An irresistibly droll portrayal of an All-American liar, loser, and innocent dominates this edgy, captivating second novel by the author of The End of Vandalism (1994). Drury’s protagonist is Paul Emmons (formerly Nash), an accountant whose hapless complicity in a money-laundering scam sets him and his wife Mary on a furtive odyssey abroad (thanks to the Witness Security Program), then frequently back to the US to gaze longingly at the New England property they own but don’t dare claim. Drury manipulates his quirky narrative expertly, flashing backward to Paul’s college days (at a Quebec diploma mill) and friendship with housemates “Loom” and Alice (who later marry) and then to his unfortunate business alliance (in Providence) with Carlo Record, one-armed president of “New England Amusements.” Paul is hired as “swing reporter” by the Ashland (Rhode Island) Sun; investigates the death of a teacher who may have committed suicide; reunites with his old roomies (and begins an affair with Alice); then is tracked down by Carlo’s musclemen and promised his life if he’ll agree to steal a valuable painting (The Black Brook) from London’s Tate Gallery. The deliciously stark denouement follows Paul’s successful plea that Mary (who’s an artist) copy the desired painting, thus duping Carlo and his surly band (who sport such wondrous monikers as Ashtray Bob, Line-Item Vito, and Hatpin Henry). This funky novel exhibits some of Thomas Berger’s genius for rendering sheer insanity in bland colloquial terms, and it bristles with off-the-wall conversational non sequiturs (“I consider you the lowest form of human garbage.—/—Well, you look good”). A deft cataloguing of outrageous behavior, presented in a deadpan style that will have readers humming with pleasure as they turn the pages. A trip and a treat. (Author tour)
Pub Date: June 30, 1998
ISBN: 0-395-70194-5
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 1998
Miller makes Homer pertinent to women facing 21st-century monsters.
A retelling of ancient Greek lore gives exhilarating voice to a witch.
“Monsters are a boon for gods. Imagine all the prayers.” So says Circe, a sly, petulant, and finally commanding voice that narrates the entirety of Miller’s dazzling second novel. The writer returns to Homer, the wellspring that led her to an Orange Prize for The Song of Achilles (2012). This time, she dips into The Odyssey for the legend of Circe, a nymph who turns Odysseus’ crew of men into pigs. The novel, with its distinctive feminist tang, starts with the sentence: “When I was born, the name for what I was did not exist.” Readers will relish following the puzzle of this unpromising daughter of the sun god Helios and his wife, Perse, who had negligible use for their child. It takes banishment to the island Aeaea for Circe to sense her calling as a sorceress: “I will not be like a bird bred in a cage, I thought, too dull to fly even when the door stands open. I stepped into those woods and my life began.” This lonely, scorned figure learns herbs and potions, surrounds herself with lions, and, in a heart-stopping chapter, outwits the monster Scylla to propel Daedalus and his boat to safety. She makes lovers of Hermes and then two mortal men. She midwifes the birth of the Minotaur on Crete and performs her own C-section. And as she grows in power, she muses that “not even Odysseus could talk his way past [her] witchcraft. He had talked his way past the witch instead.” Circe’s fascination with mortals becomes the book’s marrow and delivers its thrilling ending. All the while, the supernatural sits intriguingly alongside “the tonic of ordinary things.” A few passages coil toward melodrama, and one inelegant line after a rape seems jarringly modern, but the spell holds fast. Expect Miller’s readership to mushroom like one of Circe’s spells.
Miller makes Homer pertinent to women facing 21st-century monsters.Pub Date: April 10, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-316-55634-7
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Jan. 22, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2018
PROFILES
A modern day fable, with modern implications in a deceiving simplicity, by the author of Dickens. Dali and Others (Reynal & Hitchcock, p. 138), whose critical brilliance is well adapted to this type of satire. This tells of the revolt on a farm, against humans, when the pigs take over the intellectual superiority, training the horses, cows, sheep, etc., into acknowledging their greatness. The first hints come with the reading out of a pig who instigated the building of a windmill, so that the electric power would be theirs, the idea taken over by Napoleon who becomes topman with no maybes about it. Napoleon trains the young puppies to be his guards, dickers with humans, gradually instigates a reign of terror, and breaks the final commandment against any animal walking on two legs. The old faithful followers find themselves no better off for food and work than they were when man ruled them, learn their final disgrace when they see Napoleon and Squealer carousing with their enemies... A basic statement of the evils of dictatorship in that it not only corrupts the leaders, but deadens the intelligence and awareness of those led so that tyranny is inevitable. Mr. Orwell's animals exist in their own right, with a narrative as individual as it is apt in political parody.
Pub Date: Aug. 26, 1946
ISBN: 0452277507
Page Count: 114
Publisher: Harcourt, Brace
Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 1946
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