Goldman's acclaimed debut, The Long Night of the White Chickens (1992), proves to have been no fluke: Its successor is an equally compelling saga of a crew of poor, would-be Central American sailors stranded aboard the rat-infested hulk of a dead ship. Esteban, a 19-year-old survivor of a Sandinista battalion shot to pieces in a contra ambush, flies to New York as part of a group of hopeful, desperate strangers hoping to take seamens' berths on the cargo ship Urus. On arrival, the crew is shocked to see their vessel stripped and sagging along an abandoned Brooklyn pier, its engine room a blackened disaster from a fire at sea on its last voyage. Despite appearances, the yanqui Captain and his non- Spanish-speaking mate are insistent that the Urus will be rebuilt, and they quickly set the crew to work. Summer fades into chilly fall, however, and it becomes obvious to the seamen that not only will the ship never become seaworthy, but they will never be paid; with no cash and no legal status, they're trapped in a floating nightmare. Already ill-clothed and -fed, their despair proves as numbing as the autumn winds, until Esteban begins to explore the area's warehouses, bringing back whatever he can steal. His forays lead him to a Latino neighborhood, where he finds sympathy, a job, and even a girl. He helps the others as best he can, insisting that a friend suffering from a bad burn be taken to the hospital (and he is, never to be heard from again); and when the crew's plight finally attracts official notice, Esteban again takes matters into his own hands. A bizarre set of circumstances (inspired by a true story) vividly wrought, but even more memorable is Goldman's fresh and moving take on such matters as longing, love, cruelty, and fellowship, probed in a poignant and original narrative. (First printing of 35,000; $50,000 ad/promo)
Pub Date: Feb. 1, 1997
ISBN: 0-87113-671-6
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Atlantic Monthly
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 1996
This book sings with the terrible silence of dead civilizations in which once there was valor.
Written with quiet dignity that builds to a climax of tragic force, this book about the dissolution of an African tribe, its traditions, and values, represents a welcome departure from the familiar "Me, white brother" genre.
Written by a Nigerian African trained in missionary schools, this novel tells quietly the story of a brave man, Okonkwo, whose life has absolute validity in terms of his culture, and who exercises his prerogative as a warrior, father, and husband with unflinching single mindedness. But into the complex Nigerian village filters the teachings of strangers, teachings so alien to the tribe, that resistance is impossible. One must distinguish a force to be able to oppose it, and to most, the talk of Christian salvation is no more than the babbling of incoherent children. Still, with his guns and persistence, the white man, amoeba-like, gradually absorbs the native culture and in despair, Okonkwo, unable to withstand the corrosion of what he, alone, understands to be the life force of his people, hangs himself. In the formlessness of the dying culture, it is the missionary who takes note of the event, reminding himself to give Okonkwo's gesture a line or two in his work, The Pacification of the Primitive Tribes of the Lower Niger.
This book sings with the terrible silence of dead civilizations in which once there was valor.Pub Date: Jan. 23, 1958
ISBN: 0385474547
Page Count: 207
Publisher: McDowell, Obolensky
Review Posted Online: April 23, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 1958
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Jonathan Livingston Kitty, it’s not.
A lonely postman learns that he’s about to die—and reflects on life as he bargains with a Hawaiian-shirt–wearing devil.
The 30-year-old first-person narrator in filmmaker/novelist Kawamura’s slim novel is, by his own admission, “boring…a monotone guy,” so unimaginative that, when he learns he has a brain tumor, the bucket list he writes down is dull enough that “even the cat looked disgusted with me.” Luckily—or maybe not—a friendly devil, dubbed Aloha, pops onto the scene, and he’s willing to make a deal: an extra day of life in exchange for being allowed to remove something pleasant from the world. The first thing excised is phones, which goes well enough. (The narrator is pleasantly surprised to find that “people seemed to have no problem finding something to fill up their free time.”) But deals with the devil do have a way of getting complicated. This leads to shallow musings (“Sometimes, when you rewatch a film after not having seen it for a long time, it makes a totally different impression on you than it did the first time you saw it. Of course, the movie hasn’t changed; it’s you who’s changed") written in prose so awkward, it’s possibly satire (“Tears dripped down onto the letter like warm, salty drops of rain”). Even the postman’s beloved cat, who gains the power of speech, ends up being prim and annoying. The narrator ponders feelings about a lost love, his late mother, and his estranged father in a way that some readers might find moving at times. But for many, whatever made this book a bestseller in Japan is going to be lost in translation.
Jonathan Livingston Kitty, it’s not.Pub Date: March 12, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-250-29405-0
Page Count: 176
Publisher: Flatiron Books
Review Posted Online: Feb. 16, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2019
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