This work remains a striking world unto itself; a highly entertaining and thought-provoking read.
An author rolls several compact books into one.
Vaughan (Rift, 2015, etc.) divides his work into four sections: a set of flash fiction titled “Flashes/Balloon Darts”; a series of shorts with portraits evoking Edward Gorey’s The Gashlycrumb Tinies called “Another Brick In the Wall/Hall of Mirrors”; experimental poetry inspired by female musicians labeled “Divas/Tunnel of Love”; and a segment of brief fiction named “Shorts/Ferris Wheel.” What these parts mostly have in common is Vaughan’s sense of character, the ability to reveal just enough about his creations to make them seem fully rounded, sometimes in just a few sentences. “Our First Date” is eight sentences spaced out on eight lines, but there’s so much to unpack. The twist comes in line four, when the narrator’s despair boils over because he can never see his children again. And by line eight, that emotion has been tamped down to polite agreement. No reason is given for the separation, whether it’s a legal matter or the children have died. The piece shows a remarkable range of emotions in what takes just seconds to read. The “Another Brick” series is charming, much in the vein of its muse. Vaughan is incredibly efficient at worldbuilding, and by the end of the section, it feels as though readers have gotten to know a community of kids, one for each letter of the alphabet. The “Divas” poems are evocative, each one starting out with a name, a birth year, and a set of lyrics and then delivering what feels like the author’s immediate reaction to the music. Sometimes words from the lyrics echo in poems, and repeated lines about rubbing off dead skin and being told not to hug emerge as readers work their ways through. Vaughan keeps readers guessing from section to section and piece to piece. He’ll follow the story of a relationship from courtship to engagement with a brief horror tale and, a few pages later, a one-paragraph singles ad.
This work remains a striking world unto itself; a highly entertaining and thought-provoking read.Pub Date: Dec. 29, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-9983090-1-9
Page Count: 260
Publisher: Unknown Press
Review Posted Online: June 5, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2017
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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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