A wryly funny and moving story of bogus physical exercise that turns into genuine spiritual exertion.
A dissolute preacher strives for redemption in this debut tragicomedy.
Abner Kincaid is a hard-drinking, chain-smoking 59-year-old minister of the Church of the Fiery Word of God in Kansas (he privately calls it “a cathedral for nitwits”). His only friends are George Granger, an old Army buddy, and the ubiquitous bottles of Jack Daniels that he sucks “down like a drowning man sucks air.” He runs into trouble when the church secretary—who doubles as his mistress—runs off with his savings; his Cadillac gets repossessed; and the flock is evicted. Repairing to a barren 50-acre homestead inherited from his estranged father, he hits upon another godly scam: the Lord’s Cross-Training Farm, whose members can get fit—for a hefty fee—by doing heavy labor to Christian exhortations (“Now get up off your fat, sinful asses and get to work!”) and schlepping weights around a Stations of the Cross–themed racecourse. Presiding with merry cynicism—“If we can wring enough work out of these saps, then we might start making money”—Abner fleeces one congregant of lottery winnings, beds another, and exploits them all until his callousness precipitates violence. Taken aback, he’s then hit with a terminal cancer diagnosis, and this raucous, hard-boiled, satirical novel deepens into a meditation on life and death. Abner remains his ornery, profane self, but under the tutelage of a kind but no-nonsense Vietnamese-American nurse, he starts to grudgingly reform his selfishness and to wrestle with his demons: a childhood broken home; his mother’s suicide; memories of terror and carnage from the Vietnam War; the stark fear of mortality. Abner’s saga alternates between bleakly evocative Plains gothic—he spends much time boozing and sweating in motels where “the only light was the flickering of the neon sign”—and deadpan humor from sharply etched, multidimensional characters, all couched in muscular prose and pitch-perfect dialogue. As calamities pile up, Mendelson resolutely avoids sentimentality. Abner’s stock-taking proceeds in the same slovenly, confused way as his previous life did only slightly better, lit by experience and empathy. The result is a reluctant turn of heart that feels hard-earned and emotionally compelling.
A wryly funny and moving story of bogus physical exercise that turns into genuine spiritual exertion.Pub Date: Nov. 12, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-979195-38-6
Page Count: 256
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Jan. 9, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with...
Talk-show queen takes tumble as millions jeer.
Nora Bridges is a wildly popular radio spokesperson for family-first virtues, but her loyal listeners don't know that she walked out on her husband and teenaged daughters years ago and didn't look back. Now that a former lover has sold racy pix of naked Nora and horny himself to a national tabloid, her estranged daughter Ruby, an unsuccessful stand-up comic in Los Angeles, has been approached to pen a tell-all. Greedy for the fat fee she's been promised, Ruby agrees and heads for the San Juan Islands, eager to get reacquainted with the mom she plans to betray. Once in the family homestead, nasty Ruby alternately sulks and glares at her mother, who is temporarily wheelchair-bound as a result of a post-scandal car crash. Uncaring, Ruby begins writing her side of the story when she's not strolling on the beach with former sweetheart Dean Sloan, the son of wealthy socialites who basically ignored him and his gay brother Eric. Eric, now dying of cancer and also in a wheelchair, has returned to the island. This dismal threesome catch up on old times, recalling their childhood idylls on the island. After Ruby's perfect big sister Caroline shows up, there's another round of heartfelt talk. Nora gradually reveals the truth about her unloving husband and her late father's alcoholism, which led her to seek the approval of others at the cost of her own peace of mind. And so on. Ruby is aghast to discover that she doesn't know everything after all, but Dean offers her subdued comfort. Happy endings await almost everyone—except for readers of this nobly preachy snifflefest.
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with syrupy platitudes about life and love.Pub Date: March 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-609-60737-5
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2001
© Copyright 2026 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
