As the title suggests, this is a small handful of early pieces by Elkin (three short stories and a brief memoir-essay), including his very first published story, "A Sound of Distant Thunder," which appeared originally in Epoch magazine. Never a man to puff himself up, Elkin has supplied an introduction to the volume in which he announces brightly that "The three pieces in this collection. . .are not, I'm afraid, very good. Indeed, with the possible exception of 'Fifty Dollars,' they are no good at all." But Elkin, as usual, knows what he's doing. After such candor as this, who among us can resist taking at least a little peak? The memoir-essay, for example, which appeared in Antaeus and is called "Where I Read What I read." Here's a peek at Stanley Elkin, indeed, telling about his graduate-student days and, before those, about his Army time—including the long-ago day in Colorado in the 1950s, on bivouac in the mountains, when he managed, after trench-digging duty, to sneak off under the pine trees to read Thomas Mann's "Mario the Magician." "I was astounded," he reveals, "by how beautifully men could write, stunned by how they could imagine worlds so much more beautiful, if not more comfortable, than even this one. . . This was the happiest day of my life." "Bill Bamberger is willing to put this stuff between covers," Elkin writes. "I sign fifty copies of the press run and—at least that's the assumption—a few dozen people will be willing to pay a small premium to have it in their libraries." Well, sure. After all, there's life in this unpretentious little volume, a thread of melancholy woven into the drollery, and a few pieces of early Elkin for those who want to see what they're like, or to make their collection complete.
Pub Date: July 1, 1985
ISBN: 0917453034
Page Count: 104
Publisher: Bamberger Books
Review Posted Online: March 28, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1985
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles...
Sisters in and out of love.
Meghann Dontess is a high-powered matrimonial lawyer in Seattle who prefers sex with strangers to emotional intimacy: a strategy bound to backfire sooner or later, warns her tough-talking shrink. It’s advice Meghann decides to ignore, along with the memories of her difficult childhood, neglectful mother, and younger sister. Though she managed to reunite Claire with Sam Cavenaugh (her father but not Meghann’s) when her mother abandoned both girls long ago, Meghann still feels guilty that her sister’s life doesn’t measure up, at least on her terms. Never married, Claire ekes out a living running a country campground with her dad and is raising her six-year-old daughter on her own. When she falls in love for the first time with an up-and-coming country musician, Meghann is appalled: Bobby Austin is a three-time loser at marriage—how on earth can Claire be so blind? Bobby’s blunt explanation doesn’t exactly satisfy the concerned big sister, who busies herself planning Claire’s dream wedding anyway. And, to relieve the stress, she beds various guys she picks up in bars, including Dr. Joe Wyatt, a neurosurgeon turned homeless drifter after the demise of his beloved wife Diane (whom he euthanized). When Claire’s awful headache turns out to be a kind of brain tumor known among neurologists as a “terminator,” Joe rallies. Turns out that Claire had befriended his wife on her deathbed, and now in turn he must try to save her. Is it too late? Will Meghann find true love at last?
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles (Distant Shores, 2002, etc.). Kudos for skipping the snifflefest this time around.Pub Date: May 1, 2003
ISBN: 0-345-45073-6
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2003
Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.
Coelho is a Brazilian writer with four books to his credit. Following Diary of a Magus (1992—not reviewed) came this book, published in Brazil in 1988: it's an interdenominational, transcendental, inspirational fable—in other words, a bag of wind.
The story is about a youth empowered to follow his dream. Santiago is an Andalusian shepherd boy who learns through a dream of a treasure in the Egyptian pyramids. An old man, the king of Salem, the first of various spiritual guides, tells the boy that he has discovered his destiny: "to realize one's destiny is a person's only real obligation." So Santiago sells his sheep, sails to Tangier, is tricked out of his money, regains it through hard work, crosses the desert with a caravan, stops at an oasis long enough to fall in love, escapes from warring tribesmen by performing a miracle, reaches the pyramids, and eventually gets both the gold and the girl. Along the way he meets an Englishman who describes the Soul of the World; the desert woman Fatima, who teaches him the Language of the World; and an alchemist who says, "Listen to your heart" A message clings like ivy to every encounter; everyone, but everyone, has to put in their two cents' worth, from the crystal merchant to the camel driver ("concentrate always on the present, you'll be a happy man"). The absence of characterization and overall blandness suggest authorship by a committee of self-improvement pundits—a far cry from Saint- Exupery's The Little Prince: that flagship of the genre was a genuine charmer because it clearly derived from a quirky, individual sensibility.
Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.Pub Date: July 1, 1993
ISBN: 0-06-250217-4
Page Count: 192
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1993
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
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