A smart and bracing ground-level exploration of the drug trade.
A young family man escapes the Great Recession by driving marijuana cross-country, raking in good money and bad vibes.
“Drive fast and swerve a lot” is the joking advice drug dealers give mules like James, an unemployed freelance journalist who begins driving pounds of weed from California to Florida to make ends meet when he and his pregnant wife fall out of work. Of course, the job involves a stressful amount of careful attention to detail, not just to the speed limit but to the type of car, its plates and the safest routes. Some early pages shoehorn in an overabundance of detail about the legal complexities of the gig, but the book is largely a propulsive and intense journey into the degradations of living in the black market. James’ story begins in the middle of 2006, the start of the U.S. economy’s latest stumble, and as the markets collapse he takes some comfort in the large wads of cash he accumulates. But happiness is fleeting and, as D’Souza reveals, ultimately inaccessible. Sub-dealers break promises, which leads to violence; the business demands keeping secrets, which slowly drives a wedge between James and his wife. The book is a departure from D’Souza’s previous two novels, 2006’s Whiteman and 2008’s The Konkans, which focused on themes of race and assimilation, but he eases comfortably into this milieu: He’s clearly studied the mechanics of the marijuana trade, and he addresses it in ways that reject the simple moral boundaries of most cinematic portrayals of drug dealers. D’Souza captures the push and pull of James’ emotions, his paranoia and his frazzled rationalizations. James has a nerviness that makes him perfect for the gig, but it’s agonizingly clear how much he sacrificed to get it.
A smart and bracing ground-level exploration of the drug trade.Pub Date: Sept. 28, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-547-57671-8
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Mariner/Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Review Posted Online: Aug. 1, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2011
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
Soft-focus story moves right along with few surprises. This time around, Hannah avoids the soap-opera complications of her...
Another middle-aged mom in a muddle.
After years of false starts and big hopes, Elizabeth’s ruggedly handsome husband Jack, a former football star, just landed a spot as a sportscaster on national news. He still loves her, even though much younger women are giving him come-hither looks. Heck, he doesn’t want to betray the love of his life after she helped him kick drugs and stuck by him even when he was a struggling has-been. And won’t it seem hypocritical if he fools around with his sexy assistant while he does in-depth reporting on a rape case involving a famous basketball center? Well, he fools around anyway. Elizabeth, nicknamed Birdie, knows nothing of this, but she withdraws from Jack when her hard-drinking, salt-of-the-earth father has a stroke and dies. Now no one will call her “sugar beet” ever again. Time to return home to Tennessee and contend with Anita, the sort-of-evil stepmother so trashy she wears pink puffy slippers all day long. Naturally, it turns out that Anita actually has a heart of gold and knows a few things about Birdie’s dead mother that were hushed up for years. Mom was an artist, just like Birdie, and an old scandal comes to light as Anita unrolls a vibrant canvas that portrays her secret lover. Perhaps, Birdie muses, her mother died of heartbreak, never having followed her true love or developed her talent. Has she, too, compromised everything she holds dear? Hoping to find out, Birdie joins a support group that promises to reconnect confused women with their passion. She and Jack separate, prompting a how-dare-you fit from their grown daughters. Will Birdie fly her empty nest? Will she go back to college for a degree in art? Will her brooding watercolors ever sell?
Soft-focus story moves right along with few surprises. This time around, Hannah avoids the soap-opera complications of her previous tales (Summer Island, 2001, etc.).Pub Date: July 1, 2002
ISBN: 0-345-45071-X
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2002
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