The pyrotechnics of Acosta’s writing would benefit from a more tightly choreographed structure.
Ballet star Acosta’s debut novel follows a Cuban family from slavery days to modern Havana.
Pata de Puerco (Pig’s Foot) is the name of the tiny village founded by friends Oscar and José, fresh from their victory in a slave revolt. Oscar, whose origins are a pygmy tribe, the Korticos, and José, a Mandinga, forge a bond despite tribal rivalry, marry and start families. Unfortunately, Oscar is soon beset by tragedy—his wife Malena dies giving birth to son Benicio, and Oscar kills himself. Benicio is raised by José and his wife, Betina, alongside their son Melecio and daughter Geru. Melecio, a gifted poet, is taken into the household of rum baron Emilio Bacardi to be educated. As Benicio grows, he resembles Oscar less and less, mostly since he is much larger in stature. In fact, he resembles, in size and temperament, the village outcast, an ornery giant known as El Mozambique. Thereby hangs a tale, of course. The return of Melecio and Benicio’s attraction to his “sister” Geru cause further complications, and eventually, Benicio and Geru depart for Havana. Here, the feisty narrator, Oscar Mandinga, a descendant of Benicio and Geru, whom he refers to, inaccurately it emerges, as his grandparents, takes over the story. Under suspicion for his political cynicism, Oscar undergoes interrogation at the hands of “whiteshirts” (the Cuban Ku Klux Klan) and embodies the contrast between the apathy and disillusion of young Cubans today and the revolutionary zeal of elders like Benicio and Geru, who witnessed and welcomed the advent of Castro. The shift in tone between the idyll of Pata de Puerco, with its storytellers, wise women, magic amulets and rustic whimsy, and the realities of dystopian Havana are almost too jarring for this relatively short book to encompass. Other than latter-day Oscar, who narrates what is essentially a frame story, no clear protagonist emerges to lend direction to this episodic rags-to-riches-to rags tale.
The pyrotechnics of Acosta’s writing would benefit from a more tightly choreographed structure.Pub Date: Jan. 14, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-62040-081-4
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Bloomsbury
Review Posted Online: Oct. 5, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2013
BOOK REVIEW
A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy.
Are we not men? We are—well, ask Bigfoot, as Brooks does in this delightful yarn, following on his bestseller World War Z(2006).
A zombie apocalypse is one thing. A volcanic eruption is quite another, for, as the journalist who does a framing voice-over narration for Brooks’ latest puts it, when Mount Rainier popped its cork, “it was the psychological aspect, the hyperbole-fueled hysteria that had ended up killing the most people.” Maybe, but the sasquatches whom the volcano displaced contributed to the statistics, too, if only out of self-defense. Brooks places the epicenter of the Bigfoot war in a high-tech hideaway populated by the kind of people you might find in a Jurassic Park franchise: the schmo who doesn’t know how to do much of anything but tries anyway, the well-intentioned bleeding heart, the know-it-all intellectual who turns out to know the wrong things, the immigrant with a tough backstory and an instinct for survival. Indeed, the novel does double duty as a survival manual, packed full of good advice—for instance, try not to get wounded, for “injury turns you from a giver to a taker. Taking up our resources, our time to care for you.” Brooks presents a case for making room for Bigfoot in the world while peppering his narrative with timely social criticism about bad behavior on the human side of the conflict: The explosion of Rainier might have been better forecast had the president not slashed the budget of the U.S. Geological Survey, leading to “immediate suspension of the National Volcano Early Warning System,” and there’s always someone around looking to monetize the natural disaster and the sasquatch-y onslaught that follows. Brooks is a pro at building suspense even if it plays out in some rather spectacularly yucky episodes, one involving a short spear that takes its name from “the sucking sound of pulling it out of the dead man’s heart and lungs.” Grossness aside, it puts you right there on the scene.
A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy.Pub Date: June 16, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-9848-2678-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Del Rey/Ballantine
Review Posted Online: Feb. 9, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK TO SCREEN
A charming and persuasive entry that will leave readers impatiently awaiting the concluding volume.
Book 2 of Hearne's latest fantasy trilogy, The Seven Kennings (A Plague of Giants, 2017), set in a multiracial world thrust into turmoil by an invasion of peculiar giants.
In this world, most races have their own particular magical endowment, or “kenning,” though there are downsides to trying to gain the magic (an excellent chance of being killed instead) and using it (rapid aging and death). Most recently discovered is the sixth kenning, whose beneficiaries can talk to and command animals. The story canters along, although with multiple first-person narrators, it's confusing at times. Some characters are familiar, others are new, most of them with their own problems to solve, all somehow caught up in the grand design. To escape her overbearing father and the unreasoning violence his kind represents, fire-giant Olet Kanek leads her followers into the far north, hoping to found a new city where the races and kennings can peacefully coexist. Joining Olet are young Abhinava Khose, discoverer of the sixth kenning, and, later, Koesha Gansu (kenning: air), captain of an all-female crew shipwrecked by deep-sea monsters. Elsewhere, Hanima, who commands hive insects, struggles to free her city from the iron grip of wealthy, callous merchant monarchists. Other threads focus on the Bone Giants, relentless invaders seeking the still-unknown seventh kenning, whose confidence that this can defeat the other six is deeply disturbing. Under Hearne's light touch, these elements mesh perfectly, presenting an inventive, eye-filling panorama; satisfying (and, where appropriate, well-resolved) plotlines; and tensions between the races and their kennings to supply much of the drama.
A charming and persuasive entry that will leave readers impatiently awaiting the concluding volume.Pub Date: Feb. 4, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-345-54857-3
Page Count: 592
Publisher: Del Rey/Ballantine
Review Posted Online: Nov. 24, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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