Worthy tales that prove external forces are no more terrifying than what’s inside people’s heads.
Characters battle loneliness and unsettling occurrences in this assortment of otherworldly poems and stories.
In the opening tale, “A Deal in the Dark,” Jenny’s childhood fear of the dark has returned. But while an apparent presence may render her trepidation tangible, her real fear is more psychological: being alone. Provost’s (Memortality, 2017, etc.) vivid characters throughout are similarly tortured. Jenny only has her brother, Andy, because their parents are dead, and Alex in “Mama” is shaken by a pendulum’s prediction of his mother’s death. In the same vein, individuals secluded by bouts of insomnia and nightmares are desperate for help: Robert Delvecchio seeks a palm reader in “Breaking the Cycle,” and Alana responds to a neurologist’s Facebook ad in “Teeth.” There are occasional glimpses of creatures, and Provost sticks mostly with the classics: vampires, ghosts, aliens, and even dragons. But trekking familiar terrain allows the author to deftly subvert readers’ expectations. “Lamp Unto My Fate,” for example, features a genie, complete with the tried-and-true moral of being careful what you wish for. But protagonist Maximus, a litigator, and the newly freed genie treat the wish-giving as a business deal, prompting some fun “verbal sparring.” Other instances of humor crop up but never fully dominate the book’s grim tone. Such is the case for the titular character in “Nightmare’s Eve (Rotten Robbie’s Christmas Comeuppance)”; his mischievous ways are a clue that his encounter with Santa likely won’t turn out well. Provost’s poetry varies in rhyming schemes but skillfully displays the same somber themes as the stories. Isolation, for one, is depicted in illustrative lines, as in “Lost at Sea”: “The mast falls like a hammer / The deck, it cracks and splinters / The North Wind howls and taunts me / With the breath of countless winters.” Fortunately, not all of the tales are filled entirely with dread. Some, like the closing story, “George & the Dragon: The Untold Story,” have uplifting moments amid all that death and solitude.
Worthy tales that prove external forces are no more terrifying than what’s inside people’s heads.Pub Date: Feb. 22, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-948594-04-2
Page Count: 266
Publisher: Black Raven Books
Review Posted Online: March 29, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.
Sisters work together to solve a child-abandonment case.
Ellie and Julia Cates have never been close. Julia is shy and brainy; Ellie gets by on charm and looks. Their differences must be tossed aside when a traumatized young girl wanders in from the forest into their hometown in Washington. The sisters’ professional skills are put to the test. Julia is a world-renowned child psychologist who has lost her edge. She is reeling from a case that went publicly sour. Though she was cleared of all wrongdoing, Julia’s name was tarnished, forcing her to shutter her Beverly Hills practice. Ellie Barton is the local police chief in Rain Valley, who’s never faced a tougher case. This is her chance to prove she is more than just a fading homecoming queen, but a scarcity of clues and a reluctant victim make locating the girl’s parents nearly impossible. Ellie places an SOS call to her sister; she needs an expert to rehabilitate this wild-child who has been living outside of civilization for years. Confronted with her professional demons, Julia once again has the opportunity to display her talents and salvage her reputation. Hannah (The Things We Do for Love, 2004, etc.) is at her best when writing from the girl’s perspective. The feral wolf-child keeps the reader interested long after the other, transparent characters have grown tiresome. Hannah’s torturously over-written romance passages are stale, but there are surprises in store as the sisters set about unearthing Alice’s past and creating a home for her.
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.Pub Date: March 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-345-46752-3
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2005
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
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