A strange, unsatisfying debut.
A bunch of oddballs are transformed into customer-service representatives in this quirky first novel from British author Whiteley.
Born and raised in a fundamentalist commune, Amie knew little of the outside world before she was forced out with her father—the cult's one-time leader—for transgressions that were never explained to her. At middle age, Sam is coming to terms with the fact that the mild-mannered alter ego which once protected his identity as the Death-Defying Sputum has now become his actual identity. Meanwhile, Alma—if that's her real name—has fled Hollywood after a tell-all book and a very messy divorce have ruined her reputation and her career. These are three of the more colorful characters in Whiteley's debut. They are joined by a university drop-out who dreams of becoming a rock star; a spectacularly manipulative young chippy trying to scheme her way to the top; a onetime P.R. executive who may be a sociopath; and a serious, cynical woman who lost all of her friends in a horrible rappelling accident. This disparate group comes together in a new office building in a run-down British resort town, all of them seeking a better life through a career in customer service. Whiteley's mix of the wacky and the mundane is admirably cheeky, but the parts never quite come together to create a satisfying whole. For example, the presence of a retired superhero who once fought villains like the Fruit Bat and Feather-Tickler Woman introduces an element of the surreal into the story, but the fantasy never infects the realistic lives of the other characters. This isn't a novel so much as a bunch of underdeveloped short stories shuffled together like a deck of cards. Whiteley's observations about cubicle dwellers will be utterly familiar to anyone who has ever watched The Office or followed Dilbert in the funny pages, and the members of her large cast are not given enough space to grow into living, breathing characters.
A strange, unsatisfying debut.Pub Date: July 1, 2007
ISBN: 978-0-230-00744-4
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Macmillan UK/Trafalgar
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2007
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.
Coelho is a Brazilian writer with four books to his credit. Following Diary of a Magus (1992—not reviewed) came this book, published in Brazil in 1988: it's an interdenominational, transcendental, inspirational fable—in other words, a bag of wind.
The story is about a youth empowered to follow his dream. Santiago is an Andalusian shepherd boy who learns through a dream of a treasure in the Egyptian pyramids. An old man, the king of Salem, the first of various spiritual guides, tells the boy that he has discovered his destiny: "to realize one's destiny is a person's only real obligation." So Santiago sells his sheep, sails to Tangier, is tricked out of his money, regains it through hard work, crosses the desert with a caravan, stops at an oasis long enough to fall in love, escapes from warring tribesmen by performing a miracle, reaches the pyramids, and eventually gets both the gold and the girl. Along the way he meets an Englishman who describes the Soul of the World; the desert woman Fatima, who teaches him the Language of the World; and an alchemist who says, "Listen to your heart" A message clings like ivy to every encounter; everyone, but everyone, has to put in their two cents' worth, from the crystal merchant to the camel driver ("concentrate always on the present, you'll be a happy man"). The absence of characterization and overall blandness suggest authorship by a committee of self-improvement pundits—a far cry from Saint- Exupery's The Little Prince: that flagship of the genre was a genuine charmer because it clearly derived from a quirky, individual sensibility.
Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.Pub Date: July 1, 1993
ISBN: 0-06-250217-4
Page Count: 192
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1993
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
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