Funny, suspenseful, scary and, most importantly, the best portrayal of an American Innocent since Forrest Gump.
An endearing simpleton blunders into the War on Terror in this blistering satire, the second novel by the pseudonymous Australian author of The Dolphin People.
Meet Odell Deefus, a white guy with a black name, as he puts it. He’s a big fellow, slow on the uptake, but real proud of his greatest achievement, reading that Rawlings classic The Yearling 16 times. The 21-year-old is on his way to join the Army when his ancient Chevy expires near Callisto, Kan. He’s offered shelter at a desolate farmhouse by Dean Lowry, as mean as Odell is good-natured. A misunderstanding causes Odell to accidentally kill his host with a baseball bat. There’s another dead body in the house: Odell finds Dean’s Aunt Bree in the freezer. The hole Dean had dug for her in the yard will serve for him, though Odell will have to move the body six times to avoid detection. Through it all he is contrite but stoic. He reports the missing Dean and his aunt’s death to the cops, but his small fib about Dean’s association with Muslims leads to FBI and Homeland Security involvement and a nationwide hunt for the presumed terrorist, while Odell himself becomes a suspect. The busy plot also involves an evangelical preacher linked to a right-wing Presidential contender, and Dean’s sister Lorraine, a hard-as-nails prison guard who’s part of a drug-smuggling ring. The inexperienced sentimentalist Odell had had a massive crush on Condoleezza Rice; now he falls for Lorraine. The story rolls along as Krol nicely balances humor and menace. Odell, the “starry-eyed baby bird that just fell out of the nest,” has some close calls but lands on his feet. All that changes when he is sent to a tropical base (Guantánamo); the caper aspect disappears in this horribly believable hell, where the world’s most unlikely terrorist is put through the wringer.
Funny, suspenseful, scary and, most importantly, the best portrayal of an American Innocent since Forrest Gump.Pub Date: March 1, 2009
ISBN: 978-0-06-167294-1
Page Count: 464
Publisher: Perennial/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2008
BOOK REVIEW
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
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with...
Talk-show queen takes tumble as millions jeer.
Nora Bridges is a wildly popular radio spokesperson for family-first virtues, but her loyal listeners don't know that she walked out on her husband and teenaged daughters years ago and didn't look back. Now that a former lover has sold racy pix of naked Nora and horny himself to a national tabloid, her estranged daughter Ruby, an unsuccessful stand-up comic in Los Angeles, has been approached to pen a tell-all. Greedy for the fat fee she's been promised, Ruby agrees and heads for the San Juan Islands, eager to get reacquainted with the mom she plans to betray. Once in the family homestead, nasty Ruby alternately sulks and glares at her mother, who is temporarily wheelchair-bound as a result of a post-scandal car crash. Uncaring, Ruby begins writing her side of the story when she's not strolling on the beach with former sweetheart Dean Sloan, the son of wealthy socialites who basically ignored him and his gay brother Eric. Eric, now dying of cancer and also in a wheelchair, has returned to the island. This dismal threesome catch up on old times, recalling their childhood idylls on the island. After Ruby's perfect big sister Caroline shows up, there's another round of heartfelt talk. Nora gradually reveals the truth about her unloving husband and her late father's alcoholism, which led her to seek the approval of others at the cost of her own peace of mind. And so on. Ruby is aghast to discover that she doesn't know everything after all, but Dean offers her subdued comfort. Happy endings await almost everyone—except for readers of this nobly preachy snifflefest.
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with syrupy platitudes about life and love.Pub Date: March 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-609-60737-5
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2001
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