Wickedly hilarious celebration of a typical, if slightly despicable, American family's blithe destruction at the hands of a satanic computer genius posing as the caretaker of a vast East Hampton estate. This time out, Simpson (The Fingerprints of Armless Mike, 1996, etc.) applies his Fay Weldonlike obsessions with modern evil to the particulars of the American have-it-all dream. The Hendersons, a good-looking clan of suburban strivers, are suddenly handed everything they could desire. Recruited as a one-man sales force for a heavily capitalized marketing firm, Gunn Henderson, a handsome, athletic, gun-collecting smoothie who can sell only to people he hates, takes his handsome wife Samantha, their sweetly innocent eight-year-old daughter and their obnoxiously rebellious teenager son to live in an enormous mansion at the far eastern edge of Long Island. The mansion, and its quirky staff, as well as a $250,000 salary, golf-club memberships, a limousine, and paid tuitions at private schools, are perks for Gunn, who hits the road to sell a ridiculous fad toy to five-and-dimes, leaving Samantha with nothing much to do but watch Brady, the estate's handsome, blue-eyed, oh-so-sensitive caretaker, swim nude in the pool. As Samantha is drawn to Brady (who is also our satanic computer genius), Gunn indulges himself on the road, falling in lust, then love, with his silicone-enhanced ``business associate'' Nita Garrett. Garrett, along with just about everyone else in this cynical tale, is part of Brady's elaborate, hi-tech revenge on teenager Gunn's father. Simple revenge, however, is not enough. Brady is also adapting his plot as a new computer game with the Hendersons as characters. Alas, though, the same flaws that make the family so gleefully corruptible must, in the end, bring Brady down, but not before Simpson can show how generous helpings of passion, sex, and luxury make fools of so many of us mortals. Trashy, nasty, and fun.
Pub Date: Feb. 1, 1998
ISBN: 0-553-10052-1
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Bantam
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 1998
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Though the novel eventually begins to sag under the weight of all its plot elements, fans of the psychological thriller will...
A pathological liar, a woman in a coma, a childhood diary, an imaginary friend, an evil sister—this is an unreliable-narrator novel with all the options.
"A lot of people would think I have a dream job, but nightmares are dreams too." Was it only a week ago Amber Reynolds thought her job as an assistant radio presenter was a nightmare? Now it's Dec. 26 (or Boxing Day, because we're in England), and she's lying in a hospital bed seemingly in a coma, fully conscious but unable to speak or move. We won't learn what caused her condition until the end of the book, and the journey to that revelation will be complicated by many factors. One: She doesn't remember her accident. Two: As she confesses immediately, "Sometimes I lie." Three: It's a story so complicated that even after the truth is exposed, it will take a while to get it straight in your head. As Amber lies in bed recalling the events of the week that led to her accident, several other narrative threads kick up in parallel. In the present, she's visited in her hospital room by her husband, a novelist whose affections she has come to doubt. Also her sister, with whom she shares a dark secret, and a nasty ex-boyfriend whom she ran into in the street the week before. He works as a night porter at the hospital, giving him unfortunate access to her paralyzed but not insensate body. Interwoven with these sections are portions of a diary, recounting unhappy events that happened 25 years earlier from a 9-year-old child's point of view. Feeney has loaded her maiden effort with possibilities for twists and reveals—possibly more than strictly necessary—and they hit like a hailstorm in the last third of the book. Blackmail, forgery, secret video cameras, rape, poisoning, arson, and failing to put on a seat belt all play a role.
Though the novel eventually begins to sag under the weight of all its plot elements, fans of the psychological thriller will enjoy this ambitious debut.Pub Date: March 13, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-250-14484-3
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Flatiron Books
Review Posted Online: Feb. 19, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2018
Striking a far less hysterical tone than in The Shining, King has written his most sweeping horror novel in The Stand, though it may lack the spinal jingles of Salem's Lot. In part this is because The Stand, with its flow of hundreds of brand-name products, is a kind of inventory of American culture. "Superflu" has hit the U.S. and the world, rapidly wiping out the whole of civilization—excepting the one-half of one percent who are immune. Superflu is a virus with a shifting antigen base; that is, it can kill every type of antibody the human organism can muster against it. Immunity seems to be a gift from God—or the Devil. The Devil himself has become embodied in a clairvoyant called Randall Flagg, a phantom-y fellow who walks highways and is known variously as "the dark man" or "the Walking Dude" and who has set up a new empire in Las Vegas where he rules by fear, his hair giving off sparks while he floats in the lotus position. He is very angry because the immune folks in the Free Zone up at Boulder have sent a small force against him; they get their message from Him (God) through a dying black crone named Abigail, who is also clairvoyant. There are only four in this Boulder crew, led by Stu Redman from East Texas, who is in love with pregnant Fran back in the Free Zone. Good and Evil come to an atomic clash at the climax, the Book of Revelations working itself out rather too explicitly. But more importantly, there are memorable scenes of the superflu spreading hideously, Fifth Avenue choked with dead cars, Flagg's minions putting up fresh lightbulbs all over Vegas. . . . Some King fans will be put off by the pretensions here; most will embrace them along with the earthier chilis.
Pub Date: Nov. 3, 1978
ISBN: 0307743683
Page Count: 1450
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Sept. 26, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 1978
PERSPECTIVES
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
© Copyright 2026 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
