Ansa's second Lena McPherson novel (after Baby of the Family, 1989) is short on plot and long on rhapsodic descriptions of the worshipped Lena. When the Big Flood of '94 hits Mulberry, Georgia, none of Mulberry's residents are surprised when Lena McPherson escapes disaster-free. Of course, no one resents her either; the 45-year- old Lena is beautiful, rich, intelligent, outfitted in couture clothing, and good down to the very bottom of her soul. Her business prowess is legendary, her philanthropy an accepted fact, and her bar/restaurant, The Place, which she inherited from her parents, is the hottest spot around. So the town idolizes her, children and adults alike—but no one can really understand why Lena doesn't ``have a man of her own.'' What they don't know (although they do know that Lena has been marked since birth as ``special'' because she was born with ``a veil''—a piece of fetal membrane—over her face) is that Lena is in love, with a recently appeared spirit named Herman that only she can see or feel. In fact, she's happier than ever. Herman is the man she's been dreaming of: He cooks dinner, waits for her to get home from work, takes evening swims with her. He even encourages her to do more with her blessings—as in the home she opens for needy children and adolescents. Of course, the Herman situation eventually comes to a head—it's hard to live in the real world with a spirit for a lover—but Lena ends up the richer for her yearlong affair, in more ways than one. Ansa writes energetically, colorfully, even evocatively at times (after closing, she can ``almost touch their backs [The Place's regulars] like taps for the draft beer'' as she passes their stools,) but boy-meets-girl is the extent of the story here, and in the end it's just not enough. (First printing of 100,000; author tour)
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 1996
ISBN: 0-385-47599-3
Page Count: 464
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 1996
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
King handles his first novel with considerable accomplishment and very little hokum—it's only too easy to believe that these...
Figuratively and literally shattering moments of hoRRRRRipilication in Chamberlain, Maine where stones fly from the sky rather than from the hands of the villagers (as they did in "The Lottery," although the latter are equal to other forms of persecution).
All beginning when Carrie White discovers a gift with telekinetic powers (later established as a genetic fact), after she menstruates in full ignorance of the process and thinks she is bleeding to death while the other monsters in the high school locker room bait and bully her mercilessly. Carrie is the only child of a fundamentalist freak mother who has brought her up with a concept of sin which no blood of the Lamb can wash clean. In addition to a sympathetic principal and gym teacher, there's one girl who wishes to atone and turns her date for the spring ball over to Carrie who for the first time is happy, beautiful and acknowledged as such. But there will be hell to pay for this success—not only her mother but two youngsters who douse her in buckets of fresh-killed pig blood so that Carrie once again uses her "wild talent," flexes her mind and a complete catastrophe (explosion and an uncontrolled fire) virtually destroys the town.
King handles his first novel with considerable accomplishment and very little hokum—it's only too easy to believe that these youngsters who once ate peanut butter now scrawl "Carrie White eats shit." But as they still say around here, "Sit a spell and collect yourself."Pub Date: April 8, 1974
ISBN: 0385086954
Page Count: 216
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Sept. 26, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 1974
PERSPECTIVES
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
A first novel, this is also a first person account of Scout's (Jean Louise) recall of the years that led to the ending of a mystery, the breaking of her brother Jem's elbow, the death of her father's enemy — and the close of childhood years. A widower, Atticus raises his children with legal dispassion and paternal intelligence, and is ably abetted by Calpurnia, the colored cook, while the Alabama town of Maycomb, in the 1930's, remains aloof to their divergence from its tribal patterns. Scout and Jem, with their summer-time companion, Dill, find their paths free from interference — but not from dangers; their curiosity about the imprisoned Boo, whose miserable past is incorporated in their play, results in a tentative friendliness; their fears of Atticus' lack of distinction is dissipated when he shoots a mad dog; his defense of a Negro accused of raping a white girl, Mayella Ewell, is followed with avid interest and turns the rabble whites against him. Scout is the means of averting an attack on Atticus but when he loses the case it is Boo who saves Jem and Scout by killing Mayella's father when he attempts to murder them. The shadows of a beginning for black-white understanding, the persistent fight that Scout carries on against school, Jem's emergence into adulthood, Calpurnia's quiet power, and all the incidents touching on the children's "growing outward" have an attractive starchiness that keeps this southern picture pert and provocative. There is much advance interest in this book; it has been selected by the Literary Guild and Reader's Digest; it should win many friends.
Pub Date: July 11, 1960
ISBN: 0060935464
Page Count: 323
Publisher: Lippincott
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1960
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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