by Thomas Rayfiel ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 30, 2013
An eloquent exploration of life seen through an aging man's eyes.
The mysteries of life in a small town are beautifully told through the monologue of an old man’s musings.
Rayfiel has created a poetic world through William, his narrator, who answers questions put to him by a real or imagined, but unseen, questioner about his life and those around him in Conklingville, a town now buried beneath the deep waters of a hydroelectric dam. William imagines the town below, seen through the shimmering, moving water. Rayfiel builds a narrative around the memory of a damaged man. There is no linear storyline; it jumps and stutters, runs into beautiful thoughts and touches on the ugliness of life. William is a throwback to an earlier time: a handyman and a carter who would rather spend time with horses than people. “A horse will take on any mood whatever you feel inside that’s what animals are for they show you what you’re feeling,” he says. And William is feeling much. His family has suffered tragedy—the disappearance of his sister—and the town itself revolves around several mysteries that bring the edgy side of small-town life to the surface. William tries to connect the dots of wayward clues and memories for the man who is asking him questions offstage. Here, the unknown, the unspoken, is as strong a narrative force as the spoken. This novel is unusual in form but beautiful in delivery. Nothing on the surface is what it seems, including the narrator’s vision of God. “See the real book it’s not the bible but us maybe we’re all together one big book…and He’s reading it turning the pages…and we’re just words on a page.”
An eloquent exploration of life seen through an aging man's eyes.Pub Date: Sept. 30, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-8101-5236-6
Page Count: 280
Publisher: Northwestern Univ.
Review Posted Online: Aug. 16, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2013
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by J.D. Salinger ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 15, 1951
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
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by Kristin Hannah ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 1, 2006
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
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