Heartbreaking and hilarious.
In Johnson’s novel, a brilliant physicist tries to build a life after narrowly surviving a childhood filled with reanimated dinosaurs, runaway aliens, and mutated Mexican beaded lizards.
Addressing an unidentified listener, John Chant recounts the wonder and heartbreak he experienced growing up as the child of parents Alan and Ann, two extraordinarily brilliant but emotionally unavailable scientists permanently at war with one another. It’s impossible to accurately convey the off-the-wall lunacy comprising the first act, but suffice it to say that it chronicles young John’s many adventures before the irrevocable rift between his parents leads to the ultimate dissolution of the family. (It’s clear that John’s eventful childhood has left an indelible mark on his psyche, and he wonders if he will forever be an outsider and alone.) That the author is able to follow all this up with even more absurdist insanity in the ensuing acts as John kicks off his teaching career at a university “College of Inhumanities” testifies to Johnson’s expansive storytelling prowess. Somehow, seemingly disparate story elements (like stolen “probability pumps” and the sullen kid John befriends in fifth grade) all weave together seamlessly in an unforced and pleasing fashion. This fantastical “memoir” following protagonist John’s attempts to navigate academic life (“‘Never fear blood’ was in fact the school sports motto”) after growing up a curious kid in an even curiouser family is a true work of literary alchemy. Packed with deep pathos and unrelenting dark humor, the novel delves deeply into questions about the true nature of love in all its mysterious—and quite possibly mystical—components. One of the most moving episodes in the story occurs when John and Ann speak for one last time at the latter’s gravesite—Ann’s confession to her heartbroken son is simple, concise and absolutely devastating, and the emotions it stirs feel fully earned and organic. By contrast, one of the funniest episodes happens when Dean Pancake—John Chant’s longtime simian nemesis—meets his ultimate fate. Some might find the humor morbid, and maybe even cruel; readers on Johnson’s wavelength will be too busy guffawing and welcoming the laughter.
Heartbreaking and hilarious.Pub Date: Sept. 24, 2024
ISBN: 9798991428422
Page Count: 348
Publisher: Baryon Dreams Press
Review Posted Online: Oct. 31, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2025
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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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