A kooky and witty illustrated tale that’s full of intelligence and educational value.
In Boxer’s (In the Floyd Archives, 2001) satirical graphic-novel sequel, a group of animals searches for a new psychoanalyst after Freudian Dr. Floyd abandons them.
Bunnyman, Mr. Wolfman, Rat Ma’am, and Lambskin are all former patients of Dr. Floyd. Sadly, the bird psychoanalyst has flown away and left the four in the woods, their therapy incomplete. Rat Ma’am suggests performing a sacrifice or burning an effigy of Dr. Floyd, which eventually becomes a much tamer “weenie roast.” For more structure, the group may simply need, as Rat Ma’am puts it, “a really watchful psychoanalyst.” Bunnyman, who has an Oedipal complex, nominates Lambskin, his surrogate mother, whose wool he often gingerly strokes. Kids’ games, such as the titular “Mother May I?” become the animals’ new form of therapy. But when that’s not enough, Lambskin produces a little black sheep from her pocket: Melanin Klein. Melanin treats Bunnyman, Mr. Wolfman, and Rat Ma’am as her children—and treats her kids as patients, including kids from her own pocket: Melittle Little, Little Hans, and Squiggle Piggle. Her brand of psychoanalysis is decidedly different than Dr. Floyd’s; for instance, she believes that everyone, even her children, is “strangely attracted” to her. But, with luck, Melanin will still be able to help the neurotic animals. Boxer’s previous book spoofed Sigmund Freud, but this follow-up concentrates primarily on psychoanalysts Melanie Klein and D.W. Winnicott. The delightful story is generally surreal, with objects appearing out of nowhere (such as a toy train) and Bunnyman having apparent hallucinations involving Dr. Floyd. Nevertheless, the comedy is abundant and perhaps best appreciated after perusing the author’s historical notes at the end. For example, Melanin asks the animals to create squiggles out of Squiggle Piggle’s pliable tail, which, Boxer explains, is based on a therapeutic drawing game that Winnicott created for kids. As in her preceding book, Boxer offers clear, simple artwork that suitably resembles children’s drawings, and it includes moments of praiseworthy visual humor, such as Rat Ma’am pointing to her own thought balloon: “Those are my little black thoughts.”
A kooky and witty illustrated tale that’s full of intelligence and educational value.Pub Date: May 17, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-949093-17-9
Page Count: 188
Publisher: International Psychoanalytic Books
Review Posted Online: May 20, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2019
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.
Four men who meet as college roommates move to New York and spend the next three decades gaining renown in their professions—as an architect, painter, actor and lawyer—and struggling with demons in their intertwined personal lives.
Yanagihara (The People in the Trees, 2013) takes the still-bold leap of writing about characters who don’t share her background; in addition to being male, JB is African-American, Malcolm has a black father and white mother, Willem is white, and “Jude’s race was undetermined”—deserted at birth, he was raised in a monastery and had an unspeakably traumatic childhood that’s revealed slowly over the course of the book. Two of them are gay, one straight and one bisexual. There isn’t a single significant female character, and for a long novel, there isn’t much plot. There aren’t even many markers of what’s happening in the outside world; Jude moves to a loft in SoHo as a young man, but we don’t see the neighborhood change from gritty artists’ enclave to glitzy tourist destination. What we get instead is an intensely interior look at the friends’ psyches and relationships, and it’s utterly enthralling. The four men think about work and creativity and success and failure; they cook for each other, compete with each other and jostle for each other’s affection. JB bases his entire artistic career on painting portraits of his friends, while Malcolm takes care of them by designing their apartments and houses. When Jude, as an adult, is adopted by his favorite Harvard law professor, his friends join him for Thanksgiving in Cambridge every year. And when Willem becomes a movie star, they all bask in his glow. Eventually, the tone darkens and the story narrows to focus on Jude as the pain of his past cuts deep into his carefully constructed life.
The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.Pub Date: March 10, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-385-53925-8
Page Count: 720
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Dec. 21, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
PROFILES
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