A sometimes-disorienting but heartfelt look at the scope of a modern family’s emotions.
Scott’s debut family drama spotlights the ebb and flow of relationships between parents, spouses, siblings, and others as they navigate the immovable forces of life.
Dave and Debbie are no strangers to the strains of time, money, and work demands on a marriage. At the novel’s outset, Dave is plagued by the long hours that are typical of modern, white-collar America, frequently forgetting the time of night—and his family—as he juggles numbers at his financial job. Debbie, stressed by her double workload of caring for their adolescent children, Aidan and Summer, and covering long night shifts as a nurse at the local hospital, begins having her doubts as to whether their relationship can hold up. After some heated discussion, Dave resolves to spend more time with his family and less time at the office. Dave, Debbie, Aidan, and Summer set off together to Debbie’s parents’ lake house for a relaxing weekend together. However, Dave, lost in thought, nearly swerves off the road at a hairpin bend. As the story progresses, each member of the brood becomes embroiled in challenging personal dramas: Summer suffers her first real heartbreak; Debbie is tempted by the adoration of a colleague; Dave continues to struggle with reconnecting with his wife; and Aidan is involved in an accident that sends shock waves beyond just his nuclear family. Although the book’s pacing smoothly follows the central characters for much of the book, Scott later introduces Dave’s vivid, uncanny dream states, which will begin to rock readers’ perceptions of what’s really happening. This uncertainty will help to keep readers engaged in the cyclical nature of Dave and Debbie’s marriage struggles. However, it’s introduced at a fairly late stage, and the story may require patience on the part of readers at some points. The key to the true meaning of Dave’s dreams will be a rewarding revelation for steadfast readers.
A sometimes-disorienting but heartfelt look at the scope of a modern family’s emotions.Pub Date: April 5, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-5116-0796-4
Page Count: 360
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Nov. 11, 2015
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
King handles his first novel with considerable accomplishment and very little hokum—it's only too easy to believe that these...
Figuratively and literally shattering moments of hoRRRRRipilication in Chamberlain, Maine where stones fly from the sky rather than from the hands of the villagers (as they did in "The Lottery," although the latter are equal to other forms of persecution).
All beginning when Carrie White discovers a gift with telekinetic powers (later established as a genetic fact), after she menstruates in full ignorance of the process and thinks she is bleeding to death while the other monsters in the high school locker room bait and bully her mercilessly. Carrie is the only child of a fundamentalist freak mother who has brought her up with a concept of sin which no blood of the Lamb can wash clean. In addition to a sympathetic principal and gym teacher, there's one girl who wishes to atone and turns her date for the spring ball over to Carrie who for the first time is happy, beautiful and acknowledged as such. But there will be hell to pay for this success—not only her mother but two youngsters who douse her in buckets of fresh-killed pig blood so that Carrie once again uses her "wild talent," flexes her mind and a complete catastrophe (explosion and an uncontrolled fire) virtually destroys the town.
King handles his first novel with considerable accomplishment and very little hokum—it's only too easy to believe that these youngsters who once ate peanut butter now scrawl "Carrie White eats shit." But as they still say around here, "Sit a spell and collect yourself."Pub Date: April 8, 1974
ISBN: 0385086954
Page Count: 216
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Sept. 26, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 1974
PERSPECTIVES
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
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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