Vance Bourjaily and Harvey Swados used to write replete, ambitious novels like Crooked River Burning. A wonderful read that...
Dos Passos’s classic trilogy U.S.A. now has a rival, in this richly plotted, consistently engrossing big novel, which examines “the enormous dreams of a great northern city” as lived by its two principals and other members of the political and personal “worlds” through which they move.
The city is Cleveland during the years 1948–69, when it will rise to, and fall from, national prominence. Anne O’Connor is the willful youngest child of a wealthy Irish Catholic (and, yes, Kennedyesque) family whose patriarch is a powerful political boss—David Zielinsky, estranged son of a shady labor-union enforcer and a runaway film star who may have been murdered by her lover. In a hearty, hectoring omniscient narrative voice that addresses the reader (and occasionally the characters) directly, Winegardner traces this pair’s meetings and partings over the years, as Anne’s ambition to become a war correspondent is funneled into a moderately successful journalistic career, and David’s aspiration to his city’s mayoralty takes him as far as a city council seat. Running beneath the currents of their lives are the fortunes of Cleveland’s beloved professional sports franchises (Winegardner’s The Veracruz Blues, 1996, is one of our best-ever baseball novels). And a host of vividly drawn historical figures also appear: crimebuster Eliot Ness, Indians’ slugger Vic Wertz, accused murderer Dr. Sam Sheppard, and Browns’ place-kicker Lou (“The Toe”) Groza, and in chapters titled “Local Heroes” (which clearly echo Dos Passos’s “Camera Eye” sequences), such notables as radio-TV newswoman Dorothy Fuldheim and Cleveland’s first black mayor, Carl Stokes, make memorable extended appearances. In a striking climax, oil slicks cause the Cuyahoga River to “burn,” as it had years earlier—and Anne’s and David’s separate and common stories are thrown into powerfully ironic high relief.
Vance Bourjaily and Harvey Swados used to write replete, ambitious novels like Crooked River Burning. A wonderful read that brings the (recently much neglected) urban tradition in American fiction vibrantly back to life.Pub Date: Jan. 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-15-100294-0
Page Count: 576
Publisher: Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2000
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
A thoughtful and pensive tale with intelligent characters and a satisfying romance.
A promise to his best friend leads an Army serviceman to a family in need and a chance at true love in this novel.
Beckett Gentry is surprised when his Army buddy Ryan MacKenzie gives him a letter from Ryan’s sister, Ella. Abandoned by his mother, Beckett grew up in a series of foster homes. He is wary of attachments until he reads Ella’s letter. A single mother, Ella lives with her twins, Maisie and Colt, at Solitude, the resort she operates in Telluride, Colorado. They begin a correspondence, although Beckett can only identify himself by his call sign, Chaos. After Ryan’s death during a mission, Beckett travels to Telluride as his friend had requested. He bonds with the twins while falling deeply in love with Ella. Reluctant to reveal details of Ryan’s death and risk causing her pain, Beckett declines to disclose to Ella that he is Chaos. Maisie needs treatment for neuroblastoma, and Beckett formally adopts the twins as a sign of his commitment to support Ella and her children. He and Ella pursue a romance, but when an insurance investigator questions the adoption, Beckett is faced with revealing the truth about the letters and Ryan’s death, risking losing the family he loves. Yarros’ (Wilder, 2016, etc.) novel is a deeply felt and emotionally nuanced contemporary romance bolstered by well-drawn characters and strong, confident storytelling. Beckett and Ella are sympathetic protagonists whose past experiences leave them cautious when it comes to love. Beckett never knew the security of a stable home life. Ella impulsively married her high school boyfriend, but the marriage ended when he discovered she was pregnant. The author is especially adept at developing the characters through subtle but significant details, like Beckett’s aversion to swearing. Beckett and Ella’s romance unfolds slowly in chapters that alternate between their first-person viewpoints. The letters they exchanged are pivotal to their connection, and almost every chapter opens with one. Yarros’ writing is crisp and sharp, with passages that are poetic without being florid. For example, in a letter to Beckett, Ella writes of motherhood: “But I’m not the center of their universe. I’m more like their gravity.” While the love story is the book’s focus, the subplot involving Maisie’s illness is equally well-developed, and the link between Beckett and the twins is heartfelt and sincere.
A thoughtful and pensive tale with intelligent characters and a satisfying romance.Pub Date: Feb. 26, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-64063-533-3
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Entangled: Amara
Review Posted Online: Jan. 2, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2019
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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