Edgar’s own story in the present is more compelling than the revelations of the key’s past, and the novel might have been...
The prolific master of psycho-horror returns to the mysteries of the creative process, a subject that has inspired some of his most haunting work.
This could be considered a companion piece to The Shining, offering plenty of reversals on that plot. In both cases, isolation has severe effects on the psyche of an artist, yet where the former novel found its protagonist in a lethal state of writer’s block, the latter sees a one-time building magnate transformed into an impossibly prolific and powerful painter, due to circumstances beyond his control. And where the isolation in the former had a family cut off from society by a frigid northern winter, the setting of the latter is a mysterious Florida key, lush and tropical in its overgrowth, somehow immune to commercial development. A self-made millionaire, Edgar Freemantle narrates the novel in a conversational, matter-of-fact tone. He explains how a job-site accident cost him his arm, his sanity (during the early part of an extended recuperation) and his wife (whom he had physically threatened after the accident transformed him into something other than himself). What he gained was a seemingly inexplicable command as a visual artist, particularly after his recuperation (from both his accident and his marriage) takes him to the isolated Duma Key, where the only other inhabitants are an elderly, wealthy woman and her caretaker. It seems that all three have suffered severe traumas that bond them and that perhaps have even drawn them together. Soon Edgar discovers that his art has given him the power not only to predict the future, but to transform it. He ultimately pays a steep price for his artistic gifts, particularly as his investigation of the mysteries of Duma Key lead him to discover the tragic origins of his artistic vision.
Edgar’s own story in the present is more compelling than the revelations of the key’s past, and the novel might have been twice as powerful if it had been cut by a third, but King fans will find it engrossing.Pub Date: Jan. 1, 2008
ISBN: 978-1-4165-5251-2
Page Count: 624
Publisher: Scribner
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2007
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with...
Talk-show queen takes tumble as millions jeer.
Nora Bridges is a wildly popular radio spokesperson for family-first virtues, but her loyal listeners don't know that she walked out on her husband and teenaged daughters years ago and didn't look back. Now that a former lover has sold racy pix of naked Nora and horny himself to a national tabloid, her estranged daughter Ruby, an unsuccessful stand-up comic in Los Angeles, has been approached to pen a tell-all. Greedy for the fat fee she's been promised, Ruby agrees and heads for the San Juan Islands, eager to get reacquainted with the mom she plans to betray. Once in the family homestead, nasty Ruby alternately sulks and glares at her mother, who is temporarily wheelchair-bound as a result of a post-scandal car crash. Uncaring, Ruby begins writing her side of the story when she's not strolling on the beach with former sweetheart Dean Sloan, the son of wealthy socialites who basically ignored him and his gay brother Eric. Eric, now dying of cancer and also in a wheelchair, has returned to the island. This dismal threesome catch up on old times, recalling their childhood idylls on the island. After Ruby's perfect big sister Caroline shows up, there's another round of heartfelt talk. Nora gradually reveals the truth about her unloving husband and her late father's alcoholism, which led her to seek the approval of others at the cost of her own peace of mind. And so on. Ruby is aghast to discover that she doesn't know everything after all, but Dean offers her subdued comfort. Happy endings await almost everyone—except for readers of this nobly preachy snifflefest.
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with syrupy platitudes about life and love.Pub Date: March 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-609-60737-5
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2001
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
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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