Blackwood is an excellent stylist, though in the name of unconventionality, the reader lacks a few narrative toeholds.
The grisly deaths of three girls radiate across a community, which becomes as fragmented as this novel’s impressionistic prose.
“The men with guns did things to us.” The second novel by Blackwood (We Agreed To Meet Just Here, 2009, etc.) opens with a harrowing collective invocation by a trio of teenage girls working in an Austin ice cream shop, two of them sisters, who in a robbery, were bound and gagged with their underwear, then killed when the shop was burned down. In brief chapters thick with fire and ghost imagery, Blackwood alternates among a handful of men and women affected by the tragedy: Kate, the mother of two of the girls; Jack, a firefighter who entered the carnage; Hollis, an Iraq vet and witness; Rosa, a reporter; and Michael, the getaway driver for the killers. A more conventional novel might apply a worlds-in-collision template to these characters, emphasizing their shared experience. But Blackwood’s style is much more slippery, and his characters’ struggles are more particular and isolated. Michael’s grip on reality slackens as his drug use increases and he struggles to keep custody of his daughter, while Hollis finds his PTSD triggers resurgent, and Kate cycles through relationships. The connective thread among them isn’t so much the tragedy as the dour, vaguely symbolic experiences they have, from the portentous utterances of Michael’s grandmother-in-law (“Are you from the planet of men?”) to interludes in the voices of the dead girls themselves. The novel is strikingly creepy, if a bit affected—the brevity of the chapters and gauzy prose have a lyrical effect but also make the story feel diffuse, with no one peculiar, uncanny moment given the chance to build up a head of steam.
Blackwood is an excellent stylist, though in the name of unconventionality, the reader lacks a few narrative toeholds.Pub Date: Jan. 20, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-316-37380-7
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Oct. 22, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2014
BOOK REVIEW
PROFILES
Fans weary of King's recent unwieldy tomes can rest easy: his newest is slim, slick, and razor-keen. His first novel without supernatural elements outside of the Richard Bachman series, this psychological terror tale laced with pitch-black humor tells the nerve-jangling story of a best-selling author kidnapped and tortured by his "number one fan." King opens on a disorienting note as writer Paul Sheldon drifts awake to find himself in bed, his legs shattered. A beefy woman, 40-ish Annie Wilkes, appears and feeds him barbiturates. During the hazy next week, Paul learns that Annie, an ex-nurse, carried him from a car wreck to her isolated house, where she plans to keep him indefinitely. She's a spiteful misanthrope subject to catatonic fits, but worships Paul because he writes her favorite books, historical novels featuring the heroine "Misery." As Annie pumps him with drugs and reads the script of his latest novel, also saved from the wreck, Paul waits with growing apprehension—he killed off Misery in this new one. tn time, Annie rushes into the room, howling: she demands that Paul write a new novel resurrecting Misery just for her. He refuses until she threatens to withhold his drugs; so he begins the book (tantalizing chunks of which King seeds throughout this novel). Days later, when Annie goes to town, Paul, who's now in a wheelchair, escapes his locked room and finds a scrapbook with clippings of Annie's hobby: she's a mass-murderer. Up to here, King has gleefully slathered on the tension: now he slams on the shocks as Annie returns swinging an axe and chops off Paul's foot. Soon after, off comes his thumb; when a cop looking for Paul shows up, Annie lawnmowers his head. Burning for revenge, Paul finishes his novel, only to use the manuscript as a weapon against his captor in the ironic, ferocious climax. Although lacking the psychological richness of his best work, this nasty shard of a novel with its weird autobiographical implications probably will thrill and chill King's legion of fans. Note: the publisher plans an unprecedented first printing of one-million copies.
Pub Date: June 8, 1987
ISBN: 0451169522
Page Count: 356
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: Sept. 26, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 1987
BOOK TO SCREEN
An overstuffed tale that can’t decide if it’s a mystery or a romance.
Moriarty’s second novel follows the Doughty clan as they fight to protect family secrets.
The Doughtys became famous more than 70 years ago when Connie and Rose Doughty found a baby on their island home, Scribbly Gum. The baby’s parents, Alice and Jack Munro, vanished, leaving few clues to their whereabouts. The circumstances around the abandonment created a national media sensation. Dubbed “The Baby Munro Mystery,” the case captivated Australians and turned sleepy Scribbly Gum Island into a tourist destination. Connie and Rose jumped at this chance to make money. They offered tours and concessions based on the Munro’s disappearance. Their schemes created a financial windfall for the Doughty family. As the business grew, Connie and Rose managed to keep the younger generations of Doughtys on a tight leash by controlling the purse strings. After setting up this bleak bit of history, Moriarty focuses on the island’s current residents. The Doughty grandchildren and great-grandchildren seem to have prospered in their pristine surroundings, but in reality they are a tortured bunch. The family’s troubles surface when the matriarch, Connie, dies. Infighting breaks out among the relatives, and the careful fabric that bound the family together for years starts to unravel. The comparatively sane and notably saucy Sophie Honeywell is thrown into this den of nutcases—Sophie had only met the dowager a handful of times, when she was dating one of the Scribbly Gum natives, but apparently Sophie made such an impression that Connie bequeathed to her her home. Eager to toss aside Sydney’s stale singles scene for the opportunity to live rent-free on the picturesque island, Sophie joins the fray. Moriarty (Three Wishes, 2004) presents far too many characters (five generations are accounted for), and none of them are likable. The old ladies are cantankerous and the younger folk are addle-brained. Sub-plots involve postpartum depression, gay relationships, mid-life crises and weight-control issues.
An overstuffed tale that can’t decide if it’s a mystery or a romance.Pub Date: June 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-06-089068-1
Page Count: 400
Publisher: HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2006
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