Unusual and flawed yet packed with the kind of imaginative brio that fans of political satire will find irresistibly zany.
America under new (and questionable) leadership provides a creative backdrop for this energetic, offbeat political satire, journalist Walls’ (Incesticidal Nurturing: The Life-Affirming Brilliance of Nirvana’s Weirdest Album, 2013) fiction debut.
It’s 2015, and the United States has been under the republican leadership of Mitt Romney ever since he edged out Barack Obama in the 2012 presidential election. In an effort to shine bright for his re-election bid, President Romney has been busy instituting a Middle East peace plan as an addendum to the general cease-fire between Israel and Hamas in 2014. Romney’s deal included the creation of Palestinian refugee internment camps located in Gaza, Wyoming, such as Camp Echo in “New Gaza,” staffed largely by imprisoned volunteers (“citizen debtors”) who will have their student loans expunged in exchange for work. Persia VanSlyke is headed to Camp Echo to interview a young English instructor, a task that falls somewhat outside hir typical duties as lead investigator for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee. Persia—who identifies as a frustrated, ambiguous “genderqueer” and is described in gender-neutral pronouns—is then dispatched by hir boss, Beverly, to dig into a politically risky family scandal involving a prominent venture capitalist who happens to be a Democratic senatorial candidate. In an effort to curb the country’s Republican influence, Beverly, a widower and loyal Democratic Party politico, has been finding such candidates to score senatorial seats, though this blossoming family scandal might put his mission at risk. Walls then effectively amps up the histrionics by adding more outlandish personalities to the mix. Philomela “Melly” Shroud—a fallen journalist jailed for prematurely publicizing Romney’s prison camp project—bombs the prison and absconds with the possibly illegitimate Palestinian son of senatorial candidate Dennett Meyerbeer, with bubbly cable news anchorwoman Crissy hotly pursuing the story. The melodrama may be too-tidily cinched with a garage shootout in the book’s final pages, but on a grander scale, Walls’ wildly serpentine satire ultimately emerges as more than a cleverly penned political lampooning. Along the way, he pauses to reflect on gender nonconformity as well as the greater issues of party politics, privilege, and international relations.
Unusual and flawed yet packed with the kind of imaginative brio that fans of political satire will find irresistibly zany.Pub Date: Aug. 18, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-692-48474-6
Page Count: 242
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Sept. 2, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2015
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
Soft-focus story moves right along with few surprises. This time around, Hannah avoids the soap-opera complications of her...
Another middle-aged mom in a muddle.
After years of false starts and big hopes, Elizabeth’s ruggedly handsome husband Jack, a former football star, just landed a spot as a sportscaster on national news. He still loves her, even though much younger women are giving him come-hither looks. Heck, he doesn’t want to betray the love of his life after she helped him kick drugs and stuck by him even when he was a struggling has-been. And won’t it seem hypocritical if he fools around with his sexy assistant while he does in-depth reporting on a rape case involving a famous basketball center? Well, he fools around anyway. Elizabeth, nicknamed Birdie, knows nothing of this, but she withdraws from Jack when her hard-drinking, salt-of-the-earth father has a stroke and dies. Now no one will call her “sugar beet” ever again. Time to return home to Tennessee and contend with Anita, the sort-of-evil stepmother so trashy she wears pink puffy slippers all day long. Naturally, it turns out that Anita actually has a heart of gold and knows a few things about Birdie’s dead mother that were hushed up for years. Mom was an artist, just like Birdie, and an old scandal comes to light as Anita unrolls a vibrant canvas that portrays her secret lover. Perhaps, Birdie muses, her mother died of heartbreak, never having followed her true love or developed her talent. Has she, too, compromised everything she holds dear? Hoping to find out, Birdie joins a support group that promises to reconnect confused women with their passion. She and Jack separate, prompting a how-dare-you fit from their grown daughters. Will Birdie fly her empty nest? Will she go back to college for a degree in art? Will her brooding watercolors ever sell?
Soft-focus story moves right along with few surprises. This time around, Hannah avoids the soap-opera complications of her previous tales (Summer Island, 2001, etc.).Pub Date: July 1, 2002
ISBN: 0-345-45071-X
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2002
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