An engrossing, bittersweet comedy—the seventh novel from the author of Rebel Powers (1993), among others—about sexual confusion, Catholic guilt, and Washington in the wake of the JFK administration. Walter Marshall, an energetic 19-year-old, has, in 1964, just realized that he may be wasting his time at the D'Alessandro School of Broadcasting—for, instead of emulating his idol Edward R. Murrow, Walter now suspects that what he really desires is to follow in the footsteps of his other idol, the recently deceased chief executive. Problems rapidly develop. Walter manages to propose to two different older women—co-worker Alice Kane, whose ardent expectation of the physical satisfactions thereby promised conflicts with Walter's strenuously maintained purity, and Natalie Bowman, a vaguely European beauty whose ``tall, lithe figure and. . . dark, aristocratic features reminded him of Jackie Kennedy.'' Walter's inability to say no to any opportunity or entanglement forces him into best-friendship with the awkward, unshakably optimistic Albert Waple, a wonderfully hapless plot to save the D'Alessandro School from its owner's gambling debts, conflict with the equally turbulent romantic life of Walter's widowed mother, and, best of all, a sit-in demonstration at a Maryland restaurant in company with a courageous elderly black woman who may be the most influential of his several mentors and role models. The novel ends with Walter (figuratively) bloodied but unbowed, shorn of his handsome head of hair and many of his illusions, but newly committed to still another ideal. He's a charmer, and the book's lightly worn seriousness of purpose is effectively and pleasingly varied by several very funny scenes—including Alice's heartfelt attempt to surrender to her beau, and Walter's intricately detailed confessions to his bewildered parish priest. It's nice to see Bausch extending his range in a novel that compares favorably with the best work he has done. ($30,000 ad/promo; author tour)
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1996
ISBN: 0-06-017332-7
Page Count: 320
Publisher: HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1996
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.
A violent surfacing of adolescence (which has little in common with Tarkington's earlier, broadly comic, Seventeen) has a compulsive impact.
"Nobody big except me" is the dream world of Holden Caulfield and his first person story is down to the basic, drab English of the pre-collegiate. For Holden is now being bounced from fancy prep, and, after a vicious evening with hall- and roommates, heads for New York to try to keep his latest failure from his parents. He tries to have a wild evening (all he does is pay the check), is terrorized by the hotel elevator man and his on-call whore, has a date with a girl he likes—and hates, sees his 10 year old sister, Phoebe. He also visits a sympathetic English teacher after trying on a drunken session, and when he keeps his date with Phoebe, who turns up with her suitcase to join him on his flight, he heads home to a hospital siege. This is tender and true, and impossible, in its picture of the old hells of young boys, the lonesomeness and tentative attempts to be mature and secure, the awful block between youth and being grown-up, the fright and sickness that humans and their behavior cause the challenging, the dramatization of the big bang. It is a sorry little worm's view of the off-beat of adult pressure, of contemporary strictures and conformity, of sentiment….
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.Pub Date: June 15, 1951
ISBN: 0316769177
Page Count: -
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1951
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
APPRECIATIONS
Genetically engineered dinosaurs run amok in Crichton's new, vastly entertaining science thriller. From the introduction alone—a classically Crichton-clear discussion of the implications of biotechnological research—it's evident that the Harvard M.D. has bounced back from the science-fantasy silliness of Sphere (1987) for another taut reworking of the Frankenstein theme, as in The Andromeda Strain and The Terminal Man. Here, Dr. Frankenstein is aging billionaire John Hammond, whose monster is a manmade ecosystem based on a Costa Rican island. Designed as the world's ultimate theme park, the ecosystem boasts climate and flora of the Jurassic Age and—most spectacularly—15 varieties of dinosaurs, created by elaborate genetic engineering that Crichton explains in fascinating detail, rich with dino-lore and complete with graphics. Into the park, for a safety check before its opening, comes the novel's band of characters—who, though well drawn, double as symbolic types in this unsubtle morality play. Among them are hero Alan Grant, noble paleontologist; Hammond, venal and obsessed; amoral dino-designer Henry Wu; Hammond's two innocent grandchildren; and mathematician Ian Malcolm, who in long diatribes serves as Crichton's mouthpiece to lament the folly of science. Upon arrival, the visitors tour the park; meanwhile, an industrial spy steals some dino embryos by shutting down the island's power—and its security grid, allowing the beasts to run loose. The bulk of the remaining narrative consists of dinos—ferocious T. Rex's, voracious velociraptors, venom-spitting dilophosaurs—stalking, ripping, and eating the cast in fast, furious, and suspenseful set-pieces as the ecosystem spins apart. And can Grant prevent the dinos from escaping to the mainland to create unchecked havoc? Though intrusive, the moralizing rarely slows this tornado-paced tale, a slick package of info-thrills that's Crichton's most clever since Congo (1980)—and easily the most exciting dinosaur novel ever written. A sure-fire best-seller.
Pub Date: Nov. 7, 1990
ISBN: 0394588169
Page Count: 424
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Sept. 21, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 1990
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