Glass Mountain is an arduous climb. Still, it’s always good to know what Koster is up to, even if he’s never come close to...
A high-concept premise unfortunately obscures both characterization and theme in the latest from Koster, an American writer based in Panama who’s best known for his Latin American–based, science-fictional Tinieblas Trilogy (The Prince, The Dissertation, and Mandragon).
The narrator and protagonist is Carlos Fuertes, an adventurer-mercenary (and son of the assassinated former president of a fictional banana republic) who has survived “three tours of operating in North Vietnam” as a rescuer of downed pilots held prisoner behind enemy lines. As the story begins, Carlos (a.k.a. “Carl Marenga”) is well established in his present career: “stealing children” for estranged or divorced parents who’ve lost both custody of their offspring and patience with legal recourse. Koster grabs the reader’s attention early on (despite throwing out names of numerous secondary characters without immediately identifying them), characterizing Carlos as a thoughtful amoralist who’s nevertheless bedeviled by both erotic and menacing dreams, as well as hallucinations that evoke his action-filled past and seem to forecast his catastrophic future. Detailed accounts of his exploits as rescuer and assassin, and of his training as part of the “elite unit” (code-named “Golden Retriever”) specializing in rescue missions, are often quite interesting in themselves, but don’t really seem to lead anywhere. Focus is attained when, on a mission to kidnap an American embezzler who has found sanctuary in the fictional country of Atacalpa, Carlos reencounters a woman whose children he had abducted (acting for her ex-husband), realizes he loves her, and undertakes his own “mission” (dubbed “Glass Mountain,” after a fairy tale he’s loved since childhood) in an effort to reverse his criminal course and realize the best of those aforementioned dreams. A most curious novel, whose impressive density of detail clogs its workings and leaves its protagonist too hazily sketched to solicit much reader empathy.
Glass Mountain is an arduous climb. Still, it’s always good to know what Koster is up to, even if he’s never come close to matching the achievement of his Tinieblas novels.Pub Date: May 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-393-02007-X
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Norton
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2001
BOOK REVIEW
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
Soft-focus story moves right along with few surprises. This time around, Hannah avoids the soap-opera complications of her...
Another middle-aged mom in a muddle.
After years of false starts and big hopes, Elizabeth’s ruggedly handsome husband Jack, a former football star, just landed a spot as a sportscaster on national news. He still loves her, even though much younger women are giving him come-hither looks. Heck, he doesn’t want to betray the love of his life after she helped him kick drugs and stuck by him even when he was a struggling has-been. And won’t it seem hypocritical if he fools around with his sexy assistant while he does in-depth reporting on a rape case involving a famous basketball center? Well, he fools around anyway. Elizabeth, nicknamed Birdie, knows nothing of this, but she withdraws from Jack when her hard-drinking, salt-of-the-earth father has a stroke and dies. Now no one will call her “sugar beet” ever again. Time to return home to Tennessee and contend with Anita, the sort-of-evil stepmother so trashy she wears pink puffy slippers all day long. Naturally, it turns out that Anita actually has a heart of gold and knows a few things about Birdie’s dead mother that were hushed up for years. Mom was an artist, just like Birdie, and an old scandal comes to light as Anita unrolls a vibrant canvas that portrays her secret lover. Perhaps, Birdie muses, her mother died of heartbreak, never having followed her true love or developed her talent. Has she, too, compromised everything she holds dear? Hoping to find out, Birdie joins a support group that promises to reconnect confused women with their passion. She and Jack separate, prompting a how-dare-you fit from their grown daughters. Will Birdie fly her empty nest? Will she go back to college for a degree in art? Will her brooding watercolors ever sell?
Soft-focus story moves right along with few surprises. This time around, Hannah avoids the soap-opera complications of her previous tales (Summer Island, 2001, etc.).Pub Date: July 1, 2002
ISBN: 0-345-45071-X
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2002
© Copyright 2026 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
