At a time when child sex abuse elicits myriad accusations, mea culpas, and endless shelves of prefab fiction, the prolific Wilson (Jesus, A Life, 1992; The Vicar of Sorrows, 1994; etc., etc.) offers a respectable, genuine, intellectual portrait of a pedophile that also makes for a gripper indeed. When philosopher and ex-university don Oliver Gold, 43, moves into an attic room in the London house of widowed Janet Gold, it’s thought by all that his reason for going from teaching to the attic is to concentrate on his long-expected magnum opus. His real reason for moving in, though, is no such thing, but instead it’s the appeal of being near his deepest love-object, Janet’s three-year-old granddaughter Bobs (from Roberta). When the main action opens, seven years have passed, and not only does nary a soul in the house think of Oliver as a pervert, but each is in love with him—not only Bobs, who finds him the greatest pal she’s ever had, but also the 60ish Janet herself, for whom Oliver provides the literary and artsy cachet that had almost disappeared with the death of her editor-husband; Janet’s divorced daughter (and mother of Bobs) Michal; and Michal’s beautiful lover (and ex- student of Oliver’s) Catharine Cuffe. When news comes—like a bolt from the blue—that Oliver is to marry an American and leave the attic forever, things shift into high gear as everybody tries to figure out why. Matters—often grimly, even wonderfully, comic, such is Wilson’s sleight-of-hand—will go from bad to worse, then far worse still, as each of the women (and Bobs, too) tries to serve and save her own interests, as does also the hyperintellectual, deeply serious, but child- and sex-tormented Oliver, who in spite of all (and —all— includes plenty) remains believably human, thanks to the estimably gifted Wilson. A —topic— novel that surpasses its genre and goes to the dreadful—but this time authentic—heart of the matter.
Pub Date: Aug. 1, 1998
ISBN: 0-393-02740-6
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Norton
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 1998
An illuminating read for anyone interested in the inner workings of the Catholic Church; for prelate-fiction superfans, it...
Harris, creator of grand, symphonic thrillers from Fatherland (1992) to An Officer and a Spy (2014), scores with a chamber piece of a novel set in the Vatican in the days after a fictional pope dies.
Fictional, yes, but the nameless pontiff has a lot in common with our own Francis: He’s famously humble, shunning the lavish Apostolic Palace for a small apartment, and he is committed to leading a church that engages with the world and its problems. In the aftermath of his sudden death, rumors circulate about the pope’s intention to fire certain cardinals. At the center of the action is Cardinal Lomeli, Dean of the College of Cardinals, whose job it is to manage the conclave that will elect a new pope. He believes it is also his duty to uncover what the pope knew before he died because some of the cardinals in question are in the running to succeed him. “In the running” is an apt phrase because, as described by Harris, the papal conclave is the ultimate political backroom—albeit a room, the Sistine Chapel, covered with Michelangelo frescoes. Vying for the papal crown are an African cardinal whom many want to see as the first black pope, a press-savvy Canadian, an Italian arch-conservative (think Cardinal Scalia), and an Italian liberal who wants to continue the late pope’s campaign to modernize the church. The novel glories in the ancient rituals that constitute the election process while still grounding that process in the real world: the Sistine Chapel is fitted with jamming devices to thwart electronic eavesdropping, and the pressure to act quickly is increased because “rumours that the pope is dead are already trending on social media.”
An illuminating read for anyone interested in the inner workings of the Catholic Church; for prelate-fiction superfans, it is pure temptation.Pub Date: Nov. 22, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-451-49344-6
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Sept. 6, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2016
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
The Brat Pack meets The Bacchae in this precious, way-too-long, and utterly unsuspenseful town-and-gown murder tale. A bunch of ever-so-mandarin college kids in a small Vermont school are the eager epigones of an aloof classics professor, and in their exclusivity and snobbishness and eagerness to please their teacher, they are moved to try to enact Dionysian frenzies in the woods. During the only one that actually comes off, a local farmer happens upon them—and they kill him. But the death isn't ruled a murder—and might never have been if one of the gang—a cadging sybarite named Bunny Corcoran—hadn't shown signs of cracking under the secret's weight. And so he too is dispatched. The narrator, a blank-slate Californian named Richard Pepen chronicles the coverup. But if you're thinking remorse-drama, conscience masque, or even semi-trashy who'll-break-first? page-turner, forget it: This is a straight gee-whiz, first-to-have-ever-noticed college novel—"Hampden College, as a body, was always strangely prone to hysteria. Whether from isolation, malice, or simple boredom, people there were far more credulous and excitable than educated people are generally thought to be, and this hermetic, overheated atmosphere made it a thriving black petri dish of melodrama and distortion." First-novelist Tartt goes muzzy when she has to describe human confrontations (the murder, or sex, or even the ping-ponging of fear), and is much more comfortable in transcribing aimless dorm-room paranoia or the TV shows that the malefactors anesthetize themselves with as fate ticks down. By telegraphing the murders, Tartt wants us to be continually horrified at these kids—while inviting us to semi-enjoy their manneristic fetishes and refined tastes. This ersatz-Fitzgerald mix of moralizing and mirror-looking (Jay McInerney shook and poured the shaker first) is very 80's—and in Tartt's strenuous version already seems dated, formulaic. Les Nerds du Mal—and about as deep (if not nearly as involving) as a TV movie.
Pub Date: Sept. 16, 1992
ISBN: 1400031702
Page Count: 592
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1992
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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