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THE HOUSE ON THE LAGOON

Name: THE HOUSE ON THE LAGOON
Author: Rosario Ferré
ISBN: 0-374-17311-7

by Rosario Ferré ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 1, 1995

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A superlative family saga that examines the concept of freedom in vividly dramatized personal and political terms, by a Puerto Rican novelist (The Youngest Doll, etc., not reviewed) whose smooth mastery of her ambitious materials is reminiscent of Gabriel Garc°a M†rquez at his very best. Wealthy importer Quintin Mendizabal discovers the manuscript of a novel his wife, Isabel Monfort, is writing about the histories of their entwined families. It's a chronicle of material enrichment and sexual exploitation, of familiar unhappiness and ethnic conflictin short, a microcosm of Puerto Rico's uncertain status throughout this century as an American commonwealth teetering uncertainly between the opposed poles of statehood and independence. As Quintin reads, he becomes increasingly disturbed to find, as he views things, that Isabel ``had made up incredible things about his family and left out much of what had really happened.'' He pens notes in the margins, questioning Isabel's conclusions and correcting her factual errors. Incredible events and brilliantly realized characters emerge from both their versionsincluding Quintin's father Buenaventura, a self-made man who may have colluded with the Germans during WW I; his maternal grandfather Aristides, a police chief whose dedication to the cause of statehood obliged him to murder his own people; and the Mendizabals' half-breed servant Petra, a rock indeed who outlasts several of their generations and lives to judge them all. The novel is a seamless web of plot, character, and haunting imagery (the lagoon on which the family's imposing mansion stands is itself dying, of industrial pollution). As the mingled love and hatred that bind Isabel and Quintin together rise to a painful crescendo, a plebiscite on the issue of statehood vs. independence reveals the flaws in the family's substructure, pitting parents against children, and provoking Isabel to take by force the independence she can never otherwise attain. Its triumphant conclusion seals their common fate and fulfills the aims of an overpowering novel that looks, at least on first reading, very like a masterpiece.

Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1995

ISBN: 0-374-17311-7

Page Count: 320

Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 1995

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

- BOOK REVIEW
FLIGHT OF THE SWAN
by Rosario Ferré

- BOOK REVIEW
ECCENTRIC NEIGHBORHOODS
by Rosario Ferré

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CARRIE

by Stephen King ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 8, 1974

King handles his first novel with considerable accomplishment and very little hokum—it's only too easy to believe that these...

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Figuratively and literally shattering moments of hoRRRRRipilication in Chamberlain, Maine where stones fly from the sky rather than from the hands of the villagers (as they did in "The Lottery," although the latter are equal to other forms of persecution).

All beginning when Carrie White discovers a gift with telekinetic powers (later established as a genetic fact), after she menstruates in full ignorance of the process and thinks she is bleeding to death while the other monsters in the high school locker room bait and bully her mercilessly. Carrie is the only child of a fundamentalist freak mother who has brought her up with a concept of sin which no blood of the Lamb can wash clean. In addition to a sympathetic principal and gym teacher, there's one girl who wishes to atone and turns her date for the spring ball over to Carrie who for the first time is happy, beautiful and acknowledged as such. But there will be hell to pay for this success—not only her mother but two youngsters who douse her in buckets of fresh-killed pig blood so that Carrie once again uses her "wild talent," flexes her mind and a complete catastrophe (explosion and an uncontrolled fire) virtually destroys the town.

King handles his first novel with considerable accomplishment and very little hokum—it's only too easy to believe that these youngsters who once ate peanut butter now scrawl "Carrie White eats shit." But as they still say around here, "Sit a spell and collect yourself."

Pub Date: April 8, 1974

ISBN: 0385086954

Page Count: 216

Publisher: Doubleday

Review Posted Online: Sept. 26, 2011

Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 1974

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

- BOOK REVIEW
OTHER WORLDS THAN THESE
by Stephen King & Peter Straub

- BOOK REVIEW
NEVER FLINCH
by Stephen King

- BOOK REVIEW
YOU LIKE IT DARKER
by Stephen King

- PERSPECTIVES
Appreciations: Carrie Turns 40

- SEEN & HEARD
Stephen King Used ‘Carrie’ Advance To Support Mom

- BOOK TO SCREEN
New ‘Carrie’ Series in the Works at Amazon

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TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD

by Harper Lee ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 11, 1960

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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.