by Timothy Cooper ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 27, 2015
A rambling, curious, convoluted entertainment tailor-made for fans of political fiction who want a fantastical, vividly...
A political sendup skewers the presidential campaign process.
Human rights advocate and author Cooper’s (World One, 1990) opus echoes the current state of contemporary unrest in Washington, D.C., and the world at large. In the book’s preamble, dejected Democratic National Committee Chairman Jerry McClellan concedes his position in the aftermath of the 2004 presidential election, in which “George W.” emerged victorious and swiftly turned the country’s political canvas a Republican shade of red. Dejected, mourning America’s ill-fated future, and “happy to have a safe place to hide,” McClellan takes up temporary residency in a used bookstore, dusting off a copy of a novel titled My Name Is Jesus Christ and I’m Running for President, agreeing that “Jesus Christ would make for the perfect moral values candidate in 2008!!!” Cooper’s ambitious literary undertaking becomes a novel within a novel as readers follow McClellan as he devours the anonymously authored story of Jesus’ campaign for the 2020 presidency. Cooper’s serpentine narrative finds the son of God descending from the heavens into Los Angeles on Christmas Eve in 2019 on the first stop of his “Born Again Comeback Tour,” which soon becomes his 2020 campaign for president of the United States. While definitely not for religiously sensitive audiences, the author’s eccentric and often hilarious satire depicts Jesus as a deity who also embodies an Everyman. He pops vitamin B12 and D pills, attends psychotherapy sessions to process the trauma of his crucifixion, and rubs hand cream into the scars of his stigmata. Meanwhile, alternately narrating in first person, is Jesus’ hypercritical, hard-drinking, cocaine-snorting older stepbrother, who tunes into a remote live-feed to watch the Messiah’s every move from a Mexican safe house. Commenting that the charged atmosphere surrounding the deity’s revival is “a bit like watching daytime soaps,” the stepbrother sees Jesus being interviewed by the media about his intentions throughout his Second Coming and beholds the spectacle of a receiving line of Hollywood celebrities like Mel Gibson, Tom Cruise, Jennifer Lopez, and Bono. Both Arnold Schwarzenegger and Nancy Pelosi make feverish pitches to become Jesus’ disciples. Jesus is soon persuaded by the people to run for presidential office as a Democrat, but his stepbrother steps in as the opposing Republican candidate in a heated race complete with debates, Arab terrorists, and Stephen Colbert. This melodrama more closely resembles a whirlwind kaleidoscopic fever dream than a campaign trail chronology. By incorporating both first-person narratives of Jesus and his malevolent stepbrother, the novel becomes a unique and humorous political caricature parodying the country’s electoral process, its numerous hypocrisies and mudslinging behaviors, and (if thinly veiled) Donald Trump’s cabinet selection process. The rousing tale’s drawbacks, which include its meandering exposition and numerous typographical errors (“River Jordon”; “Long Ranger’s”; “Katherine Hepburn”), will perhaps be forgiven by readers enthralled by Cooper’s creatively inspired grasp on the concept of farcical political lampooning.
A rambling, curious, convoluted entertainment tailor-made for fans of political fiction who want a fantastical, vividly realized escape from the bizarro reality of contemporary government.Pub Date: June 27, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-9619914-3-2
Page Count: 554
Publisher: Americus Press
Review Posted Online: Jan. 4, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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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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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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