A first American edition of the 1982 novel (winner of England's Guardian Prize) that introduced the appealing antihero of Heath's recent The Ministry of Hope (1997). Protagonist Kwaku Cholmondeley is a native Guyanese householder whose struggles to support his ever-increasing brood lead him into an amusing succession of schemes, scams, and misadventures (he blithely characterizes himself as ``shoemaker. . . inveterate liar, would-be photographer, near-bigamist and father of eight children''). The tale of his fortunes is both a delicious episodic picaresque and a tightly structured narrative that consistently reveals and develops character as it traces a whirlwind path through the Babbitt-like Kwaku's variously successful and disastrous enterprises: the arrangement of his marriage to the formidable Miss Gwendoline; a checkered career as a ``healer'' in the metropolis of New Amsterdam; and several seriocomic attempts to provide for and settle his troublesome children (the most memorable of whom are his ``cantankerous'' twin sons and his headstrong favorite daughter Philomena). Kwaku falls into adultery as effortlessly and inevitably as he takes to lying, and displays character flaws sufficient to destroy a less resourceful man. But Heath so persuasively communicates Kwaku's genuine desire to become a better man and his essentially loving nature that few readers will fail to identify with him. This accomplished fiction is further enriched by vigorous descriptions of Guyanese customs and family life, and sparkling dialogue filled with laugh-out-loud pidgin English inversions (``Is why you laugh?''). Heath is a master of droll, understated comedy; his affectionate empathy with his characters is never for a moment compromised by condescension. He's a somewhat flintier R.K. Narayan, and there's more than whiff of Kipling in his avuncular fascination with scramblers and hustlers. A wonderful novel, which stands impressively both on its own and in tandem with its equally irresistible sequel. There's no longer any doubt that Heath is one of the world's best writers.
Pub Date: April 1, 1997
ISBN: 0-7145-3023-9
Page Count: 254
Publisher: Marion Boyars
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 1997
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
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
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