In his flip, unfunny first novel, travel writer Stevens (Malaria Dreams, 1989, etc.) offers the familiar view of American political campaigning as mud-wrestling. Two brothers are slugging it out in the sweltering late- October heat of the Deep South with six days left to the election. Congressman Luke Bonney is running for the US Senate; his brother, Matt, is a top Washington consultant and adviser to Luke's rival, Governor Solomon Jawinski. The brothers belong to their unnamed home state's leading political family. Their father, Powell Bonney, was a segregationist governor in the '60s who took a Wallace-like stand against school integration; Luke has never forgiven him for his mysterious decision to quit after his first term, and the two have not spoken in years. There are no issues in the present race, just the personalities of Luke (an intense, 37-year-old go-getter) and the much older Jawinski (a ``Polish-Jewish redneck''); the latter, a lovable buffoon regrouping after a messy divorce, is the more vulnerable to negative TV ads until Jawinski's pollster finds three black male prostitutes who allege they have had sex with Luke (a charge Stevens has borrowed from the 1983 Mississippi gubernatorial race). Luke decides he should announce he's been sleeping with Matt's wife, Lisa (also a congressperson): ``It's counter-punch time or I'm belly up.'' It's a silly idea—though no sillier than Luke's media adviser shooting himself to distract attention from Jawinski's superior debate performance—and, typically, it goes nowhere; Stevens often toys with developments, then walks away from them. Similarly, a more serious story about Washington marriages pops up occasionally, only to be displaced by shenanigans. Stevens, himself a political consultant, knows the territory but doesn't have the wit or inventiveness to make it memorable in fiction.
Pub Date: Nov. 1, 1994
ISBN: 0-87113-582-5
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Atlantic Monthly
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1994
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Not as thematically ambitious as Whitehead’s earlier work, but a whole lot of fun to read.
Another surprise from an author who never writes the same novel twice.
Though Whitehead has earned considerable critical acclaim for his earlier work—in particular his debut (The Intuitionist, 1999) and its successor (John Henry Days, 2001)—he’ll likely reach a wider readership with his warmest novel to date. Funniest as well, though there have been flashes of humor throughout his writing. The author blurs the line between fiction and memoir as he recounts the coming-of-age summer of 15-year-old Benji Cooper in the family’s summer retreat of New York’s Sag Harbor. “According to the world, we were the definition of paradox: black boys with beach houses,” writes Whitehead. Caucasians are only an occasional curiosity within this idyll, and parents are mostly absent as well. Each chapter is pretty much a self-contained entity, corresponding to a rite of passage: getting the first job, negotiating the mysteries of the opposite sex. There’s an accident with a BB gun and plenty of episodes of convincing someone older to buy beer, but not much really happens during this particular summer. Yet by the end of it, Benji is well on his way to becoming Ben, and he realizes that he is a different person than when the summer started. He also realizes that this time in his life will eventually live only in memory. There might be some distinctions between Benji and Whitehead, though the novelist also spent his youthful summers in Sag Harbor and was the same age as Benji in 1985, when the novel is set. Yet the first-person narrator has the novelist’s eye for detail, craft of character development and analytical instincts for sharp social commentary.
Not as thematically ambitious as Whitehead’s earlier work, but a whole lot of fun to read.Pub Date: April 28, 2009
ISBN: 978-0-385-52765-1
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2009
BOOK TO SCREEN
Anyone who believes in true love or is simply willing to accept it as the premise of a winding tale will find this debut an...
True love flares between two people, but they find that circumstances always impede it.
On a winter day in London, Laurie spots Jack from her bus home and he sparks a feeling in her so deep that she spends the next year searching for him. Her roommate and best friend, Sarah, is the perfect wing-woman but ultimately—and unknowingly—ends the search by finding Jack and falling for him herself. Laurie’s hasty decision not to tell Sarah is the second painful missed opportunity (after not getting off the bus), but Sarah’s happiness is so important to Laurie that she dedicates ample energy into retraining her heart not to love Jack. Laurie is misguided, but her effort and loyalty spring from a true heart, and she considers her project mostly successful. Perhaps she would have total success, but the fact of the matter is that Jack feels the same deep connection to Laurie. His reasons for not acting on them are less admirable: He likes Sarah and she’s the total package; why would he give that up just because every time he and Laurie have enough time together (and just enough alcohol) they nearly fall into each other’s arms? Laurie finally begins to move on, creating a mostly satisfying life for herself, whereas Jack’s inability to be genuine tortures him and turns him into an ever bigger jerk. Patriarchy—it hurts men, too! There’s no question where the book is going, but the pacing is just right, the tone warm, and the characters sympathetic, even when making dumb decisions.
Anyone who believes in true love or is simply willing to accept it as the premise of a winding tale will find this debut an emotional, satisfying read.Pub Date: Oct. 16, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-525-57468-2
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: July 30, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK TO SCREEN
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