The Exorcist meets My Mother, The Car. . . in a chiller that takes a nifty Twilight Zone notion and stretches it out to King-sized proportions—with teen-gab galore, horror-flick mayhem, epic foreshadowing, and endlessly teased-out suspense. It's 1978 in a town outside of Pittsburgh. Football-player Dennis (the nice, if relentlessly vulgar, narrator) is a high-school senior—as is his best-friend Arnie, pimpled loner and natural victim. But everything begins to go askew on the day that Arnie falls in love at first sight with "Christine," a total wreck of a 1958 Plymouth Fury ("one of the long ones with the big fins") that Arnie buys for $250 from creepy old Roland D. LeBay. Soon, you see, Arnie starts changing: he stands up to his college-teacher parents (manipulative Mom, weak Dad) for the first time; his skin clears up; he gets a sweetly beautiful girlfriend, Leigh. After old LeBay dies, Dennis starts worrying—especially when he learns that the mean old man's wife and daughter both died in. . . Christine. And assorted spooky questions arise: How does Arnie manage to restore Christine to 1958 condition so fast? How does he instantly restore her again after Christine has been savagely attacked by some high-school bullies? And who—if anyone—is driving Christine when the killer-car then starts bloodily bumping off all of Arnie's enemies? (Arnie himself is always out of town when the ghostly hit-and-runs occur.) By this time, of course, girlfriend Leigh is starting to become disenchanted with Arnie—who seems to sit idly by while Christine. . . or something. . . tries to choke Leigh to death. And when even Arnie's handwriting seems to change, Leigh and Dennis become convinced that their friend has been quasi-possessed by the undead soul of evil Roland LeBay (whom they can sometimes even see at the wheel!). So they determine to somehow destroy the indestructible killer-car—in a finale-showdown at Darnell's Garage, with Dennis in a tank-truck and Christine (carrying yet more corpses) on the rampage. Nothing new, horror-wise (remember The Car, a 1977 film-cheapie?), and much too long; but King's blend of adolescent raunch, All-American sentiment, and unsubtle spookery has never, since Carrie, been more popcorn-readable—with immense appeal for all those fans interested in the 522-page equivalent of a drive-in horror movie.
Pub Date: April 29, 1983
ISBN: 0451160444
Page Count: 534
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: Sept. 26, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 1983
BOOK TO SCREEN
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
A first novel, this is also a first person account of Scout's (Jean Louise) recall of the years that led to the ending of a mystery, the breaking of her brother Jem's elbow, the death of her father's enemy — and the close of childhood years. A widower, Atticus raises his children with legal dispassion and paternal intelligence, and is ably abetted by Calpurnia, the colored cook, while the Alabama town of Maycomb, in the 1930's, remains aloof to their divergence from its tribal patterns. Scout and Jem, with their summer-time companion, Dill, find their paths free from interference — but not from dangers; their curiosity about the imprisoned Boo, whose miserable past is incorporated in their play, results in a tentative friendliness; their fears of Atticus' lack of distinction is dissipated when he shoots a mad dog; his defense of a Negro accused of raping a white girl, Mayella Ewell, is followed with avid interest and turns the rabble whites against him. Scout is the means of averting an attack on Atticus but when he loses the case it is Boo who saves Jem and Scout by killing Mayella's father when he attempts to murder them. The shadows of a beginning for black-white understanding, the persistent fight that Scout carries on against school, Jem's emergence into adulthood, Calpurnia's quiet power, and all the incidents touching on the children's "growing outward" have an attractive starchiness that keeps this southern picture pert and provocative. There is much advance interest in this book; it has been selected by the Literary Guild and Reader's Digest; it should win many friends.
Pub Date: July 11, 1960
ISBN: 0060935464
Page Count: 323
Publisher: Lippincott
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1960
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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