George Mills, who lives in St. Louis and makes his living by moving furniture out of the apartments of evicted-black-folks, claims to be "saved." True, there's little in George that obviously seems to justify this state of grace. But saved he says he is. And, to support his claim, there are historical flashbacks here to his ancestors—all the other dirty-worker, shlemazl George Millses of the past, people (like the Jews in history) who have been handed unimaginable misfortune . . . but who have also therefore been granted spiritual and physical survival. Elkin gives us a George Mills in medieval Poland, for instance, lost and looking for a Crusade. ("Kille killee smash balls son bitchee pagan mothers? Killee killee bang chop for Jeezy? Which way Moslem bastards?") And we meet the George Mills who's trapped in an 18th-century Turkish seraglio and must pretend to be a eunuch. But, though very funny about half the time, these Mel-Brooks-style flashbacks (contemporary vernacular in period costume) are the weaker half of this eccentric, loosely assembled, overlong Elkin-thon. Better by far are some of the contemporary sequences. There's the episode in which the modern George Mills takes a side job as an aide to a rich, young, dying woman: they go to Mexico together, to a laetrile clinic—and Elkin manages to make this grand-guignol material into a hilarious circus. There's the detailing of George's job as the evictor of poor blacks—with Elkin's fearless portrayal of despicable people and acts in all their ambiguity. And there's the story of Cornell Messenger, a professor/novelist (and Meals-on-Wheels volunteer) who takes an emotionally fraught trip to Nashville with his clutzy, illiterate son Harve: a skin-prickling vignette of fatherly love and shame. Great set-pieces? Absolutely: Elkin's dark frolics are nothing short of marvelous at their best—full of risk and rich, clotted-cream prose. So, though this 488-page novel is a leaky collection of parts rather than one whole strong book (Elkin is a short-form writer no matter how he's packaged), connoisseurs of comic fiction will consider it required reading: a brilliant set of flags blowing the irrepressible wind of Elkin's fierce, bold comedy.
Pub Date: Oct. 25, 1982
ISBN: 1564782921
Page Count: 548
Publisher: Dutton
Review Posted Online: March 28, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 1982
A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy.
Are we not men? We are—well, ask Bigfoot, as Brooks does in this delightful yarn, following on his bestseller World War Z(2006).
A zombie apocalypse is one thing. A volcanic eruption is quite another, for, as the journalist who does a framing voice-over narration for Brooks’ latest puts it, when Mount Rainier popped its cork, “it was the psychological aspect, the hyperbole-fueled hysteria that had ended up killing the most people.” Maybe, but the sasquatches whom the volcano displaced contributed to the statistics, too, if only out of self-defense. Brooks places the epicenter of the Bigfoot war in a high-tech hideaway populated by the kind of people you might find in a Jurassic Park franchise: the schmo who doesn’t know how to do much of anything but tries anyway, the well-intentioned bleeding heart, the know-it-all intellectual who turns out to know the wrong things, the immigrant with a tough backstory and an instinct for survival. Indeed, the novel does double duty as a survival manual, packed full of good advice—for instance, try not to get wounded, for “injury turns you from a giver to a taker. Taking up our resources, our time to care for you.” Brooks presents a case for making room for Bigfoot in the world while peppering his narrative with timely social criticism about bad behavior on the human side of the conflict: The explosion of Rainier might have been better forecast had the president not slashed the budget of the U.S. Geological Survey, leading to “immediate suspension of the National Volcano Early Warning System,” and there’s always someone around looking to monetize the natural disaster and the sasquatch-y onslaught that follows. Brooks is a pro at building suspense even if it plays out in some rather spectacularly yucky episodes, one involving a short spear that takes its name from “the sucking sound of pulling it out of the dead man’s heart and lungs.” Grossness aside, it puts you right there on the scene.
A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy.Pub Date: June 16, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-9848-2678-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Del Rey/Ballantine
Review Posted Online: Feb. 9, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK TO SCREEN
Dark and unsettling, this novel’s end arrives abruptly even as readers are still moving at a breakneck speed.
Ten years after her teenage daughter went missing, a mother begins a new relationship only to discover she can't truly move on until she answers lingering questions about the past.
Laurel Mack’s life stopped in many ways the day her 15-year-old daughter, Ellie, left the house to study at the library and never returned. She drifted away from her other two children, Hanna and Jake, and eventually she and her husband, Paul, divorced. Ten years later, Ellie’s remains and her backpack are found, though the police are unable to determine the reasons for her disappearance and death. After Ellie’s funeral, Laurel begins a relationship with Floyd, a man she meets in a cafe. She's disarmed by Floyd’s charm, but when she meets his young daughter, Poppy, Laurel is startled by her resemblance to Ellie. As the novel progresses, Laurel becomes increasingly determined to learn what happened to Ellie, especially after discovering an odd connection between Poppy’s mother and her daughter even as her relationship with Floyd is becoming more serious. Jewell’s (I Found You, 2017, etc.) latest thriller moves at a brisk pace even as she plays with narrative structure: The book is split into three sections, including a first one which alternates chapters between the time of Ellie’s disappearance and the present and a second section that begins as Laurel and Floyd meet. Both of these sections primarily focus on Laurel. In the third section, Jewell alternates narrators and moments in time: The narrator switches to alternating first-person points of view (told by Poppy’s mother and Floyd) interspersed with third-person narration of Ellie’s experiences and Laurel’s discoveries in the present. All of these devices serve to build palpable tension, but the structure also contributes to how deeply disturbing the story becomes. At times, the characters and the emotional core of the events are almost obscured by such quick maneuvering through the weighty plot.
Dark and unsettling, this novel’s end arrives abruptly even as readers are still moving at a breakneck speed.Pub Date: April 24, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-5011-5464-5
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Atria
Review Posted Online: Feb. 5, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2018
© Copyright 2024 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
bookshelf
