by W. E. Smith ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 1, 2017
A timely environmental tale with a strong cast.
Native Americans in Arizona oppose a mining operation in this ecological novel.
Tom Rogers, a semicommitted environmentalist, is the editor of the Halston Gazette in southern Arizona. Unfortunately the paper’s owner/publisher is Tom’s father, “the Rhino,” a domineering, self-made right-winger. (The Rhino bought the paper to give his floundering son some purpose.) Tom’s one reporter is Dilip Chakraborty, an Indian immigrant and a tenacious newshound. And Tom’s love interest is Jinny, a talented (and of course beautiful) artist of mixed Navajo and Tohono O’odham descent. Other characters drift in and out like static on a bad radio station. The setup is that an Australian concern wants to level a mountain sacred to the Tohono O’odham for open-pit copper mining. And the Native Americans are not alone in their opposition. Still, the fix seems to be in. That is until bulldog Dilip gets his teeth into it. Readers also have the love story of Tom and Jinny—Jinny’s ex-husband is a “skinwalker,” a shape-shifting medicine man—and a lot of helpful background in Southwestern history and geography. (There is a standoff with the ex-husband in Canyon de Chelly.) The book is narrated in retrospect by Tom from his cabin on the Mogollon Rim, where he has retreated to lick his wounds, which is a good delaying device for the story. Smith—who also writes under the name Moose Eliot (Heaven Help Us All, 2013, etc.)—sets his tale in an intriguing locale both geographically and culturally. He keeps the story moving, and the writing has its moments, though it can get precious (“volupt” for voluptuous?). But his love of the Southwestern landscape comes through. His vivid descriptions transcend tourism clichés (“We…looked into what seemed the basement of the world. Miniature-seeming stands of juniper and mesquite dotted the soft, tan earth of the Canyon’s broad floor….Embracing all, rising all around, towering sandstone cliffs ran from clay red to dark ochres; taller than skyscrapers, they were unreal in their lithic grandeur”). But given the nature of the story’s theme, nuance is not Smith’s strong suit. That is, the rants on both sides sometimes seem scripted and stilted. But that comes with the (ecological) territory. Ultimately, he succeeds in making his characters three-dimensional, not just cardboard cutouts. So there is much to recommend in these pages, a book that’s earnest without being dead earnest.
A timely environmental tale with a strong cast.Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-9984847-0-9
Page Count: 330
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Dec. 18, 2017
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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by Kristin Hannah ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 1, 2006
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.
Sisters work together to solve a child-abandonment case.
Ellie and Julia Cates have never been close. Julia is shy and brainy; Ellie gets by on charm and looks. Their differences must be tossed aside when a traumatized young girl wanders in from the forest into their hometown in Washington. The sisters’ professional skills are put to the test. Julia is a world-renowned child psychologist who has lost her edge. She is reeling from a case that went publicly sour. Though she was cleared of all wrongdoing, Julia’s name was tarnished, forcing her to shutter her Beverly Hills practice. Ellie Barton is the local police chief in Rain Valley, who’s never faced a tougher case. This is her chance to prove she is more than just a fading homecoming queen, but a scarcity of clues and a reluctant victim make locating the girl’s parents nearly impossible. Ellie places an SOS call to her sister; she needs an expert to rehabilitate this wild-child who has been living outside of civilization for years. Confronted with her professional demons, Julia once again has the opportunity to display her talents and salvage her reputation. Hannah (The Things We Do for Love, 2004, etc.) is at her best when writing from the girl’s perspective. The feral wolf-child keeps the reader interested long after the other, transparent characters have grown tiresome. Hannah’s torturously over-written romance passages are stale, but there are surprises in store as the sisters set about unearthing Alice’s past and creating a home for her.
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.Pub Date: March 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-345-46752-3
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2005
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by J.D. Salinger ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 15, 1951
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.
A violent surfacing of adolescence (which has little in common with Tarkington's earlier, broadly comic, Seventeen) has a compulsive impact.
"Nobody big except me" is the dream world of Holden Caulfield and his first person story is down to the basic, drab English of the pre-collegiate. For Holden is now being bounced from fancy prep, and, after a vicious evening with hall- and roommates, heads for New York to try to keep his latest failure from his parents. He tries to have a wild evening (all he does is pay the check), is terrorized by the hotel elevator man and his on-call whore, has a date with a girl he likes—and hates, sees his 10 year old sister, Phoebe. He also visits a sympathetic English teacher after trying on a drunken session, and when he keeps his date with Phoebe, who turns up with her suitcase to join him on his flight, he heads home to a hospital siege. This is tender and true, and impossible, in its picture of the old hells of young boys, the lonesomeness and tentative attempts to be mature and secure, the awful block between youth and being grown-up, the fright and sickness that humans and their behavior cause the challenging, the dramatization of the big bang. It is a sorry little worm's view of the off-beat of adult pressure, of contemporary strictures and conformity, of sentiment….
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.Pub Date: June 15, 1951
ISBN: 0316769177
Page Count: -
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1951
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