A puzzling satire that denounces America’s treatment of veterans.
This second edition of a debut illustrated satire critiques the U.S political system.
The animals in the Land of Plenty are being taken advantage of by their crooked and do-nothing government. The rats and snakes that toil on the Hill barely do any work, taking long vacations and accepting gifts from special interest groups. There is a Bald Eagle who is always watching over and listening in on the other animals. The House is composed of rattlesnakes, while the Senate is made up of phantom snakes. The rats, mice, and rabbits who assist them do so under strict rules, including wearing a paper collar: “The paper collar is made out of colored papers that are cut into half-inch strips, rolled, and attached with spit to stay together. It is required by Uncle Big Rat regulations and the other chief rats for showing control.” The military comprises Mighty Mice, who are entitled to services at the Squeaky Hospital, though the rats often find ways of denying these to the warriors. The public is composed of sheep who do and say nothing despite the mistreatment of the Mighty Mice by Uncle Big Rat because they have been brainwashed by the media. The text is accompanied by black-and-white illustrations by Zaborsky. The reader gets the basic sense of what Skyler’s point is—that Washington is corrupt and abandons veterans—but the satire is far too inarticulate to be effective. The nuances of the author’s message are lost beneath the messy layer of jargon that has been laid on top of the targets. Many words are written backward for no apparent reason. (The rat chiefs are heads of departments like “Namuh Secruoser” and “Enicidem.”) The syntax is highly awkward, and no real story ever emerges. This feels much more like the background notes for the world of a planned narrative rather than a narrative itself. Even Zaborsky’s images feel like sketches rather than final products. While surely readers will agree that the federal government has mishandled veteran heath care for many years, this book fails to make that argument in a persuasive or comprehensible way.
A puzzling satire that denounces America’s treatment of veterans.Pub Date: May 8, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-942901-35-8
Page Count: 110
Publisher: Skyler Publishing
Review Posted Online: May 26, 2017
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with...
Talk-show queen takes tumble as millions jeer.
Nora Bridges is a wildly popular radio spokesperson for family-first virtues, but her loyal listeners don't know that she walked out on her husband and teenaged daughters years ago and didn't look back. Now that a former lover has sold racy pix of naked Nora and horny himself to a national tabloid, her estranged daughter Ruby, an unsuccessful stand-up comic in Los Angeles, has been approached to pen a tell-all. Greedy for the fat fee she's been promised, Ruby agrees and heads for the San Juan Islands, eager to get reacquainted with the mom she plans to betray. Once in the family homestead, nasty Ruby alternately sulks and glares at her mother, who is temporarily wheelchair-bound as a result of a post-scandal car crash. Uncaring, Ruby begins writing her side of the story when she's not strolling on the beach with former sweetheart Dean Sloan, the son of wealthy socialites who basically ignored him and his gay brother Eric. Eric, now dying of cancer and also in a wheelchair, has returned to the island. This dismal threesome catch up on old times, recalling their childhood idylls on the island. After Ruby's perfect big sister Caroline shows up, there's another round of heartfelt talk. Nora gradually reveals the truth about her unloving husband and her late father's alcoholism, which led her to seek the approval of others at the cost of her own peace of mind. And so on. Ruby is aghast to discover that she doesn't know everything after all, but Dean offers her subdued comfort. Happy endings await almost everyone—except for readers of this nobly preachy snifflefest.
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with syrupy platitudes about life and love.Pub Date: March 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-609-60737-5
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2001
Britisher Swift's sixth novel (Ever After, 1992 etc.) and fourth to appear here is a slow-to-start but then captivating tale of English working-class families in the four decades following WW II. When Jack Dodds dies suddenly of cancer after years of running a butcher shop in London, he leaves a strange request—namely, that his ashes be scattered off Margate pier into the sea. And who could better be suited to fulfill this wish than his three oldest drinking buddies—insurance man Ray, vegetable seller Lenny, and undertaker Vic, all of whom, like Jack himself, fought also as soldiers or sailors in the long-ago world war. Swift's narrative start, with its potential for the melodramatic, is developed instead with an economy, heart, and eye that release (through the characters' own voices, one after another) the story's humanity and depth instead of its schmaltz. The jokes may be weak and self- conscious when the three old friends meet at their local pub in the company of the urn holding Jack's ashes; but once the group gets on the road, in an expensive car driven by Jack's adoptive son, Vince, the story starts gradually to move forward, cohere, and deepen. The reader learns in time why it is that no wife comes along, why three marriages out of three broke apart, and why Vince always hated his stepfather Jack and still does—or so he thinks. There will be stories of innocent youth, suffering wives, early loves, lost daughters, secret affairs, and old antagonisms—including a fistfight over the dead on an English hilltop, and a strewing of Jack's ashes into roiling seawaves that will draw up feelings perhaps unexpectedly strong. Without affectation, Swift listens closely to the lives that are his subject and creates a songbook of voices part lyric, part epic, part working-class social realism—with, in all, the ring to it of the honest, human, and true.
Pub Date: April 5, 1996
ISBN: 0-679-41224-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 1996
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