This raucous avant-garde comedy will sweep you along with its vigor and originality.
Lurid satirical riffs hold up a fun-house mirror to the world in this fantasia.
New York underground littérateur Bird (Hideous Exuberance, 2009) creates an alternative universe peopled by cartoonish characters who intermingle across dreamlike episodes that shatter the conventions of time, space and spelling. On high is the deity Lord Szczmawg, who benevolently smothers our Blue Green Planet with intestinal greenhouse gasses; on Earth is the antagonism between cretinous Evilangelists and burqa-ed Muslim comedians. Barely repressed perversion stalks the rural hinterland of Amurycka Profunda. There roam the likes of high school prostitute Mannequin Streetwalker and her half-sister, Incestuous Ingrydd, while blaringly unrepressed perversion saturates a nightmare Manhattan where self-loathing trust-funders wallow in sadomasochistic scenes that spill over into ritual slaughter. There’s a parade of vaudeville set pieces: Princess Orca Media, a “spoiled, demanding, pre-Freudian and power-drunk bitch” lords over sullen serfs; her time-travelling future incarnation, a ditzy Jersey Goth-ette discourses on Star Trek; a sketch set on the Planet Vomitoria serves “sewage sludge mousse garnished with chicken claws.” Bird’s prose is a stew of surrealism—“She was blissfully unaware as she performed scathing, balletic, synchronized swimming-style moves…while giant carnivorous frogs salivated by the aqua colored kidney shaped swimming pool”—mixed with insult comedy and scabrous sexual provocations. He festoons it with Central European linguistic flourishes: German exclamations, Polish phonics, a weirdly Teutonic hillbilly patois—“Jes cuz we worships Jah-Hee-Zeus dunt mean usns alwaysiez gots tuh be all saintlie like Himmerz!”—that evokes a redneck Weimar cabaret. Threading through the chaos are a wicked caricature of New York scenesters, rage against environmental destruction, religious bigotry and striking photographs of dark roads, lit but not illuminated by garish streetlights that form a sinister, hallucinatory visual counterpoint to the text. Bird’s caustic levity, exuberant wordplay and arresting imagery make for a bracing read—though it’s not for the faint of heart.
This raucous avant-garde comedy will sweep you along with its vigor and originality.Pub Date: Feb. 16, 2012
ISBN: 978-0615566634
Page Count: 152
Publisher: Hysterical Dementia
Review Posted Online: May 2, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2012
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
In more ways than one, a tale about young creatures testing their wings; a moving, entertaining winner.
A fifth-grade New Orleans girl discovers a mysterious chrysalis containing an unexpected creature in this middle-grade novel.
Jacquelyn Marie Johnson, called Jackie, is a 10-year-old African-American girl, the second oldest and the only girl of six siblings. She’s responsible, smart, and enjoys being in charge; she likes “paper dolls and long division and imagining things she had never seen.” Normally, Jackie has no trouble obeying her strict but loving parents. But when her potted snapdragon acquires a peculiar egg or maybe a chrysalis (she dubs it a chrysalegg), Jackie’s strong desire to protect it runs up against her mother’s rule against plants in the house. Jackie doesn’t exactly mean to lie, but she tells her mother she needs to keep the snapdragon in her room for a science project and gets permission. Jackie draws the chrysalegg daily, waiting for something to happen as it gets larger. When the amazing creature inside breaks free, Jackie is more determined than ever to protect it, but this leads her further into secrets and lies. The results when her parents find out are painful, and resolving the problem will take courage, honesty, and trust. Dumas (Jaden Toussaint, the Greatest: Episode 5, 2017, etc.) presents a very likable character in Jackie. At 10, she’s young enough to enjoy playing with paper dolls but has a maturity that even older kids can lack. She’s resourceful, as when she wants to measure a red spot on the chrysalegg; lacking calipers, she fashions one from her hairpin. Jackie’s inward struggle about what to obey—her dearest wishes or the parents she loves—is one many readers will understand. The book complicates this question by making Jackie’s parents, especially her mother, strict (as one might expect to keep order in a large family) but undeniably loving and protective as well—it’s not just a question of outwitting clueless adults. Jackie’s feelings about the creature (tender and responsible but also more than a little obsessive) are similarly shaded rather than black-and-white. The ending suggests that an intriguing sequel is to come.
In more ways than one, a tale about young creatures testing their wings; a moving, entertaining winner.Pub Date: Nov. 11, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-943169-32-0
Page Count: 212
Publisher: Plum Street Press
Review Posted Online: Feb. 22, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A YA novel that treats its subject and its readers with respect while delivering an engaging story.
In the ninth book in the Bluford young-adult series, a young Latino man walks away from violence—but at great personal cost.
In a large Southern California city, 16-year-old Martin Luna hangs out on the fringes of gang life. He’s disaffected, fatherless and increasingly drawn into the orbit of the older, rougher Frankie. When a stray bullet kills Martin’s adored 8-year-old brother, Huero, Martin seems to be heading into a life of crime. But Martin’s mother, determined not to lose another son, moves him to another neighborhood—the fictional town of Bluford, where he attends the racially diverse Bluford High. At his new school, the still-grieving Martin quickly makes enemies and gets into trouble. But he also makes friends with a kind English teacher and catches the eye of Vicky, a smart, pretty and outgoing Bluford student. Martin’s first-person narration supplies much of the book’s power. His dialogue is plain, but realistic and believable, and the authors wisely avoid the temptation to lard his speech with dated and potentially embarrassing slang. The author draws a vivid and affecting picture of Martin’s pain and confusion, bringing a tight-lipped teenager to life. In fact, Martin’s character is so well drawn that when he realizes the truth about his friend Frankie, readers won’t feel as if they are watching an after-school special, but as though they are observing the natural progression of Martin’s personal growth. This short novel appears to be aimed at urban teens who don’t often see their neighborhoods portrayed in young-adult fiction, but its sophisticated characters and affecting story will likely have much wider appeal.
A YA novel that treats its subject and its readers with respect while delivering an engaging story.Pub Date: Jan. 1, 2004
ISBN: 978-1591940173
Page Count: 152
Publisher: Townsend Press
Review Posted Online: Jan. 26, 2013
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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