This work remains a striking world unto itself; a highly entertaining and thought-provoking read.
An author rolls several compact books into one.
Vaughan (Rift, 2015, etc.) divides his work into four sections: a set of flash fiction titled “Flashes/Balloon Darts”; a series of shorts with portraits evoking Edward Gorey’s The Gashlycrumb Tinies called “Another Brick In the Wall/Hall of Mirrors”; experimental poetry inspired by female musicians labeled “Divas/Tunnel of Love”; and a segment of brief fiction named “Shorts/Ferris Wheel.” What these parts mostly have in common is Vaughan’s sense of character, the ability to reveal just enough about his creations to make them seem fully rounded, sometimes in just a few sentences. “Our First Date” is eight sentences spaced out on eight lines, but there’s so much to unpack. The twist comes in line four, when the narrator’s despair boils over because he can never see his children again. And by line eight, that emotion has been tamped down to polite agreement. No reason is given for the separation, whether it’s a legal matter or the children have died. The piece shows a remarkable range of emotions in what takes just seconds to read. The “Another Brick” series is charming, much in the vein of its muse. Vaughan is incredibly efficient at worldbuilding, and by the end of the section, it feels as though readers have gotten to know a community of kids, one for each letter of the alphabet. The “Divas” poems are evocative, each one starting out with a name, a birth year, and a set of lyrics and then delivering what feels like the author’s immediate reaction to the music. Sometimes words from the lyrics echo in poems, and repeated lines about rubbing off dead skin and being told not to hug emerge as readers work their ways through. Vaughan keeps readers guessing from section to section and piece to piece. He’ll follow the story of a relationship from courtship to engagement with a brief horror tale and, a few pages later, a one-paragraph singles ad.
This work remains a striking world unto itself; a highly entertaining and thought-provoking read.Pub Date: Dec. 29, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-9983090-1-9
Page Count: 260
Publisher: Unknown Press
Review Posted Online: June 5, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2017
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
APPRECIATIONS
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