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PARENTS BEHAVING BADLY

Name: PARENTS BEHAVING BADLY
Author: Scott Gummer
ISBN: 978-1-4516-0917-2

by Scott Gummer ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 12, 2011

Gummer has found rich territory for satire, but he never decides if his take should be wacky or more nuanced.

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Suburban Little League fields become a metaphor for adult squabbles in this comic novel.

Ben, the hero of Gummer’s fiction debut, is an unlikely candidate for the role of inspirational coach of a Little League squad in suburban northern California. Unlike his late father, who guided plenty of young athletes in the town of Palace Valley, Ben extracted himself from baseball as a child and instead became a builder of fine furniture in New York City, where he lived with his wife, Jili, and three kids. But after Jili’s mother falls ill, the brood heads back west, and Ben has to confront dad’s legacy and the memory of teenage slights. Much of the book is structured around comic set pieces built around stereotypical characters: the alluring mom who may be trying to put Ben in a compromising position, the hotheaded Little League coach who runs his team like Patton and the star pitcher who’s full of attitude and disdain. Such archetypes would be more tolerable if the novel didn’t shift so erratically between sincerity and broad comedy. Ben has enough intellect and emotional depth to make him more than just a sputtering dolt when he’s left to take the reins of a team, and the back story of Ben and Jili’s efforts to keep their family together in the midst of a big move and a death in the family are well drawn. But though the novel initially seems to aspire to become a seriocomic study of suburbia in the mode of Tom Perrotta, it ultimately collapses into fluffier, family-movie fare. Unlikely, shticky predicaments abound, such as the appearance of a big-name pop star in Ben’s studio, and a subplot involving a shocking confession by a famous ballplayer goes nowhere. Worse, in Palace Valley, people nurse their high-school wounds to an absurd degree, which makes the climatic conflict between Ben and the bullying coach feel forced and cartoonish. The closing chapters hit plenty of feel-good buttons, but they’re too carefully machined to have much of an effect.

Gummer has found rich territory for satire, but he never decides if his take should be wacky or more nuanced.

Pub Date: April 12, 2011

ISBN: 978-1-4516-0917-2

Page Count: 224

Publisher: N/A

Review Posted Online: April 4, 2011

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2011

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

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CARRIE

by Stephen King ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 8, 1974

King handles his first novel with considerable accomplishment and very little hokum—it's only too easy to believe that these...

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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

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

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OTHER WORLDS THAN THESE
by Stephen King & Peter Straub

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NEVER FLINCH
by Stephen King

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YOU LIKE IT DARKER
by Stephen King

- PERSPECTIVES
Appreciations: Carrie Turns 40

- SEEN & HEARD
Stephen King Used ‘Carrie’ Advance To Support Mom

- BOOK TO SCREEN
New ‘Carrie’ Series in the Works at Amazon

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TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD

by Harper Lee ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 11, 1960

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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.