A bizarrely soulful ride through New Orleans with corporate high jinks and some mystical, unseen forces adding to the...
An oil company lawyer moves home to New Orleans and finds that his fortuneteller mother has disappeared in Clarke’s (The Worthy, 2006, etc.) novel.
Duke Melançon grew up in New Orleans, at the corner of Magazine and Napoleon, in a fancy, inherited house that his wild Cajun family has practically destroyed. His father married a Russian fortuneteller, known as Madame Melançon, and they had seven sons and one girl. The youngest son, Duke, is a corporate lawyer in the External Affairs Department for oil giant Mandala Worldwide. During an accident on a rig in the Gulf of Mexico, 50 workers died, and oil is pouring into the Gulf. The company transfers Duke and his wife and kids to New Orleans to deal with the fallout, and Duke learns of a family crisis “when their witchy mother runs out into the hot, syrupy night, chasing a calico cat.” Madame Melançon doesn’t come home, and the family launches a search effort while Duke’s new home is invaded by a gaze of raccoons. As Duke’s wife and kids flee the craziness for Houston, Duke searches for answers about his mother from colorful locals, including a Kurt Vonnegut–like homeless guy and a shady villain. An elusive necklace of gold coins may hold the key to Madame’s location as Duke tries to stay afloat with his career and his marriage. Clarke’s riotous, amusing novel parallels real events, namely the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, which does help ground a story that moves toward a moderately supernatural conclusion. The Melançons’ stomping ground, the boisterous streets of New Orleans, is described in raucous and earthy details, a perpetual morning-after that juxtaposes inebriated tourists and battered locals. The family crisis is as pressing as the oil disaster. It’s all very entertaining but also raises consequential questions about whether money can solve a moral crisis.
A bizarrely soulful ride through New Orleans with corporate high jinks and some mystical, unseen forces adding to the experience.Pub Date: July 19, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-9726588-3-6
Page Count: 354
Publisher: Middle Finger Press
Review Posted Online: July 20, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2017
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with...
Talk-show queen takes tumble as millions jeer.
Nora Bridges is a wildly popular radio spokesperson for family-first virtues, but her loyal listeners don't know that she walked out on her husband and teenaged daughters years ago and didn't look back. Now that a former lover has sold racy pix of naked Nora and horny himself to a national tabloid, her estranged daughter Ruby, an unsuccessful stand-up comic in Los Angeles, has been approached to pen a tell-all. Greedy for the fat fee she's been promised, Ruby agrees and heads for the San Juan Islands, eager to get reacquainted with the mom she plans to betray. Once in the family homestead, nasty Ruby alternately sulks and glares at her mother, who is temporarily wheelchair-bound as a result of a post-scandal car crash. Uncaring, Ruby begins writing her side of the story when she's not strolling on the beach with former sweetheart Dean Sloan, the son of wealthy socialites who basically ignored him and his gay brother Eric. Eric, now dying of cancer and also in a wheelchair, has returned to the island. This dismal threesome catch up on old times, recalling their childhood idylls on the island. After Ruby's perfect big sister Caroline shows up, there's another round of heartfelt talk. Nora gradually reveals the truth about her unloving husband and her late father's alcoholism, which led her to seek the approval of others at the cost of her own peace of mind. And so on. Ruby is aghast to discover that she doesn't know everything after all, but Dean offers her subdued comfort. Happy endings await almost everyone—except for readers of this nobly preachy snifflefest.
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with syrupy platitudes about life and love.Pub Date: March 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-609-60737-5
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2001
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
© Copyright 2026 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
