A sharp, witty, and often moving account of an ancient nation on life support.
A Greek man struggles under the weight of debt, the dissolution of his marriage, and cultural upheaval.
Panos’ life is as precarious as the continued survival of his country; he’s a journalist demoted to freelance status, and he hasn’t been paid in months. Banks are constantly calling him, hounding him for the mortgage payments on a modest home he can no longer afford. His cellphone gets cut off, and the lights at home go dark. He can barely afford to provide his family with food, and he’s worried he’ll soon be fired for his lackluster performance. He starts to experience what could be the signs of serious heart failure, but he no longer has health insurance. His son seethes with disrespectful contempt for him, and his wife kicks him out of the house. Panos sunk whatever money the family once had into land he inherited from his family in hopes of developing it into a lucrative resort, and he waits interminably for the settlement of a court case stymying its fruition. All the while, he searches for his former classmate Stavros, derisively called Socrates by peers, for some sort of answer to his life’s woes. In his first book, author Nejad paints a discomfiting picture of a nation in crisis, not only wrestling with financial catastrophe, but with the sustainment of its collective soul. Greece is not merely broke, but broken, and the historical womb of democracy has degenerated into bureaucratic chaos, opportunism, and despair. Mercifully, the author leavens the mood with antic comedy, often reminiscent of the kind of free-wheeling humor one might find in the writings of Joseph Heller. Also, despite the cloud of cynicism that hangs over a beleaguered Greece, Nejad refuses to surrender to it fully. “The most important thing is that this is not the end. I am a man, I am Greek, and this is a country with a big history. We will show them.” The dialogue tends to meander, resulting in a bloated work that should have been shorter. The affecting portrayal of a country and culture on the brink and the punchy humor, however, make the long road one worth traveling.
A sharp, witty, and often moving account of an ancient nation on life support.Pub Date: Feb. 19, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-5049-9889-5
Page Count: 434
Publisher: AuthorHouseUK
Review Posted Online: March 22, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2016
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles...
Sisters in and out of love.
Meghann Dontess is a high-powered matrimonial lawyer in Seattle who prefers sex with strangers to emotional intimacy: a strategy bound to backfire sooner or later, warns her tough-talking shrink. It’s advice Meghann decides to ignore, along with the memories of her difficult childhood, neglectful mother, and younger sister. Though she managed to reunite Claire with Sam Cavenaugh (her father but not Meghann’s) when her mother abandoned both girls long ago, Meghann still feels guilty that her sister’s life doesn’t measure up, at least on her terms. Never married, Claire ekes out a living running a country campground with her dad and is raising her six-year-old daughter on her own. When she falls in love for the first time with an up-and-coming country musician, Meghann is appalled: Bobby Austin is a three-time loser at marriage—how on earth can Claire be so blind? Bobby’s blunt explanation doesn’t exactly satisfy the concerned big sister, who busies herself planning Claire’s dream wedding anyway. And, to relieve the stress, she beds various guys she picks up in bars, including Dr. Joe Wyatt, a neurosurgeon turned homeless drifter after the demise of his beloved wife Diane (whom he euthanized). When Claire’s awful headache turns out to be a kind of brain tumor known among neurologists as a “terminator,” Joe rallies. Turns out that Claire had befriended his wife on her deathbed, and now in turn he must try to save her. Is it too late? Will Meghann find true love at last?
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles (Distant Shores, 2002, etc.). Kudos for skipping the snifflefest this time around.Pub Date: May 1, 2003
ISBN: 0-345-45073-6
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2003
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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