A comic sendup of state government that remains lighthearted, deadpan, and full of affection for both urban and rural Texas.
A young clerk gets caught up in a cost-saving scheme at work that rattles the Texas political establishment in this novel.
J.D. Wiswall has left his rural hometown of Brady, Texas, and moved into a tiny cinderblock house in Austin. He’s taken a job with the state, working as a data entry clerk for the Department of Unemployment and Benefits. His first day is unusual, as he finds his new boss, Brent Baker, outside of the office, passed out in some bushes. Brent claims he has epilepsy, but J.D. isn’t so sure. At work, his few colleagues consist of Deborah Martinez, a financially strapped mother of a grown son; Rita Jackson, a grandmother who runs the office lottery pool; and Conchino Gonzalez, a silent car fanatic. The duties are tedious, but Rita spices things up with hopes about a state contest. If the employees can generate an idea to save Texas money, there is a $10,000 prize. They plan to split the winnings if they succeed but have no good ideas. Back home, J.D.’s mother writes that his aunt is worried about him in the big city: “I keep insisting that you would never befriend hippies or smoke marijuana, but she is inconsolable.” Meanwhile, a reporter is called to the office of the Texas governor, a slippery partisan in a gold-plated wheelchair. He promises the journalist an exclusive, but she discovers something monumental on her own. At J.D.’s office, the hard-drinking Brent thinks he has found a way to claim that $10,000 and arranges a fateful meeting with the “Big Boss” that could be life-changing for all involved. Semegran’s (Sammie & Budgie, 2017, etc.) gently humorous foray into the depths of Texas’ bureaucracy takes a while to get going; after all, he is describing one of the more boring jobs around. But the pace picks up beautifully in the second half, as some chance occurrences and accidental muckraking come together in a manner worthy of Texas politics. Characterization is strong throughout the novel; the dialogue always rings true; and little touches add local color. For example, J.D. is never without pecan treats from his beloved hometown. The conclusion is notable for all that’s changed but also what will likely stay the same.
A comic sendup of state government that remains lighthearted, deadpan, and full of affection for both urban and rural Texas.Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-9997173-8-7
Page Count: 328
Publisher: Mutt Press
Review Posted Online: Nov. 7, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2019
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.
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.Pub Date: July 1, 1993
ISBN: 0-06-250217-4
Page Count: 192
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1993
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.
Four men who meet as college roommates move to New York and spend the next three decades gaining renown in their professions—as an architect, painter, actor and lawyer—and struggling with demons in their intertwined personal lives.
Yanagihara (The People in the Trees, 2013) takes the still-bold leap of writing about characters who don’t share her background; in addition to being male, JB is African-American, Malcolm has a black father and white mother, Willem is white, and “Jude’s race was undetermined”—deserted at birth, he was raised in a monastery and had an unspeakably traumatic childhood that’s revealed slowly over the course of the book. Two of them are gay, one straight and one bisexual. There isn’t a single significant female character, and for a long novel, there isn’t much plot. There aren’t even many markers of what’s happening in the outside world; Jude moves to a loft in SoHo as a young man, but we don’t see the neighborhood change from gritty artists’ enclave to glitzy tourist destination. What we get instead is an intensely interior look at the friends’ psyches and relationships, and it’s utterly enthralling. The four men think about work and creativity and success and failure; they cook for each other, compete with each other and jostle for each other’s affection. JB bases his entire artistic career on painting portraits of his friends, while Malcolm takes care of them by designing their apartments and houses. When Jude, as an adult, is adopted by his favorite Harvard law professor, his friends join him for Thanksgiving in Cambridge every year. And when Willem becomes a movie star, they all bask in his glow. Eventually, the tone darkens and the story narrows to focus on Jude as the pain of his past cuts deep into his carefully constructed life.
The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.Pub Date: March 10, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-385-53925-8
Page Count: 720
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Dec. 21, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
PROFILES
PERSPECTIVES
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