Several distinct voices and points of view develop this multilayered narrative, reminiscent of jazz improvisations that...
Two feuding Brooklyn families—West Indian and American—come to terms with the past when a young great-grandson arrives in their midst.
Marshall, Brooklyn native and author of the critically acclaimed Brown Girl, Brownstones (1981) and Daughters (1991), explores the long-standing rivalry between West Indian immigrants and American-born blacks, telling the interwoven stories of several generations on both sides. The Paynes, ambitious strivers from the islands, don’t think much of the high-and-mighty McCullums, only one generation removed from their Virginia farm. Then young, musically talented Sonny-Rett Payne woos and wins Cherisse McCullum, the lovely, light-skinned daughter whose mother had hoped would become a movie star á la Dorothy Dandridge—and the battle lines are drawn. While their mothers never forgive it (or each other for allowing it), Sonny-Rett and Cherisse escape to Paris after WWII, and there Sonny-Rett becomes a world-famous jazz musician and composer, and Cherisse his happy wife. They’re accompanied by Hattie Carmichael, once a foster child in their close-knit community, who acts as Sonny’s manager and the family factotum. The expatriate Paynes thrive until Sonny’s descent many years later into drug abuse and Cherisse’s subsequent death from breast cancer. Their wayward daughter JoJo has a fling with a street vendor from Cameroon, which results in a son, named after his grandfather. Hattie eventually brings the boy to visit his elderly American relatives, who are still struggling to keep up appearances in their rapidly gentrifying neighborhood—and still clinging to their dimly remembered fury over the long-ago feud.
Several distinct voices and points of view develop this multilayered narrative, reminiscent of jazz improvisations that explore a melody in different ways. But Marshall’s undisciplined prose doesn’t have the sensual immediacy of music: ultimately the effect is more confusing than lyrical.Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2000
ISBN: 0-684-87283-8
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Scribner
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2000
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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