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THE MAN WHO WALKED TO THE MOON

Name: THE MAN WHO WALKED TO THE MOON
Author: Howard McCord
ISBN: 0-929701-51-8

by Howard McCord ‧ RELEASE DATE: Aug. 8, 1997

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The mind and soul of an assassin are plumbed to a fare-thee- well on a bare Nevada mountain in this startling debut novella by poet and essayist McCord. Fifty-year-old ex-Marine William Gasper, a stalker/sniper blooded in Korea, lives alone in the Nevada ranges and for ten years has favored a cheerless mountain called The Moon as his main abode. Though he has secret bank accounts around the world, he lives out of a sleeping bag and subsists on dried foods and tea. He also rents space in the little town of Sterns, 90 miles away, which he visits as needed. Gasper has given up not only his lethal profession but also most of life's usual habits and activities. He's even given up reading in favor of rock-walking: ``The tongue licking the mustache after a sip of tea holds as much wisdom as a distich by Herakleitus.'' Whether that's true or not, someone with a scoped rifle has been tracking him for days, and along with this shadowy figure Gasper believes he can sense the presence of Cerridwen, the Celtic White goddess who first appeared to him at 18 in Korea and promised to appear to him again, very likely at his death. Gasper traps and kills his stalker, whose ID suggests that he himself was an assassin. Who, among the agencies Gasper worked for, would most have wanted him dead? Although Cerridwen does appear again, it isn't for Gasper's death—though he would hardly care: ``There was the body's delight in itself as long as that lasted, and there was death. Nothing else. Nothing was forbidden, nothing bidden.'' The bloody climax strives to mingle melodrama with essentially believable, albeit unexplained, events. But an atheist and stone killer chased down the labyrinthine ways of the Nevada ranges by the White Goddess? Definitely spacey. And yet also, often, very good. A distinctive, allusive, and highly idiosyncratic novella.

Pub Date: Aug. 8, 1997

ISBN: 0-929701-51-8

Page Count: 128

Publisher: N/A

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1997

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

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SUMMER ISLAND

by Kristin Hannah ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 1, 2001

The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with...

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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

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.