Entertaining and emotionally raw.
A tale of two young men–one drawn to the life of the body, the other to the cloth–who find friendship in their shared pain and search for connection.
The story–with echoes of Hermann Hesse’s Narcissus and Goldmund–begins in the early days of World War II when Brother Dominic, a monastery doctor, discovers a baby abandoned in the nearby forest. Despite the threat of emotional ties and worldly contamination, the Abbot allows the child to be raised in the monastery, and the boy, Steven, soon becomes the darling of the cloister. After the war, with the countryside full of parentless children, the monks turn the monastery into an orphanage, testing the limits of their self-discipline. It’s then that pious, sheltered Steven meets his soul mate in Michael, a rebellious artist. Steven’s paternal relationship with Dominic, his sexuality and his belief in God are all tested by the irreverent Michael. Though the story attempts to track the lives of these two men, the narrative diverges quickly and refocuses on Michael. While Steven remains at the monastery, Michael travels to London to pursue a career as an artist, but heartache and drugs soon destroy his ambition. After a period of hard living, he returns to the monastery to dry out. There, Steven cares tirelessly for his friend, nursing him through withdrawal as he guides him back to his art. Wilkerson ably illuminates the tumult of Michael’s descent into addiction, but gives less attention to Steven’s quiet spiritual journey. At times, the story is unbalanced and glosses over a more complex examination of the men’s sexuality and the trespass of the modern world on monastery life. The provocative descriptions of Michael’s journey anchor the tale firmly in the temporal world, but the serene prose, charged action and sensuality of the characters compensate for the abrupt leaps in plot. Though failing to capture a sense of place–either 1960s London, or the imposed rigidity of the monastery–the author offers an intriguing glimpse into the inner lives of these two uncompromising men.
Entertaining and emotionally raw.Pub Date: May 1, 2007
ISBN: 978-0-9676643-1-6
Page Count: -
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 27, 2010
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
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
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
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
APPRECIATIONS
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