A laborious regurgitation of old ideas about spiritual revolution.
Two corporate climbers embark on a mind-expanding vacation in W.g.Cordaro’s debut novel.
Herb, the novel’s narrator, entered corporate America at 22 after serving in the U.S. Army and rose rapidly up the ranks of Massachusetts-based candy manufacturer Entipop. He’s frustrated by his “gray” existence, but when he meets fellow employee Weeli at an executive meeting, he immediately recognizes him as a kindred spirit. Both men were raised in nearby Brockton, although Weeli comes from a wealthier background. The two begin drinking together and “slowly turn each other on to The Revolution.” “The Revolution” is an amorphous term, as they use it, but it involves a rejection of capitalism and a voyage of self-discovery. Shortly after Herb learns that an old Army buddy has been killed by friendly fire, Weeli calls and unexpectedly suggests a vacation. Lured by his friend’s “sexy tales of Big Sky Country adventures, peyote, and Revolution,” Herb accepts, and they catch a plane with an aim to explore the “big American West.” Their spiritual journey is a largely predictable one, involving using peyote in the Utah desert and feeling a connection to the American landscape. The novel initially promises to be a thought-provoking collision of Douglas Coupland’s 2006 novel JPod, about dissatisfied office-cubicle workers, and the psychotropic experiences of Ken Kesey’s Merry Pranksters. W.g.Cordaro’s dialogue is amusingly effective, juxtaposing office geek-speak (“He…didn’t know the difference between the old mainframe green screen technologies and the new Phairyway DB2 GUI-based applications”) with crude, stoner-esque philosophy (“finger-fuck life ’till she’s finger-licking good, you hear me?”). The author also has an eye for detail but has a tendency to overdescribe. For instance, he spends a wearisome three paragraphs detailing Herb’s “mouth-mangling” habit of chewing tobacco. Regular digressions along with poetry quotations, biblical excerpts, Freudian theory, and statistics make for a sprawling novel with a plot that’s difficult to follow. It feels entrenched in 1960s counterculture, but its philosophy seems somewhat outmoded when applied to contemporary society.
A laborious regurgitation of old ideas about spiritual revolution.Pub Date: March 8, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-9974336-0-9
Page Count: 290
Publisher: Ormus Publishing
Review Posted Online: Nov. 24, 2019
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
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