Collins, author of The Rationalist (1994), a Booker contender, shows himself once again to be a daring, unconventional, accomplished writer, with a quirky story of the life and times of a London public toilet. Ez Murphy, far from his Jamaican home, is glad to have any job in the white man's world, even if it's cleaning urinals and stalls. He takes his new job seriously, learning the ropes from his supervisor Reynolds and co-worker Jason, who, like him, have emigrated from Jamaica, but before long he discovers that not all the business in the stalls is what it should be. Ez's place of employment is also a popular spot for ``cottaging,'' the euphemistic term for gay sex used by the white lady from the local Council, which runs the toilet, when she drops in to inform Reynolds and his crew that their cleaning duties now extend to the moral as well as the physical sphere. They oblige by installing a fake surveillance camera—and in a matter of weeks the toilet's turnstile receipts drop by half. Back comes the lady, to inform them that with the decline in income one of them now must be let go, a cold act of white hypocrisy in the face of a job too well done. This prompts Rastaman Jason, already stung by having found a black man servicing a white in the course of their clean-up, to quit and go back to Jamaica. Ez sticks it out with Reynolds, and when the Councilwoman returns yet again with the news that the toilet is to be closed, the two join meager resources to rent the place as their own business, keeping it open and returning it to prosperity by making a few eminently practical, and highly tolerant, decisions. A deceptively simple tale with an unorthodox setting and near- zero commercial potential, Collins's novel covers considerable social ground in a brief span—and is eminently successful.
Pub Date: April 1, 1997
ISBN: 0-7145-3028-X
Page Count: 128
Publisher: Marion Boyars
Review Posted Online: May 20, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1997
Categories: GENERAL FICTION
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BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Debut novel by hip-hop rap artist Sister Souljah, whose No Disrespect (1994), which mixes sexual history with political diatribe, is popular in schools country-wide. In its way, this is a tour de force of black English and underworld slang, as finely tuned to its heroine’s voice as Alice Walker’s The Color Purple. The subject matter, though, has a certain flashiness, like a black Godfather family saga, and the heroine’s eventual fall develops only glancingly from her character. Born to a 14-year-old mother during one of New York’s worst snowstorms, Winter Santiaga is the teenaged daughter of Ricky Santiaga, Brooklyn’s top drug dealer, who lives like an Arab prince and treats his wife and four daughters like a queen and her princesses. Winter lost her virginity at 12 and now focuses unwaveringly on varieties of adolescent self-indulgence: sex and sugar-daddies, clothes, and getting her own way. She uses school only as a stepping-stone for getting out of the house—after all, nobody’s paying her to go there. But if there’s no money in it, why go? Meanwhile, Daddy decides it’s time to move out of Brooklyn to truly fancy digs on Long Island, though this places him in the discomfiting position of not being absolutely hands-on with his dealers; and sure enough the rise of some young Turks leads to his arrest. Then he does something really stupid: he murders his wife’s two weak brothers in jail with him on Riker’s Island and gets two consecutive life sentences. Winter’s then on her own, especially with Bullet, who may have replaced her dad as top hood, though when she selfishly fails to help her pregnant buddy Simone, there’s worse—much worse—to come. Thinness aside: riveting stuff, with language so frank it curls your hair. (Author tour)
Pub Date: April 1, 1999
ISBN: 0-671-02578-3
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Pocket
Review Posted Online: May 20, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1999
Categories: GENERAL FICTION
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A love letter to the power of books and friendship.
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Women become horseback librarians in 1930s Kentucky and face challenges from the landscape, the weather, and the men around them.
Alice thought marrying attractive American Bennett Van Cleve would be her ticket out of her stifling life in England. But when she and Bennett settle in Baileyville, Kentucky, she realizes that her life consists of nothing more than staying in their giant house all day and getting yelled at by his unpleasant father, who owns a coal mine. She’s just about to resign herself to a life of boredom when an opportunity presents itself in the form of a traveling horseback library—an initiative from Eleanor Roosevelt meant to counteract the devastating effects of the Depression by focusing on literacy and learning. Much to the dismay of her husband and father-in-law, Alice signs up and soon learns the ropes from the library’s leader, Margery. Margery doesn’t care what anyone thinks of her, rejects marriage, and would rather be on horseback than in a kitchen. And even though all this makes Margery a town pariah, Alice quickly grows to like her. Along with several other women (including one black woman, Sophia, whose employment causes controversy in a town that doesn’t believe black and white people should be allowed to use the same library), Margery and Alice supply magazines, Bible stories, and copies of books like Little Women to the largely poor residents who live in remote areas. Alice spends long days in terrible weather on horseback, but she finally feels happy in her new life in Kentucky, even as her marriage to Bennett is failing. But her powerful father-in-law doesn’t care for Alice’s job or Margery’s lifestyle, and he’ll stop at nothing to shut their library down. Basing her novel on the true story of the Pack Horse Library Project established by the Works Progress Administration in the 1930s, Moyes (Still Me, 2018, etc.) brings an often forgotten slice of history to life. She writes about Kentucky with lush descriptions of the landscape and tender respect for the townspeople, most of whom are poor, uneducated, and grateful for the chance to learn. Although Alice and Margery both have their own romances, the true power of the story is in the bonds between the women of the library. They may have different backgrounds, but their commitment to helping the people of Baileyville brings them together.
A love letter to the power of books and friendship.Pub Date: Oct. 8, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-399-56248-8
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Pamela Dorman/Viking
Review Posted Online: July 1, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2019
Categories: GENERAL FICTION | HISTORICAL FICTION | FAMILY LIFE & FRIENDSHIP
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SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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