered poetic account of the author’s efforts to open the mind of a differently abled child–her own.

Dark Card is Foust’s chronicle-in-verse of her son’s struggles with Asperger’s Syndrome, an obsessive form of autism primarily characterized by the patient’s significant–and sometimes debilitating–inability to socially interact. One could imagine such a project quickly descending into melodrama and self-pity as the author ticks off her laundry list of complaints against the dastardly fates that altered her son’s behavior (the umbilical cord wrapped around his throat a moment too long), the society that cannot understand his condition and the daunting myriad of challenges involved in raising such a unique child. However, to Foust’s great credit, her slim, powerful volume never does. She arouses readers’ sympathy and challenges their biases, but always with a subtlety and poise that belies her most intimate connection to her subject. In fact, she makes a fantastically effective case for the poetic nature of her son’s mind. Straight prose–that most rational of written forms, slave to causality–seems an inept means of evoking a brain so differently oriented to the natural world. Thus Foust makes of her own poetry–crisp, precise free verse with carefully varied line lengths–a specialized vehicle for telling her reader about her fascinating child. She does so no better than in one of the last pieces in the book, â€œAsperger Ecstasy,” in which she revels in trying to show her son’s rapturous attention to detail: â€œOh, never to grow bored or experience a numbing / sameness of things! To immerse consciousness / in the sensory present of a bottle cap flattened by traffic, / or spend a whole school day with a paperclip stylus / carving whorls and curlicues in acorns, given / to the teacher instead of the worksheet.” This is Foust at her best, and much of her verse is nearly as good.

Scrupulous, compelling poetry.

Pub Date: Nov. 30, 2008

ISBN: 978-1-933896-14-4

Page Count: -

Publisher: N/A

Review Posted Online: May 23, 2010

Review Program: Kirkus Indie

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

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THE CATCHER IN THE RYE

by J.D. Salinger ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 15, 1951

A strict report, worthy of sympathy.

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A violent surfacing of adolescence (which has little in common with Tarkington's earlier, broadly comic, Seventeen) has a compulsive impact.

"Nobody big except me" is the dream world of Holden Caulfield and his first person story is down to the basic, drab English of the pre-collegiate. For Holden is now being bounced from fancy prep, and, after a vicious evening with hall- and roommates, heads for New York to try to keep his latest failure from his parents. He tries to have a wild evening (all he does is pay the check), is terrorized by the hotel elevator man and his on-call whore, has a date with a girl he likes—and hates, sees his 10 year old sister, Phoebe. He also visits a sympathetic English teacher after trying on a drunken session, and when he keeps his date with Phoebe, who turns up with her suitcase to join him on his flight, he heads home to a hospital siege. This is tender and true, and impossible, in its picture of the old hells of young boys, the lonesomeness and tentative attempts to be mature and secure, the awful block between youth and being grown-up, the fright and sickness that humans and their behavior cause the challenging, the dramatization of the big bang. It is a sorry little worm's view of the off-beat of adult pressure, of contemporary strictures and conformity, of sentiment….

A strict report, worthy of sympathy.

Pub Date: June 15, 1951

ISBN: 0316769177

Page Count: -

Publisher: Little, Brown

Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2011

Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1951

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

- SEEN & HEARD
Salinger Focus of NYPL Exhibit

- SEEN & HEARD
NYC Mayoral Candidates Name Favorite Gotham Books

- APPRECIATIONS
Holden Caulfield: Forever Young

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JURASSIC PARK

by Michael Crichton ‧ RELEASE DATE: Nov. 7, 1990

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Genetically engineered dinosaurs run amok in Crichton's new, vastly entertaining science thriller. From the introduction alone—a classically Crichton-clear discussion of the implications of biotechnological research—it's evident that the Harvard M.D. has bounced back from the science-fantasy silliness of Sphere (1987) for another taut reworking of the Frankenstein theme, as in The Andromeda Strain and The Terminal Man. Here, Dr. Frankenstein is aging billionaire John Hammond, whose monster is a manmade ecosystem based on a Costa Rican island. Designed as the world's ultimate theme park, the ecosystem boasts climate and flora of the Jurassic Age and—most spectacularly—15 varieties of dinosaurs, created by elaborate genetic engineering that Crichton explains in fascinating detail, rich with dino-lore and complete with graphics. Into the park, for a safety check before its opening, comes the novel's band of characters—who, though well drawn, double as symbolic types in this unsubtle morality play. Among them are hero Alan Grant, noble paleontologist; Hammond, venal and obsessed; amoral dino-designer Henry Wu; Hammond's two innocent grandchildren; and mathematician Ian Malcolm, who in long diatribes serves as Crichton's mouthpiece to lament the folly of science. Upon arrival, the visitors tour the park; meanwhile, an industrial spy steals some dino embryos by shutting down the island's power—and its security grid, allowing the beasts to run loose. The bulk of the remaining narrative consists of dinos—ferocious T. Rex's, voracious velociraptors, venom-spitting dilophosaurs—stalking, ripping, and eating the cast in fast, furious, and suspenseful set-pieces as the ecosystem spins apart. And can Grant prevent the dinos from escaping to the mainland to create unchecked havoc? Though intrusive, the moralizing rarely slows this tornado-paced tale, a slick package of info-thrills that's Crichton's most clever since Congo (1980)—and easily the most exciting dinosaur novel ever written. A sure-fire best-seller.