An often fresh take on the collegiate anti-war movement in small-town America.
In this debut novel, a college student on a U.S. Army nursing scholarship joins the anti–Vietnam War movement.
It’s Sept. 15, 1969, the day after Judy Talton’s 19th birthday and the day that she decides to change her path. At Central Illinois University’s student union, she sits with the radical students for the first time. After an argument between anti-war protest leader David and the ROTC kids, Judy is approached by Vida, who says she’s been watching her hanging out on the group’s fringes. Other members of the radical group emerge, including Wil, whose birthday is also Sept. 14 (which becomes important later). The group is pushing a petition supporting anti-war political-science professor Swanson, who’s in jeopardy of losing his job. There’s also anxiety about the upcoming draft lottery, which is scheduled to happen right after Thanksgiving. Instantly, Judy is swept up in the movement and takes part in the “Moratorium” event (a national day of protest against the war) and then a march in Washington, D.C. But through it all, Judy tries to keep a low profile, as protesting the war could result in her having to pay the Army back for her scholarship; she also goes to great pains to keep her Army connection a secret from her new friends. The conflict intensifies throughout the novel, particularly when Judy decides to go to Washington, which makes her AWOL: a criminal offense. Throughout, the author does a fine job of complicating and building Judy’s dilemma. The divide between Judy’s old life and her new one continues to cause her angst, which ramps up the tension regarding her various choices. What isn’t made clear, however, is why Judy initially decides to risk her scholarship, which she very much needs, in order to join the radical group. This is a symptom of a larger issue, which is the fact that Judy’s motivations are unclear, even to Judy—which, in turn, may make it difficult for readers to understand her. Still, she makes a sacrifice in a finale that’s well-crafted, surprising, and inevitable.
An often fresh take on the collegiate anti-war movement in small-town America.Pub Date: Sept. 18, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-63152-453-0
Page Count: 377
Publisher: She Writes Press
Review Posted Online: March 27, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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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