An effectively told, low-key tale of an arduous, sometimes-frightening road to fame.
A Haitian-born man learns that making it in the cutthroat American music industry may require black magic and blood sacrifice in Mafate’s (When the Cobra Strikes, 2012, etc.) thriller.
When 16-year-old Raymond Pata immigrated to the United States from Haiti, he had aspirations for stardom. At 24, he finally decides to move to California in pursuit of a music career. His mother, Jean Pata, who’s built a successful cleaning business, refuses to support Raymond’s endeavor since he dropped out of college. So Raymond, on his own in California, takes a dubious gig driving stolen luxury cars. But even with his talent and musical equipment, breaking into the music biz seems unachievable. As per his mother’s recommendation, Raymond sees Baba Brima, a powerful witch doctor who can put him closer to fame. Brima performs a ritual that requires that Raymond appease gods with a blood sacrifice—committing a handful of murders to ensure the success of his band, The Rhythm Makers. This sparks serious media attention as authorities, linking the murders by their ritualistic aspect, hunt a serial killer. But it’s a mysterious, alluring woman who flusters Raymond. Following their initial encounter, she vanishes, and his obsession with her could ultimately be his downfall. Mafate’s novel originated as a screenplay, which is evident from the story’s myriad scenes of dialogue and minimal action. But the well-devised dialogue propels the story and provides seamless background. Though Raymond’s later homicidal acts significantly curtail any sympathy readers may feel for him, Mafate doesn’t glamorize the murders. Furthermore, references to African deities such as Nana Bulukuand Mawuare respectful; whatever deeds a believer such as Raymond commits are on the individual, not the religion. Supernatural elements crop up in the final act, but like much of the preceding story, they’re shrewdly understated.
An effectively told, low-key tale of an arduous, sometimes-frightening road to fame.Pub Date: Sept. 20, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-62137-892-1
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Virtualbookworm.com
Review Posted Online: Aug. 28, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
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