It would be agreeable to report that Tryon's last go at the supernatural was on par with his occult classic, The Other (1971)- -agreeable, but untrue. The author, who died in 1991, left behind this all-too- obvious, often sentimental fable that lacks both suspenseful horrors and plausible surprises. In New York City, one-eyed Max Wurlitzer (the latter-day embodiment of miracle workers dating back before Merlin) literally stumbles across Michael Hawke, a young charmer whose ambition is to become the world's greatest magician. For now, though, Michael works as a street performer; on one fateful day, his act irritates the sinister Max, who turns him momentarily into a frog. The brief encounter sends Michael—against the concerned counsel of flutist Emily Chang, his enchanting ladylove—in pursuit of the monocular magus. As Max intended all along, Michael finally makes contact with and apprentices himself to the sorcerer, who presides over the down-at-heel Little Cairo Museum of Wonders on Manhattan's West Side. In thrall to the ageless wizard, who instructs his heir-apparent in stage conjuring and the blacker arts of night magic, Michael forsakes his friends and Emily, who nonetheless manages to join Max's theater troupe. All but oblivious to those around them, the master and his student single-mindedly prepare for a grand-finale performance at which Michael will claim his tutor's wand. Before he can do so, however, he must survive a daunting test of his new powers in an apocalyptic climax that pits him against Max in the necromantic equivalent of mortal combat. Emily succumbs during the dramatic proceedings, Max departs for whatever sector of the astral plane is reserved for retired spellbinders, and Michael is left (without illusions) to count the cost of reaching his goal. A prosaic take on a Faustian bargain that has precious little resonance in an age where virtual reality is fast becoming a norm.
Pub Date: May 1, 1995
ISBN: 0-684-80393-3
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 1995
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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