More like a string of humor-columns than a novel, then, with hit-or-miss punchlines--but sure to please Ephron fans and some...
Wife Discovers Husband's Infidelity, Must Decide What To Do: that's the routine sliver of plot here.
Wife Discovers Husband's Infidelity, Must Decide What To Do: that's the routine sliver of plot here. But essentially this slender first novel is just a framework for an Ephronesque series of stand-up-comic routines, journalistic one-liners, and movie-farce-style vignettes--an occasionally funny but edgily unsatisfying tsimmes. The wisecracking narrator is cookbook-writer/TV-celebrity Rachel Samstat, who one day realizes that her Washington-columnist husband Mark Feldman, the ultimate "Jewish prince," is having an affair with Thelma Rice, giant wife of a blitheringly neurotic Undersecretary of State. Mark confesses--but doesn't offer to give Thelma up. Spurred on by celebrity-shrink Vera ("every so often she has to fly off to co-host Merv Griffin"), pregnant Rachel storms off to her beloved N.Y.C. with tot Sam while reviewing her marriages (#1 was "a low-grade lunatic who kept hamsters"). She rejoins her therapy group--which gets robbed. She flies back to D.C. when Mark seems interested in a reconciliation. But finally, after giving birth, Rachel tells Mark off, throws a pie in his face, and instantly winds up in the arms of an adorable New Yorker for an upbeat fadeout. Throughout, Ephron fails to find the right balance between satire and soap--reaching for laughs (and canceling out empathy) with outlandish cartoon shriek, then lurching for the heart-strings with Rachel's crying-behind-the-jokes sentimentality. ("Because if I tell the story, it doesn't hurt as much,") Only one moment lifts off into inspired, manic-but-believable comedy: Rachel, in a desperate/vengeful panic, spreads the rumor that Thelma has gotten a gynecological infection. (In a Vietnamese restaurant: "The toilet seat, I guess. . . although I'm not sure. Maybe from the spring rolls.") And the rest consists of Rachel's uneven musings on being Jewish, being in Washington, being Jewish in Washington, the Sixties, Phil Donahue, Lillian Hellman, the Eastern Airlines shuttle, cellulite, sex, shrinks, marriage, and cooking. Plus: lots of not-quite-funny aphorisms ("Show me a woman who cries when the trees lose their leaves in winter and I'll show you a real asshole"); tired send-ups of Women's Lib; and many, many recipes. (My Search for Warren Harding, p. 206, also was big on recipes: is this the new trend in cute-fiction substitutes for content?) More like a string of humor-columns than a novel, then, with hit-or-miss punchlines--but sure to please Ephron fans and some of Gall Parent's too.
More like a string of humor-columns than a novel, then, with hit-or-miss punchlines--but sure to please Ephron fans and some of Gall Parent's too.Pub Date: May 4, 1983
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: -
Publisher: Vintage
Review Posted Online: March 21, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1983
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy.
Are we not men? We are—well, ask Bigfoot, as Brooks does in this delightful yarn, following on his bestseller World War Z(2006).
A zombie apocalypse is one thing. A volcanic eruption is quite another, for, as the journalist who does a framing voice-over narration for Brooks’ latest puts it, when Mount Rainier popped its cork, “it was the psychological aspect, the hyperbole-fueled hysteria that had ended up killing the most people.” Maybe, but the sasquatches whom the volcano displaced contributed to the statistics, too, if only out of self-defense. Brooks places the epicenter of the Bigfoot war in a high-tech hideaway populated by the kind of people you might find in a Jurassic Park franchise: the schmo who doesn’t know how to do much of anything but tries anyway, the well-intentioned bleeding heart, the know-it-all intellectual who turns out to know the wrong things, the immigrant with a tough backstory and an instinct for survival. Indeed, the novel does double duty as a survival manual, packed full of good advice—for instance, try not to get wounded, for “injury turns you from a giver to a taker. Taking up our resources, our time to care for you.” Brooks presents a case for making room for Bigfoot in the world while peppering his narrative with timely social criticism about bad behavior on the human side of the conflict: The explosion of Rainier might have been better forecast had the president not slashed the budget of the U.S. Geological Survey, leading to “immediate suspension of the National Volcano Early Warning System,” and there’s always someone around looking to monetize the natural disaster and the sasquatch-y onslaught that follows. Brooks is a pro at building suspense even if it plays out in some rather spectacularly yucky episodes, one involving a short spear that takes its name from “the sucking sound of pulling it out of the dead man’s heart and lungs.” Grossness aside, it puts you right there on the scene.
A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy.Pub Date: June 16, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-9848-2678-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Del Rey/Ballantine
Review Posted Online: Feb. 9, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK TO SCREEN
A standout in the series.
The sixth adventure of Harvard symbology professor Robert Langdon explores the mysteries of human consciousness, the demonic projects of the CIA, and the city of Prague.
“Ladies and gentlemen...we are about to experience a sea change in our understanding of how the brain works, the nature of consciousness, and in fact…the very nature of reality itself.” But first—Langdon’s in love! Brown’s devoted readers first met brilliant noetic scientist Katherine Solomon in The Lost Symbol (2009); she’s back as a serious girlfriend, engaging the committed bachelor in a way not seen before. The book opens with the pair in a luxurious suite at the Four Seasons in Prague. It’s the night after Katherine has delivered the lecture quoted above, setting the theme for the novel, which features a plethora of real-life cases and anomalies that seem to support the notion that human consciousness is not localized inside the human skull. Brown’s talent for assembling research is also evident in this novel’s alter ego as a guidebook to Prague, whose history and attractions are described in great and glowing detail. Whether you appreciate or skim past the innumerable info dumps on these and other topics (Jewish folklore fans—the Golem is in the house!), it goes without saying that concision is not a goal in the Dan Brown editing process. Speaking of editing, the nearly 700-page book is dedicated to Brown’s editor, who seems to appear as a character—to put it in the italicized form used for Brownian insight, Jason Kaufman must be Jonas Faukman! A major subplot involves the theft of Katherine’s manuscript from the secure servers of Penguin Random House; the delightful Faukman continues to spout witty wisecracks even when blindfolded and hogtied. There’s no shortage of action, derring-do, explosions, high-tech torture machines, attempted and successful murders, and opportunities for split-second, last-minute escapes; good thing Langdon, this aging symbology wonk, never misses swimming his morning laps. Readers who are not already dyed-in-the-wool Langdonites may find themselves echoing the prof’s own conclusion regarding the credibility of all this paranormal hoo-ha: At some point, skepticism itself becomes irrational.
A standout in the series.Pub Date: Sept. 9, 2025
ISBN: 9780385546898
Page Count: 688
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Sept. 9, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2025
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