An imaginative if only fitfully satisfying collection.
McKenzie incorporates Eastern philosophical concepts into this assemblage of speculative tales.
In “A Ghost Story,” one of the pieces in this quirky collection, a married man goes on his yearly solo retreat to a remote beach community to walk, read, and meditate. When strange things start occurring in his rented cottage—utensils stick together, furniture is found stacked in strange piles—the man realizes he might not be alone. In “The Day the Children Remembered,” children across the globe are born with memories they should not possess. It soon becomes apparent that people are beginning to remember their past lives, a trend that completely upends society: “Episodes from their life before would at first appear like flashes or pieces to a puzzle. It was only when they reached a certain age—usually during the height of their teenage years—that the puzzle pieces would begin to fit together and show a pattern.” And in “Like a Man With his Hair on Fire,” a swami rumored to have many extraordinary abilities refuses to share them with anyone other than followers who are “like a man with his hair on fire looking for a pool of water.” On a trip to North America, however, he is confronted by an unworthy student who won’t take no for an answer. In these nine stories, McKenzie skirts the edge of the fantastic, from virtual reality to hidden patterns in paintings to the afterlife, to see what lessons are to be learned there. The author’s prose is simple and smooth, reminiscent in tone of the SF fables of Ted Chiang: “Suddenly, scientists and academics in all fields, from psychology to biology, were expressing their expert opinions in the abstract area of metaphysics, and specifically, on reincarnation—concepts that just years ago couldn’t even be mentioned without fear of reprisal from their colleagues.” Most of the stories feature Indian religious concepts like karma, samsara, or the quest for enlightenment. A streak of didacticism seems to run through McKenzie’s project—perhaps because of this, most of the stories don’t quite land. Even so, fans of a certain stripe of mysticism-tinged fiction will find much to enjoy.
An imaginative if only fitfully satisfying collection.Pub Date: March 1, 2024
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: 175
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: Jan. 22, 2024
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
These letters from some important executive Down Below, to one of the junior devils here on earth, whose job is to corrupt mortals, are witty and written in a breezy style seldom found in religious literature. The author quotes Luther, who said: "The best way to drive out the devil, if he will not yield to texts of Scripture, is to jeer and flout him, for he cannot bear scorn." This the author does most successfully, for by presenting some of our modern and not-so-modern beliefs as emanating from the devil's headquarters, he succeeds in making his reader feel like an ass for ever having believed in such ideas. This kind of presentation gives the author a tremendous advantage over the reader, however, for the more timid reader may feel a sense of guilt after putting down this book. It is a clever book, and for the clever reader, rather than the too-earnest soul.
Pub Date: Jan. 1, 1942
ISBN: 0060652934
Page Count: 53
Publisher: Macmillan
Review Posted Online: Oct. 17, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1943
An illuminating read for anyone interested in the inner workings of the Catholic Church; for prelate-fiction superfans, it...
Harris, creator of grand, symphonic thrillers from Fatherland (1992) to An Officer and a Spy (2014), scores with a chamber piece of a novel set in the Vatican in the days after a fictional pope dies.
Fictional, yes, but the nameless pontiff has a lot in common with our own Francis: he’s famously humble, shunning the lavish Apostolic Palace for a small apartment, and he is committed to leading a church that engages with the world and its problems. In the aftermath of his sudden death, rumors circulate about the pope’s intention to fire certain cardinals. At the center of the action is Cardinal Lomeli, Dean of the College of Cardinals, whose job it is to manage the conclave that will elect a new pope. He believes it is also his duty to uncover what the pope knew before he died because some of the cardinals in question are in the running to succeed him. “In the running” is an apt phrase because, as described by Harris, the papal conclave is the ultimate political backroom—albeit a room, the Sistine Chapel, covered with Michelangelo frescoes. Vying for the papal crown are an African cardinal whom many want to see as the first black pope, a press-savvy Canadian, an Italian arch-conservative (think Cardinal Scalia), and an Italian liberal who wants to continue the late pope’s campaign to modernize the church. The novel glories in the ancient rituals that constitute the election process while still grounding that process in the real world: the Sistine Chapel is fitted with jamming devices to thwart electronic eavesdropping, and the pressure to act quickly is increased because “rumours that the pope is dead are already trending on social media.”
An illuminating read for anyone interested in the inner workings of the Catholic Church; for prelate-fiction superfans, it is pure temptation.Pub Date: Nov. 22, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-451-49344-6
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Sept. 6, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2016
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