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FRUIT OF THE BAD SEED

Name: FRUIT OF THE BAD SEED
Author: Russell M. Cera
ISBN: 978-0-9848250-1-1

by Russell M. Cera ‧ RELEASE DATE: Dec. 20, 2011

A rambling novel that never quite decides what it wants to be.

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Cera (Cry Wolf, Cry, 2009) offers a “memoir novel,” of the 1960s, which he presents as a decade of radical social change that still affects us in the modern age.

In 1961, 20-year-old Ron Caruso, not long out of college, gets a teaching job at a Long Island junior high, then another position later, teaching special education classes at a local high school. The overall premise of the book is that the loosening of sexual mores in the ’60s was just as significant as the rise of rebellion and protest. Thus Ron has adventures in the dark with his widowed landlady and supervisor at work, Martha Bouschard; has a quick fling with the aptly named student teacher Lorraine Tempest; and enjoys sexual gymnastics with night school students Geri Tourcott and Valerie Kasbarian, and so on. Finally, Ron meets Christina Pace, an 18-year-old high school student. Readers learn a bit about her past and circumstances early on (which Ron has yet to discover), and as the two get closer, the author gets across the sense that Ron is falling in love with her, and not just having another fling. Sure enough, much turmoil ensues as Ron tries to reconcile his conscience and protect his job as Christina heads into her senior year at Nessaponic High School. The book’s overall tone is hard to pin down. The title is ominous and the subtitle—“Is man redeemable?”—even more so. But although it’s thematically important that Ron succumbs to his lusts, a spirit of wish fulfillment—not to mention gratuitous erotica—still hovers over it all. A “memoir novel” is also a problematic concept, as readers can’t be sure how much of the book is drawn from real life. The story of Ron and Christina, however, does finally provide a strong narrative arc, for which readers will be grateful.

A rambling novel that never quite decides what it wants to be.

Pub Date: Dec. 20, 2011

ISBN: 978-0-9848250-1-1

Page Count: 276

Publisher: Libra Books, Incorporated

Review Posted Online: March 27, 2018

Review Program: Kirkus Indie

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

- BOOK REVIEW
LEARNING THE HARD WAY
by Russell M. Cera

- BOOK REVIEW
CRY WOLF, CRY
by Russell M. Cera

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BETWEEN SISTERS

by Kristin Hannah ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 1, 2003

Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles...

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Sisters in and out of love.

Meghann Dontess is a high-powered matrimonial lawyer in Seattle who prefers sex with strangers to emotional intimacy: a strategy bound to backfire sooner or later, warns her tough-talking shrink. It’s advice Meghann decides to ignore, along with the memories of her difficult childhood, neglectful mother, and younger sister. Though she managed to reunite Claire with Sam Cavenaugh (her father but not Meghann’s) when her mother abandoned both girls long ago, Meghann still feels guilty that her sister’s life doesn’t measure up, at least on her terms. Never married, Claire ekes out a living running a country campground with her dad and is raising her six-year-old daughter on her own. When she falls in love for the first time with an up-and-coming country musician, Meghann is appalled: Bobby Austin is a three-time loser at marriage—how on earth can Claire be so blind? Bobby’s blunt explanation doesn’t exactly satisfy the concerned big sister, who busies herself planning Claire’s dream wedding anyway. And, to relieve the stress, she beds various guys she picks up in bars, including Dr. Joe Wyatt, a neurosurgeon turned homeless drifter after the demise of his beloved wife Diane (whom he euthanized). When Claire’s awful headache turns out to be a kind of brain tumor known among neurologists as a “terminator,” Joe rallies. Turns out that Claire had befriended his wife on her deathbed, and now in turn he must try to save her. Is it too late? Will Meghann find true love at last?

Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles (Distant Shores, 2002, etc.). Kudos for skipping the snifflefest this time around.

Pub Date: May 1, 2003

ISBN: 0-345-45073-6

Page Count: 400

Publisher: Ballantine

Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2003

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

- BOOK REVIEW
THE WOMEN
by Kristin Hannah

- BOOK REVIEW
THE FOUR WINDS
by Kristin Hannah

- BOOK REVIEW
THE GREAT ALONE
by Kristin Hannah

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THE ALCHEMIST

by Paulo Coelho & translated by Margaret Jull Costa ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 1, 1993

Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.

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Coelho is a Brazilian writer with four books to his credit. Following Diary of a Magus (1992—not reviewed) came this book, published in Brazil in 1988: it's an interdenominational, transcendental, inspirational fable—in other words, a bag of wind.

The story is about a youth empowered to follow his dream. Santiago is an Andalusian shepherd boy who learns through a dream of a treasure in the Egyptian pyramids. An old man, the king of Salem, the first of various spiritual guides, tells the boy that he has discovered his destiny: "to realize one's destiny is a person's only real obligation." So Santiago sells his sheep, sails to Tangier, is tricked out of his money, regains it through hard work, crosses the desert with a caravan, stops at an oasis long enough to fall in love, escapes from warring tribesmen by performing a miracle, reaches the pyramids, and eventually gets both the gold and the girl. Along the way he meets an Englishman who describes the Soul of the World; the desert woman Fatima, who teaches him the Language of the World; and an alchemist who says, "Listen to your heart" A message clings like ivy to every encounter; everyone, but everyone, has to put in their two cents' worth, from the crystal merchant to the camel driver ("concentrate always on the present, you'll be a happy man"). The absence of characterization and overall blandness suggest authorship by a committee of self-improvement pundits—a far cry from Saint- Exupery's The Little Prince: that flagship of the genre was a genuine charmer because it clearly derived from a quirky, individual sensibility.

Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.