An amusingly offbeat parody that will appeal to quirky academics.
A series of satirical vignettes from novelist Foley (These Little Poems of Death and after Life, 2010) about the hijinks and school politics among the faculty at a suburban high school.
At fictional Lingor High School, the faculty will stop at nothing to get ahead—or at least avoid being stabbed in the back. The assorted vignettes, which span four decades, focus on different characters, often resurrecting characters who were of peripheral importance in other sections. They range from the obsolete master teacher ousted by younger administrators to students whose talents are smothered by overzealous parents or abusive coaches. Foley focuses especially on Timothy Barbieri, who attended Lingor High School as a student and returned immediately after college to begin his teaching career. Poor Timothy is disheartened to discover that being on the faculty at LHS is all about finding the right allies, not about the art of teaching. During Timothy’s time at Lingor, his personal rivalry with the enigmatic principal, Mlle. Ameline, ebbs and flows in a hilarious fashion. The tongue-and-cheek narration and astute observations about human behavior are drawn from Foley’s personal background as a former teacher. Not only does he address what’s really inside the unmarked bottle always found in the employee refrigerator, but he also gets to the heart of unjust advancement and premature termination in bureaucratic work environments. The narrative voice varies widely among the vignettes, ranging from the pompously erudite—i.e., poetic phrasing about “Tennyson’s jutting proboscis”—to the shockingly base: The principal “would market the breath of her crotch if she thought it would bring in money.” Though the book is a bit longer than necessary and would greatly benefit from aggressive editing, the punchy storyline keeps the pages turning.
An amusingly offbeat parody that will appeal to quirky academics.Pub Date: Nov. 19, 2012
ISBN: 978-1479723379
Page Count: 618
Publisher: Xlibris
Review Posted Online: March 11, 2014
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.
Sisters work together to solve a child-abandonment case.
Ellie and Julia Cates have never been close. Julia is shy and brainy; Ellie gets by on charm and looks. Their differences must be tossed aside when a traumatized young girl wanders in from the forest into their hometown in Washington. The sisters’ professional skills are put to the test. Julia is a world-renowned child psychologist who has lost her edge. She is reeling from a case that went publicly sour. Though she was cleared of all wrongdoing, Julia’s name was tarnished, forcing her to shutter her Beverly Hills practice. Ellie Barton is the local police chief in Rain Valley, who’s never faced a tougher case. This is her chance to prove she is more than just a fading homecoming queen, but a scarcity of clues and a reluctant victim make locating the girl’s parents nearly impossible. Ellie places an SOS call to her sister; she needs an expert to rehabilitate this wild-child who has been living outside of civilization for years. Confronted with her professional demons, Julia once again has the opportunity to display her talents and salvage her reputation. Hannah (The Things We Do for Love, 2004, etc.) is at her best when writing from the girl’s perspective. The feral wolf-child keeps the reader interested long after the other, transparent characters have grown tiresome. Hannah’s torturously over-written romance passages are stale, but there are surprises in store as the sisters set about unearthing Alice’s past and creating a home for her.
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.Pub Date: March 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-345-46752-3
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2005
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.
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
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