by Takis John Pepe ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 6, 2016
A mixed bag, but this allegorical tale is definitely worth a read.
In this debut novel, Pepe offers an intriguing mixture of cage fighting and religion in an homage to Homer’s Iliad.
The story features a young protagonist whose real name is Achilles Jeannopoulos, but who goes by the nickname “Archie.” He’s a veteran of conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan and a cage fighter who’s proud of his Greek-American heritage. In this tale that echoes the Iliad, he is, of course, a stand-in for his namesake warrior; his trainer and best friend, Byron, is Patroclus; his corner-man, Mackey, is Odysseus; the venal club owner, Joe, represents King Agamemnon; and Archie’s girlfriend, Meaghan, is Briseis. His archenemy in the cage is a man named Heckman (standing in for Hector). Archie is a good fighter and an endearing wise guy; he’s also religious, and the Upper Room Praise and Worship Church sponsors him as a fighter. Clearly, he’s a complex young man who’s afire with passion. Joe wants to set Archie up against Heckman to bring in the crowds, but Heckman is a professional fighter, powered by steroids, who’s merely slumming at the club, so Archie resists the club owner’s urgings. Then Archie discovers that he is suffering from an inoperable brain tumor. However, the church needs money desperately, so Byron, long retired, fights Heckman, hoping to win a fat purse. Later, Archie, who’s in the most fragile of health, takes on Heckman himself. Afterward, his tumor is bleeding and he’ll almost certainly die soon, so he sets off in his sailboat for his ancestral homeland, Greece, powered by rage and alcohol. Along the way, he has further adventures, including an apparent debate and standoff with Lucifer himself. This is a highly ambitious novel—and, for many readers, it may seem to be too ambitious. Indeed, it quickly becomes an overcrowded catchall for the author’s thoughts on a very wide range of subjects, including God and morality, mortality, heroism, and present-day culture, among many other topics. To that end, there are many mini-essays herein; overall, it feels like a young man’s novel—passionate but undisciplined—and as a result, it often seems overwritten. For example, when a sad Archie impulsively plucks a flower, he immediately regrets what he’s done to it, and in the very next paragraph, the flower is referred to as “slain foliage.” Sometimes, the text contains inventive grammar, such as “the work perspired him.” On the other hand, it’s hard not to like a book that works so hard to make its points, and Archie comes off as a genuinely likable smart aleck and hero-in-training. The exchanges between him and Meaghan are affecting, with her loving and insightful but frustrated, and him, often, as dense as a post. That said, some readers may want to throw up their hands when the drunk and dying Archie imprudently sets sail for Greece. In the end, though, it somehow all works—in part, because he doesn’t wind up in Greece, after all.
A mixed bag, but this allegorical tale is definitely worth a read.Pub Date: April 6, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-692-65687-7
Page Count: 242
Publisher: Chopper Press
Review Posted Online: May 1, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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by Nora Roberts ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 13, 1995
Thoroughbreds and Virginia blue-bloods cavort, commit murder, and fall in love in Roberts's (Hidden Riches, 1994, etc.) latest romantic thriller — this one set in the world of championship horse racing. Rich, sheltered Kelsey Byden is recovering from a recent divorce when she receives a letter from her mother, Naomi, a woman she has believed dead for over 20 years. When Kelsey confronts her genteel English professor father, though, he sheepishly confesses that, no, her mother isn't dead; throughout Kelsey's childhood, she was doing time for the murder of her lover. Kelsey meets with Naomi and not only finds her quite charming, but the owner of Three Willows, one of the most splendid horse farms in Virginia. Kelsey is further intrigued when she meets Gabe Slater, a blue-eyed gambling man who owns a neighboring horse farm; when one of Gabe's horses is mated with Naomi's, nostrils flare, flanks quiver, and the romance is on. Since both Naomi and Gabe have horses entered in the Kentucky Derby, Kelsey is soon swept into the whirlwind of the Triple Crown, in spite of her family's objections to her reconciliation with the notorious Naomi. The rivalry between the two horse farms remains friendly, but other competitors — one of them is Gabe's father, a vicious alcoholic who resents his son's success — prove less scrupulous. Bodies, horse and human, start piling up, just as Kelsey decides to investigate the murky details of her mother's crime. Is it possible she was framed? The ground is thick with no-goods, including haughty patricians, disgruntled grooms, and jockeys with tragic pasts, but despite all the distractions, the identity of the true culprit behind the mayhem — past and present — remains fairly obvious. The plot lopes rather than races to the finish. Gambling metaphors abound, and sexual doings have a distinctly equine tone. But Roberts's style has a fresh, contemporary snap that gets the story past its own worst excesses.
Pub Date: June 13, 1995
ISBN: 0-399-14059-X
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 1995
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by Kristin Hannah ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 1, 2008
Dated sermonizing on career versus motherhood, and conflict driven by characters’ willed helplessness, sap this tale of...
Lifelong, conflicted friendship of two women is the premise of Hannah’s maudlin latest (Magic Hour, 2006, etc.), again set in Washington State.
Tallulah “Tully” Hart, father unknown, is the daughter of a hippie, Cloud, who makes only intermittent appearances in her life. Tully takes refuge with the family of her “best friend forever,” Kate Mularkey, who compares herself unfavorably with Tully, in regards to looks and charisma. In college, “TullyandKate” pledge the same sorority and major in communications. Tully has a life goal for them both: They will become network TV anchorwomen. Tully lands an internship at KCPO-TV in Seattle and finagles a producing job for Kate. Kate no longer wishes to follow Tully into broadcasting and is more drawn to fiction writing, but she hesitates to tell her overbearing friend. Meanwhile a love triangle blooms at KCPO: Hard-bitten, irresistibly handsome, former war correspondent Johnny is clearly smitten with Tully. Expecting rejection, Kate keeps her infatuation with Johnny secret. When Tully lands a reporting job with a Today-like show, her career shifts into hyperdrive. Johnny and Kate had started an affair once Tully moved to Manhattan, and when Kate gets pregnant with daughter Marah, they marry. Kate is content as a stay-at-home mom, but frets about being Johnny’s second choice and about her unrealized writing ambitions. Tully becomes Seattle’s answer to Oprah. She hires Johnny, which spells riches for him and Kate. But Kate’s buttons are fully depressed by pitched battles over slutwear and curfews with teenaged Marah, who idolizes her godmother Tully. In an improbable twist, Tully invites Kate and Marah to resolve their differences on her show, only to blindside Kate by accusing her, on live TV, of overprotecting Marah. The BFFs are sundered. Tully’s latest attempt to salvage Cloud fails: The incorrigible, now geriatric hippie absconds once more. Just as Kate develops a spine, she’s given some devastating news. Will the friends reconcile before it’s too late?
Dated sermonizing on career versus motherhood, and conflict driven by characters’ willed helplessness, sap this tale of poignancy.Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2008
ISBN: 978-0-312-36408-3
Page Count: 496
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2007
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