There is in all of Harrison’s (Julip, 1994, etc.) work an almost pagan celebration of lives spent close to the land, and of the necessary round of life and death. That awareness, and acceptance, are at the heart of this portrait of three generations of a Nebraska family. The patriarch, John Northridge, is the son of a Native American woman and a white man, and much of his life has been shaped by the struggle to come to grips with his fragmented heritage. As a young man, he entertains the idea of becoming a painter, and in doing so escaping from the conflicted loyalties of his childhood. Instead, he becomes a successful, if somewhat ruthless, rancher. The novel consists of a series of first-person narratives, beginning with John’s retrospective memoir of his life, a particularly effective section in its mix of harsh honesty and in its lack of brooding guilt. By contrast, the other family members who narrate are all shadowed by it. Paul, John’s son, has been haunted by the fact that he’s survived to inherit the Northridge ranch while his brother, John’s favorite, died in a hero in Korea. He left behind a child, Dalva, now a bright, loving, rebellious young woman. She in turn has been scarred ever since, at the age of 15, she gave birth to a son who was immediately given up for adoption. Her son, Nelse, 30, has set out to find his birth mother, and their excited discovery of each other is explored at some length. Dalva is now dying, and the last and most powerful section follows her final days as she struggles stoically to come to terms with her life and to choose the way in which she leaves it. A vivid meditation on the defining power of the family, and of the kind of redemption offered by an awareness of nature’s rather pitiless beauty. (First printing of 75,000; $100,000 ad/promo; author tour)
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 1998
ISBN: 0-87113-724-0
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Atlantic Monthly
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1998
BOOK REVIEW
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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