A remarkable collection that fans of literary short fiction should deeply enjoy.
A decades-spanning volume of short stories depicts the foibles of family and culture.
Rangel-Ribeiro (Baroque Music: A Practical Guide for the Performer, 2016, etc.) follows the lives of Indians at home and abroad in this thematically linked collection. The first two sections of the book, set in Goa and Mumbai, track characters as they navigate the shifting landscape between tradition and modernity. In the title story, the town of Tivolem is forced to deal with a local thief who can’t help himself from stealing—in obvious fashion—the possessions of his neighbors. In “Moon Dance,” two impoverished aristocrats argue over money in an antique carriage on the way home from a fair. In “Night Encounter,” a student’s viewing of a salacious American film inspires him to wander the Bombay streets at night, searching for adventure: “The papers said you had only to step out into the streets of an evening to be accosted by painted houris; pimps would sidle up to passersby, offering illicit pleasures. Had he somehow picked the wrong time, or the wrong day?” The final section is set in New York and concerns the experiences of Indian immigrants and their families as they assimilate into the American melting pot. In “A Kiss for Nandini,” a white American wedding crasher stumbles into an Indian wedding and falls for the eponymous bridesmaid. In “Lonely Aging Chinese-American New York Neighbor Lady,” an elderly Indian widow arrives in New York to live with her son and becomes fascinated by her Chinese neighbor across the street. Rangel-Ribeiro’s prose is lush and funny and perfectly captures the parochial worldviews of his vivid characters. The appealing collection represents the author’s work going back to 1949, and most of these tales feel distinctly like they are from another time. This works in their favor as old settings, expressions, and ways of telling a story combine perfectly into the short fiction equivalent of comfort food. Standouts include “Angel Wings,” “Loving Ayesha,” “How I Missed My Chance to Become a Real Porn Star,” and “Uncle Prabhu’s Special Y2K Party.”
A remarkable collection that fans of literary short fiction should deeply enjoy.Pub Date: March 11, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-9977797-1-4
Page Count: 238
Publisher: Serving House Books
Review Posted Online: Oct. 21, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2017
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles...
Sisters in and out of love.
Meghann Dontess is a high-powered matrimonial lawyer in Seattle who prefers sex with strangers to emotional intimacy: a strategy bound to backfire sooner or later, warns her tough-talking shrink. It’s advice Meghann decides to ignore, along with the memories of her difficult childhood, neglectful mother, and younger sister. Though she managed to reunite Claire with Sam Cavenaugh (her father but not Meghann’s) when her mother abandoned both girls long ago, Meghann still feels guilty that her sister’s life doesn’t measure up, at least on her terms. Never married, Claire ekes out a living running a country campground with her dad and is raising her six-year-old daughter on her own. When she falls in love for the first time with an up-and-coming country musician, Meghann is appalled: Bobby Austin is a three-time loser at marriage—how on earth can Claire be so blind? Bobby’s blunt explanation doesn’t exactly satisfy the concerned big sister, who busies herself planning Claire’s dream wedding anyway. And, to relieve the stress, she beds various guys she picks up in bars, including Dr. Joe Wyatt, a neurosurgeon turned homeless drifter after the demise of his beloved wife Diane (whom he euthanized). When Claire’s awful headache turns out to be a kind of brain tumor known among neurologists as a “terminator,” Joe rallies. Turns out that Claire had befriended his wife on her deathbed, and now in turn he must try to save her. Is it too late? Will Meghann find true love at last?
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles (Distant Shores, 2002, etc.). Kudos for skipping the snifflefest this time around.Pub Date: May 1, 2003
ISBN: 0-345-45073-6
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2003
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