In her fifth ambitious historical novel (The Reckoning, 1991, etc.)—and the first of a trilogy—Penman once again tells a tale of kings and queens, singular destinies and double-crosses, at an unhurried pace. Happily, though, the author continues to base her narrative on the firm ground of fact—or at least on what is available after scholars have parted the medieval clouds of chroniclers' bias. Here begins the story of England's terrible 18 years from 1135-1153, during which a dead king's daughter, Maude, and her cousin Stephen fight for the crown. Of the 23 children sired by Henry I, son of William the Conqueror, only two were born in wedlock: William, whose drowning opens the novel, and Maude, who's declared the legitimate heir. Upon the king's death, however, Stephen, also a grandchild of William I, snatches the crown. Meanwhile, Maude, who was shipped off at the age of nine to marry a German emperor and who was later forced to marry Geoffrey of Anjou, is a woman with grievances. With her ``right hand''—Robert, Earl of Gloucester- -Maude begins her painful, doomed route to the crown. Castle by castle, there are defeats and brief triumphs on both sides; alliances crumble and mend; innocents are slaughtered and countrysides destroyed; and, as regularly as ticking clocks, messengers leave frothing horses to report (usually) disaster. England rejects Maude (because she's a woman, she thinks), but she fights for the kingship of her son in France, who as Henry II will finish what Maude began—after marriage to powerful, beautiful Eleanor of Aquitaine. Penman inventively animates a large cast; and, given the hints of a drama featuring Henry and Eleanor in the works, a solidly beefy introduction to the first skirmishes of the Plantagenets. (First printing of 75,000; Literary Guild selection; author tour)
Pub Date: April 14, 1995
ISBN: 0-8050-1015-7
Page Count: 648
Publisher: Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 1995
King handles his first novel with considerable accomplishment and very little hokum—it's only too easy to believe that these...
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
PERSPECTIVES
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
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
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