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THE PRESIDENT'S ANGEL

The third and final entry in Burnham's self-proclaimed ``angel cycle'' (A Book of Angels; Angel Letters—not reviewed). More narrative sermon than fully developed novel, it's the story of the spiritual transformation of a President. ``It was on the 695th night of his reign that the President saw the angel. He awoke from a light and fitful sleep to see the form balancing on the end of his bed.'' That rhapsodic opening gives way to a description of an apocalyptic near-future in which the Free World's leader lives in a ``Presidential Palace,'' cynical and burdened by a war that rages ever closer to a Star Wars-like conclusion. At first, the angel terrifies—a flaring column of light, it takes human form and stares at the President with such love and compassion that he feels his whole life thrown into question. He tries to forget the apparition, busying himself with his advisors, particularly bitter workaholic Jim. But the angel reappears and leads the President's gaze out his bedroom window. It then flies out the window and into a park filled with ragged war protestors; there, the angel stops and bows to an especially abject-looking beggar. Haunted by the beggar, the President ponders the meaning of it all. Meanwhile, his advisers—convinced that their leader is losing his grip—plot to depose him. In the course of all this, moreover, a reporter's young daughter also happens to see an angel in the Presidential Palace. In the end, the President makes his peace with the beggar, who, it seems, is another angel. Reconciling with all these celestial beings, he also gains the confidence to make peace with the Russian premier—who has an angel of his own. Burnham says she wrote this in a ``transport of joy.'' Her inspiration is palpable—but her story and characters remain pale images, never taking on real life or force.

Pub Date: Oct. 1, 1993

ISBN: 0-345-38510-1

Page Count: 176

Publisher: Ballantine

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 1993

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THE SECRET HISTORY

The Brat Pack meets The Bacchae in this precious, way-too-long, and utterly unsuspenseful town-and-gown murder tale. A bunch of ever-so-mandarin college kids in a small Vermont school are the eager epigones of an aloof classics professor, and in their exclusivity and snobbishness and eagerness to please their teacher, they are moved to try to enact Dionysian frenzies in the woods. During the only one that actually comes off, a local farmer happens upon them—and they kill him. But the death isn't ruled a murder—and might never have been if one of the gang—a cadging sybarite named Bunny Corcoran—hadn't shown signs of cracking under the secret's weight. And so he too is dispatched. The narrator, a blank-slate Californian named Richard Pepen chronicles the coverup. But if you're thinking remorse-drama, conscience masque, or even semi-trashy who'll-break-first? page-turner, forget it: This is a straight gee-whiz, first-to-have-ever-noticed college novel—"Hampden College, as a body, was always strangely prone to hysteria. Whether from isolation, malice, or simple boredom, people there were far more credulous and excitable than educated people are generally thought to be, and this hermetic, overheated atmosphere made it a thriving black petri dish of melodrama and distortion." First-novelist Tartt goes muzzy when she has to describe human confrontations (the murder, or sex, or even the ping-ponging of fear), and is much more comfortable in transcribing aimless dorm-room paranoia or the TV shows that the malefactors anesthetize themselves with as fate ticks down. By telegraphing the murders, Tartt wants us to be continually horrified at these kids—while inviting us to semi-enjoy their manneristic fetishes and refined tastes. This ersatz-Fitzgerald mix of moralizing and mirror-looking (Jay McInerney shook and poured the shaker first) is very 80's—and in Tartt's strenuous version already seems dated, formulaic. Les Nerds du Mal—and about as deep (if not nearly as involving) as a TV movie.

Pub Date: Sept. 16, 1992

ISBN: 1400031702

Page Count: 592

Publisher: Knopf

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1992

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OF MICE AND MEN

Steinbeck is a genius and an original.

Steinbeck refuses to allow himself to be pigeonholed.

This is as completely different from Tortilla Flat and In Dubious Battle as they are from each other. Only in his complete understanding of the proletarian mentality does he sustain a connecting link though this is assuredly not a "proletarian novel." It is oddly absorbing this picture of the strange friendship between the strong man and the giant with the mind of a not-quite-bright child. Driven from job to job by the failure of the giant child to fit into the social pattern, they finally find in a ranch what they feel their chance to achieve a homely dream they have built. But once again, society defeats them. There's a simplicity, a directness, a poignancy in the story that gives it a singular power, difficult to define.  Steinbeck is a genius and an original.

Pub Date: Feb. 26, 1936

ISBN: 0140177396

Page Count: 83

Publisher: Covici, Friede

Review Posted Online: Oct. 5, 2011

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1936

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