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
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
PERSPECTIVES
Heartfelt, yes, but pretty routine.
Life lessons.
Angie Malone, the youngest of a big, warm Italian-American family, returns to her Pacific Northwest hometown to wrestle with various midlife disappointments: her divorce, Papa’s death, a downturn in business at the family restaurant, and, above all, her childlessness. After several miscarriages, she, a successful ad exec, and husband Conlan, a reporter, befriended a pregnant young girl and planned to adopt her baby—and then the birth mother changed her mind. Angie and Conlan drifted apart and soon found they just didn’t love each other anymore. Metaphorically speaking, “her need for a child had been a high tide, an overwhelming force that drowned them. A year ago, she could have kicked to the surface but not now.” Sadder but wiser, Angie goes to work in the struggling family restaurant, bickering with Mama over updating the menu and replacing the ancient waitress. Soon, Angie befriends another young girl, Lauren Ribido, who’s eager to learn and desperately needs a job. Lauren’s family lives on the wrong side of the tracks, and her mother is a promiscuous alcoholic, but Angie knows nothing of this sad story and welcomes Lauren into the DeSaria family circle. The girl listens in, wide-eyed, as the sisters argue and make wisecracks and—gee-whiz—are actually nice to each other. Nothing at all like her relationship with her sluttish mother, who throws Lauren out when boyfriend David, en route to Stanford, gets her pregnant. Will Lauren, who’s just been accepted to USC, let Angie adopt her baby? Well, a bit of a twist at the end keeps things from becoming too predictable.
Heartfelt, yes, but pretty routine.Pub Date: July 1, 2004
ISBN: 0-345-46750-7
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2004
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