Wiley (Soldiers in Hiding, 1985, etc.) continues to range far afield for his material; here, his subject is the reeducation of an American in Nigeria. Forthright, hard-working and incorruptible, 57-year-old Jerry Neal is the very model of a modern school principal, and his International School is an enclave of calm in the turbulence of Lagos. But Jerry has tunnel vision: the Nigeria beyond his campus is a blur, and his prized collection of Nigerian artwork is mere decor. Wiley uses the mechanism of a political conspiracy to have Jerry really see his habitat. It's late 1983; various military factions are plotting the overthrow of the corrupt civilian government, while a civilian group hopes the military will give their guy—Beany Abubakar, a charismatic populist—a break. Beany's group needs a Western pawn to demonstrate government corruption; they choose Jerry. They set fire to a ministry; Jerry is charged with arson. An American embassy plan to smuggle him out of the country goes awry; Jerry is surrounded by the conspirators, who come clean, appealing to him to stay and stand trial. Especially persuasive is Beany's gorgeous ex-wife Pamela, who almost ends Jerry's five years of celibacy (dating from the death of his beloved wife Charlotte). Jerry lets her drive him out of Lagos to Beany's ancestral village, and we switch from a suspense to a road novel as Jerry looks, listens, and learns: that pidgin English is not inferior to standard English; that juju (voodoo) is a vital component of Nigerian art and culture. He returns to Lagos with a bundle of talismanic artwork, and though Beany is killed in the confusion of the military coup and Jerry resumes his career, inwardly he has been changed for life. Wiley's affection for Nigeria and Nigerians gives his work a buoyancy that compensates for but cannot hide its weaknesses: Jerry's blandness, the contrivance of his immersion in Nigerian culture, and an ending that elevates his cleansed vision above the national tragedy of Beany's death.
Pub Date: Sept. 8, 1992
ISBN: 0-525-93547-9
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Dutton
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1992
King handles his first novel with considerable accomplishment and very little hokum—it's only too easy to believe that these...
Figuratively and literally shattering moments of hoRRRRRipilication in Chamberlain, Maine where stones fly from the sky rather than from the hands of the villagers (as they did in "The Lottery," although the latter are equal to other forms of persecution).
All beginning when Carrie White discovers a gift with telekinetic powers (later established as a genetic fact), after she menstruates in full ignorance of the process and thinks she is bleeding to death while the other monsters in the high school locker room bait and bully her mercilessly. Carrie is the only child of a fundamentalist freak mother who has brought her up with a concept of sin which no blood of the Lamb can wash clean. In addition to a sympathetic principal and gym teacher, there's one girl who wishes to atone and turns her date for the spring ball over to Carrie who for the first time is happy, beautiful and acknowledged as such. But there will be hell to pay for this success—not only her mother but two youngsters who douse her in buckets of fresh-killed pig blood so that Carrie once again uses her "wild talent," flexes her mind and a complete catastrophe (explosion and an uncontrolled fire) virtually destroys the town.
King handles his first novel with considerable accomplishment and very little hokum—it's only too easy to believe that these youngsters who once ate peanut butter now scrawl "Carrie White eats shit." But as they still say around here, "Sit a spell and collect yourself."Pub Date: April 8, 1974
ISBN: 0385086954
Page Count: 216
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Sept. 26, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 1974
PERSPECTIVES
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
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.
Pub Date: July 11, 1960
ISBN: 0060935464
Page Count: 323
Publisher: Lippincott
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1960
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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