A jovial but haltingly uneven tale of how several generational strands came to form one eccentric family. In rural Wales, a devout Methodist family rises slowly from poverty to 19th-century mercantile respectability, only to be spiritually and financially broken through a combination of hubris and bad luck. Davies's depiction of how the descendants of Samuel Gilmartin came to emigrate to British North America convincingly blends gritty humor—including a hilarious Welsh cursing contest- -with sympathetic portrayals of his characters. But operating at several registers below this Welsh plotline is the earlier, and much more thinly drawn, episode of how the Loyalist Gage family emigrated to Upper Canada following the American Revolution. The Gages never fully come to life, and when they paddle a canoe up the Hudson River all the way to Ontario, we've departed from familiar Davies territory and entered the realm of historical romance. Moreover, the two family episodes are organized around the kind of premise that is great fun at first, but that quickly begins to look irrelevant: the spirit of a recently murdered man finds himself attending a film festival alongside his murderer, a persnickety arts-critic nicknamed ``the Sniffer.'' While the Sniffer reviews official festival fare, his murder victim, Connor Gilmartin, is captivated by documentary footage covering his family history, which he alone can see. Strapped to this structural frame, the two plotlines inevitably begin to wobble. And though the trademark Davies preoccupations are here—skeletons creaking in the familial closets, money, spirituality—they're pitched far below the high- water mark the author achieved with What's Bred in the Bone (1988) and Lyre of Orpheus (1989). Minor work from a major talent—though there are enough flashes of former glory here to make this a must for serious fans.
Pub Date: Nov. 1, 1991
ISBN: 0-670-84189-7
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1991
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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