A thoughtful, zany rendition of small-town life.
A comical, character-driven novel focuses on a Nebraska town.
Delphic Oracle, Nebraska, used to be called Miagrammesto Station. That changed when a con man named July Pennybaker came to town in the 1920s. At the age of 27, July had already seen a lot in life. After he stole money from the Mafia in Chicago, he fled to Nebraska, where he was discovered by a lovely young woman named Maggie Westinghouse. Although Maggie was suspicious of this apparent vagabond who managed to talk like a “college professor,” the two ultimately formed a couple. With the help of one of July’s friends who posed as a faith healer, Maggie became the Delphic Oracle. People traveled from miles around just to see her. July realized that despite Maggie’s toughness, grifting was just not in her nature. The two fell in love; yet, under such circumstances, could it last? The narrative skips back and forth to modern times when the town of Delphic Oracle is a hub of activity. While sometimes the action is on the baseball field, several folks embark on spiritual quests. The narrator tells it all from an oddly lenient correctional facility. Although events and characters lend themselves to the fantastical (a man who teaches poetry is named Byron Emerson), Mayfield’s story is full of heart. Some occurrences, such as a man getting his arm stuck while attempting to change the battery in his truck, may feel like a stretch. Yet readers will manage to empathize with this man as he stands there at one point dreaming that he can fly, soaring “into an azure sky.” Other scenes can overdo the rural hokeyness. Someone at a local baseball game constantly chanting “Hey battuh, hey battuh, hey battuh” and “Swing battuh” is no more humorous than it sounds. Nevertheless, this place where one woman holds “respect for God and Ouija boards roughly equivalent” becomes engaging in its own quirky way.
A thoughtful, zany rendition of small-town life.Pub Date: Oct. 11, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-64603-292-1
Page Count: 298
Publisher: Regal House Publishing
Review Posted Online: Sept. 28, 2022
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Uneven but fitfully amusing.
Betrayed by her husband, a severely depressed young woman gets drawn into the over-the-top festivities at a lavish wedding.
Phoebe Stone, who teaches English literature at a St. Louis college, is plotting her own demise. Her husband, Matt, has left her for another woman, and Phoebe is taking it hard. Indeed, she's determined just where and how she will end it all: at an oceanfront hotel in Newport, where she will lie on a king-sized canopy bed and take a bottle of her cat’s painkillers. At the hotel, Phoebe meets bride-to-be Lila, a headstrong rich girl presiding over her own extravagant six-day wedding celebration. Lila thought she had booked every room in the hotel, and learning of Phoebe's suicidal intentions, she forbids this stray guest from disrupting the nuptials: “No. You definitely can’t kill yourself. This is my wedding week.” After the punchy opening, a grim flashback to the meltdown of Phoebe's marriage temporarily darkens the mood, but things pick up when spoiled Lila interrupts Phoebe's preparations and sweeps her up in the wedding juggernaut. The slide from earnest drama to broad farce is somewhat jarring, but from this point on, Espach crafts an enjoyable—if overstuffed—comedy of manners. When the original maid of honor drops out, Phoebe is persuaded, against her better judgment, to take her place. There’s some fun to be had here: The wedding party—including groom-to-be Gary, a widower, and his 11-year-old daughter—takes surfing lessons; the women in the group have a session with a Sex Woman. But it all goes on too long, and the humor can seem forced, reaching a low point when someone has sex with the vintage wedding car (you don’t want to know the details). Later, when two characters have a meet-cute in a hot tub, readers will guess exactly how the marriage plot resolves.
Uneven but fitfully amusing.Pub Date: July 30, 2024
ISBN: 9781250899576
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: Sept. 13, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.
Coelho is a Brazilian writer with four books to his credit. Following Diary of a Magus (1992—not reviewed) came this book, published in Brazil in 1988: it's an interdenominational, transcendental, inspirational fable—in other words, a bag of wind.
The story is about a youth empowered to follow his dream. Santiago is an Andalusian shepherd boy who learns through a dream of a treasure in the Egyptian pyramids. An old man, the king of Salem, the first of various spiritual guides, tells the boy that he has discovered his destiny: "to realize one's destiny is a person's only real obligation." So Santiago sells his sheep, sails to Tangier, is tricked out of his money, regains it through hard work, crosses the desert with a caravan, stops at an oasis long enough to fall in love, escapes from warring tribesmen by performing a miracle, reaches the pyramids, and eventually gets both the gold and the girl. Along the way he meets an Englishman who describes the Soul of the World; the desert woman Fatima, who teaches him the Language of the World; and an alchemist who says, "Listen to your heart" A message clings like ivy to every encounter; everyone, but everyone, has to put in their two cents' worth, from the crystal merchant to the camel driver ("concentrate always on the present, you'll be a happy man"). The absence of characterization and overall blandness suggest authorship by a committee of self-improvement pundits—a far cry from Saint- Exupery's The Little Prince: that flagship of the genre was a genuine charmer because it clearly derived from a quirky, individual sensibility.
Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.Pub Date: July 1, 1993
ISBN: 0-06-250217-4
Page Count: 192
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1993
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
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