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
A bold but flawed debut novel.
There’s a mystery, a coming-of-age, abundant melodrama and even more abundant medical lore in this idiosyncratic first novel from a doctor best known for the memoir My Own Country (1994).
The nun is struggling to give birth in the hospital. The surgeon (is he also the father?) dithers. The late-arriving OB-GYN takes charge, losing the mother but saving her babies, identical twins. We are in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, in 1954. The Indian nun, Sister Mary Joseph Praise, was a trained nurse who had met the British surgeon Thomas Stone on a sea voyage ministering to passengers dying of typhus. She then served as his assistant for seven years. The emotionally repressed Stone never declared his love for her; had they really done the deed? After the delivery, Stone rejects the babies and leaves Ethiopia. This is good news for Hema (Dr. Hemalatha, the Indian gynecologist), who becomes their surrogate mother and names them Shiva and Marion. When Shiva stops breathing, Dr. Ghosh (another Indian) diagnoses his apnea; again, a medical emergency throws two characters together. Ghosh and Hema marry and make a happy family of four. Marion eventually emerges as narrator. “Where but in medicine,” he asks, “might our conjoined, matricidal, patrifugal, twisted fate be explained?” The question is key, revealing Verghese’s intent: a family saga in the context of medicine. The ambition is laudable, but too often accounts of operations—a bowel obstruction here, a vasectomy there—overwhelm the narrative. Characterization suffers. The boys’ Ethiopian identity goes unexplored. Shiva is an enigma, though it’s no surprise he’ll have a medical career, like his brother, though far less orthodox. They become estranged over a girl, and eventually Marion leaves for America and an internship in the Bronx (the final, most suspenseful section). Once again a medical emergency defines the characters, though they are not large enough to fill the positively operatic roles Verghese has ordained for them.
A bold but flawed debut novel.Pub Date: Feb. 6, 2009
ISBN: 978-0-375-41449-7
Page Count: 560
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2008
Hilderbrand’s portrait of the upper-crust Tate clan through the years is so deliciously addictive that it will be the “It”...
Queen of the summer novel—how could she not be, with all her stories set on an island—Hilderbrand delivers a beguiling ninth (The Castaways, 2009, etc.), featuring romance and mystery on isolated Tuckernuck Island.
The Tate family has had a house on Tuckernuck (just off the coast of swanky Nantucket) for generations. It has been empty for years, but now Birdie wants to spend a quiet mother-daughter week there with Chess before Chess’s wedding to Michael Morgan. Then the unthinkable happens—perfect Chess (beautiful, rich, well-bred food editor of Glamorous Home) dumps the equally perfect Michael. She quits her job, leaves her New York apartment for Birdie’s home in New Canaan, and all without explanation. Then the unraveling continues: Michael dies in a rock-climbing accident, leaving Chess not quite a widow, but devastated, guilty, unreachable in the shell of herself. Birdie invites her younger daughter Tate (a pretty, naïve computer genius) and her own bohemian sister India, whose husband, world-renowned sculptor Bill Bishop, killed himself years ago, to Tuckernuck for the month of July, in the hopes that the three of them can break through to Chess. Hunky Barrett Lee is their caretaker, coming from Nantucket twice a day to bring groceries and take away laundry (idyllic Tuckernuck is remote—no phone, no hot water, no ferry) as he’s also inspiring renewed lust in Tate, who has had a crush on him since she was a kid. The author jumps between the four women—Tate and her blossoming relationship with Barrett, India and her relationship with Lula Simpson, a painter at the Academy where India is a curator, Birdie, who is surprised by the recent kindnesses of ex-husband Grant, and finally Chess, who in her journal is uncoiling the sordid, sad circumstances of her break with normal life and Michael’s death.
Hilderbrand’s portrait of the upper-crust Tate clan through the years is so deliciously addictive that it will be the “It” beach book of the summer.Pub Date: July 6, 2010
ISBN: 978-0-316-04387-8
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Reagan Arthur/Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: June 3, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2010
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