An unusual and artistically ambitious—but convoluted—account of a New York City gripped by fear.
A thriller chronicles a metropolis’ descent into moral chaos.
The summer of 1977 was an infamously tumultuous time for New York City. It was plagued by economic malaise, civic unrest, and a crime wave that created a sense that anarchy was overtaking the five boroughs. To make matters worse, a serial killer—the Son of Sam—terrorized residents, his acts of random violence punctuating the city’s downward spiral into lawlessness. In his novel, Lanter (If the Sun Should Ask, 2016) captures the sense of moral decline and trepidation that hung over the city like a storm cloud (“The Big Apple is unsettled, grimacing with a collective angst. The City is besieged by crime. Homicide is advancing at an alarming rate—upwards of four a day—mostly young women”). He focuses on the Son of Sam as a sign of the encroaching darkness. There is some sharp comic relief—the police hire an eccentric clairvoyant to aid their investigation, and her erudite, otherworldly asides are memorable. And Mathias Teivel, a television producer, opportunistically—and often hilariously—tries to figure out how to work the city’s obsession with the Son of Sam into the cop show Kojak. The narrative is experimentally nonlinear, and the authorial perspective leaps from third-person omniscience to the Son of Sam to another killer inspired by him. Or, so it seems—the prose is frenetic and dense, and the maniacally paced story is all but impossible to follow. Characters are bestowed numerous monikers—“Super Sleuth,” “Super Swinging Dick,” “Dynamic Duck,” “The Duke of Death”—so it’s often confusing who is being referred to. In addition, the author’s dense, adjective-laden, and alliteration-addicted style is always challenging and sometimes incoherent: “Sam grins, malocclusion, rotted yellow teeth glinting in the pale of a weak winter-sun metal-halide gas-discharge medium arc-length lamp.” Similarly, the book’s gritty realism is undermined by inexplicably fantastical dialogue. Still, Lanter displays a knack for making the implausible tantalizingly credible—the city’s moral turpitude leads some to believe in an old urban myth that once a certain threshold of collective evil is traversed, Satan himself will appear to direct the self-destruction. But too much intelligibility is sacrificed on the altar of literary novelty, and it’s never clear why Lanter chose such an idiosyncratic style, especially one incongruous with the signature idiom of New York in the ’70s.
An unusual and artistically ambitious—but convoluted—account of a New York City gripped by fear.Pub Date: May 22, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-9838412-3-4
Page Count: 492
Publisher: Twiss Hill Press
Review Posted Online: July 15, 2016
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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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