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KISSING THE VIRGIN’S MOUTH

Name: KISSING THE VIRGIN’S MOUTH
Author: Donna M. Gershten
ISBN: 0-06-018567-8

by Donna M. Gershten ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 2, 2001

Another in that appealing line of grace-under-pressure heroines. Gershten’s first is also the first to win Barbara...

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An impressive debut about a strong woman often knocked down but never dragged out.

Guadalupe Magdalena Molina Vasquez ("Magda") was born into a culture that didn't value her. In her hardscrabble section of Mexico, females cooked, cleaned, nursed, fulfilled their sexual obligations, cooperated in reproducing the species, and obeyed masculine directives no matter how mindless. Outside of that, they were expected to keep their mouths shut and go to church a lot. From the beginning, though, it was clear that Magda Vasquez was subversive. Brainy, plucky, instinctively rebellious—and drop-dead beautiful—she always knew that Teatlán couldn't hold her and that whatever trick or exploitation she might resort to was legitimized by the requirements of the life force: that is, by her need to escape the choking grip of xenophobic Teatlán. With money garnered illicitly and a dress stolen from her sister, she finally flees, rides a bus into the big city, Tijuana, and there begins the journey that transforms Magda the innocent into Magda the elegant—a full-fledged woman of the world. But it's a bumpy journey even so. Following its erratic twists and turns, Magda moves from reluctant go-go dancer to pampered wife of a rich Mexican aristocrat to adored wife of an American professor. She becomes a mother, loses her child, then finds a way to regain her even though it costs her dearly. Experience teaches Magda hard lessons, how to endure misery, cope with happiness, and muddle through the in-betweens. She learns "the value of a good enemy" and that "the hardest failure is when you fail yourself"—which the indomitable Magda never does.

Another in that appealing line of grace-under-pressure heroines. Gershten’s first is also the first to win Barbara Kingsolver's Bellworth Prize, awarded "for a work of socially or politically engaged fiction." Stronger even than that, however, is the emotional engagement here.

Pub Date: March 2, 2001

ISBN: 0-06-018567-8

Page Count: 224

Publisher: HarperCollins

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2001

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

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TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD

by Harper Lee ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 11, 1960

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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

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

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THE ALCHEMIST

by Paulo Coelho & translated by Margaret Jull Costa ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 1, 1993

Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.

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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.