Vivid storytelling in a Faustian tale, with a few meanderings.
A boy growing up in New York City becomes riven between good and evil in this debut coming-of-age novel.
The story opens with the unnamed narrator as an infant, timid in nature and emotionally attached to his teddy bear. His father is quite the opposite. Recently released from prison and the son of an Italian immigrant prizefighter, he is tender toward his family but has a brutal temper when crossed by others. When the narrator is being bullied at school, a man in a red sweat suit arrives, douses the culprit in gasoline, and threatens to torch him. The narrator suspects that the “red stranger” is connected to his father, and his innocence begins to slowly recede. After developing a proclivity to play truant from high school, the narrator has a chance encounter with his teacher Delbar Pahlavi, who introduces him to the joys of classic literature. The narrator’s family moves to New Jersey, where he adapts to suburbia; finds a girl, Alex; and, in time, becomes an attorney. It is at this point in his life that the “red stranger” returns, offering the possibility of great wealth, to be accrued from fixing horse races. The lure of the dark side is devilishly tempting. Cea offers a contemporary take on the classic German Faust legend, in which a demon lures the dissatisfied protagonist into temptation. This is intelligent, weighty writing. When describing his grandfather, the narrator notes: “He wasn’t courageous, just fearless. His demeanor was of a quiet confidence. Some people may have mistaken him for complacent. That wasn’t it either. He was just satisfied with the way his life turned out, and completely happy.” The portrait is followed by a pleasingly serene account of the family making wine together. These tender observations are counterbalanced by searingly pitiless passages, as when the narrator’s father urinates on a corpse, commenting: “I told him I was going to piss on his grave. I’m just saving myself the trip.” Cea proves expert in celebrating and berating the cult of masculinity in equal measure. On occasion, the author shoehorns in a philosophical debate, such as a protracted conversation between a priest and a physicist regarding Creation. Although engaging, this is somewhat incongruous to the developing narrative. But this proves only a minor distraction from a thoroughly engrossing novel.
Vivid storytelling in a Faustian tale, with a few meanderings.Pub Date: Feb. 16, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-692-57709-7
Page Count: 230
Publisher: iUniverse
Review Posted Online: Aug. 21, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.
A violent surfacing of adolescence (which has little in common with Tarkington's earlier, broadly comic, Seventeen) has a compulsive impact.
"Nobody big except me" is the dream world of Holden Caulfield and his first person story is down to the basic, drab English of the pre-collegiate. For Holden is now being bounced from fancy prep, and, after a vicious evening with hall- and roommates, heads for New York to try to keep his latest failure from his parents. He tries to have a wild evening (all he does is pay the check), is terrorized by the hotel elevator man and his on-call whore, has a date with a girl he likes—and hates, sees his 10 year old sister, Phoebe. He also visits a sympathetic English teacher after trying on a drunken session, and when he keeps his date with Phoebe, who turns up with her suitcase to join him on his flight, he heads home to a hospital siege. This is tender and true, and impossible, in its picture of the old hells of young boys, the lonesomeness and tentative attempts to be mature and secure, the awful block between youth and being grown-up, the fright and sickness that humans and their behavior cause the challenging, the dramatization of the big bang. It is a sorry little worm's view of the off-beat of adult pressure, of contemporary strictures and conformity, of sentiment….
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.Pub Date: June 15, 1951
ISBN: 0316769177
Page Count: -
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1951
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
APPRECIATIONS
Genetically engineered dinosaurs run amok in Crichton's new, vastly entertaining science thriller. From the introduction alone—a classically Crichton-clear discussion of the implications of biotechnological research—it's evident that the Harvard M.D. has bounced back from the science-fantasy silliness of Sphere (1987) for another taut reworking of the Frankenstein theme, as in The Andromeda Strain and The Terminal Man. Here, Dr. Frankenstein is aging billionaire John Hammond, whose monster is a manmade ecosystem based on a Costa Rican island. Designed as the world's ultimate theme park, the ecosystem boasts climate and flora of the Jurassic Age and—most spectacularly—15 varieties of dinosaurs, created by elaborate genetic engineering that Crichton explains in fascinating detail, rich with dino-lore and complete with graphics. Into the park, for a safety check before its opening, comes the novel's band of characters—who, though well drawn, double as symbolic types in this unsubtle morality play. Among them are hero Alan Grant, noble paleontologist; Hammond, venal and obsessed; amoral dino-designer Henry Wu; Hammond's two innocent grandchildren; and mathematician Ian Malcolm, who in long diatribes serves as Crichton's mouthpiece to lament the folly of science. Upon arrival, the visitors tour the park; meanwhile, an industrial spy steals some dino embryos by shutting down the island's power—and its security grid, allowing the beasts to run loose. The bulk of the remaining narrative consists of dinos—ferocious T. Rex's, voracious velociraptors, venom-spitting dilophosaurs—stalking, ripping, and eating the cast in fast, furious, and suspenseful set-pieces as the ecosystem spins apart. And can Grant prevent the dinos from escaping to the mainland to create unchecked havoc? Though intrusive, the moralizing rarely slows this tornado-paced tale, a slick package of info-thrills that's Crichton's most clever since Congo (1980)—and easily the most exciting dinosaur novel ever written. A sure-fire best-seller.
Pub Date: Nov. 7, 1990
ISBN: 0394588169
Page Count: 424
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Sept. 21, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 1990
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