From Publishers Weekly
In this sequel to The Season of Coole , the Brooklyn funeral of J. Leland Coole, retired Irish-American customs inspector, draws all 16 of his children to the casket, and the surge of common memory among the survivors gives family values an awful beating. The force compelling the Cooles to gather by the "rotten old bastard," whose "voice alone set off all the old post-traumatic shock syndromes," is a legacy of his brutal fathering. But expect no standard gropings for self-knowledge, confessions of failure, love-hate ordeals or other genre cliches here--the situation is far beyond conventional remedy. The 10 boys, in or approaching middle age, are criminals, alcoholics, addicts and thugs; the six girls express the family psychosis more passively, but share it. Stephens's stream-of-consciousness blend of anecdote and recollection, psychologically real and stylistically natural, dominates his unplotted narrative, which moves among the 16 figures, probing their failures to forge any sense of moral accountability. Remarkably, although idiosyncrasies are noted, the 16 do not distinguish themselves particularly as characters; they register clearly only as elements in the collective dysfunction. Even more remarkably, the account is witty, thoughtful and absorbingly readable, as well as an important study of urban violence.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Library Journal
The 16 sons and daughters of Leland Coole gather for his funeral in their old neighborhood in East New York, Brooklyn. They're "joined together, not so much by a name or blood... or family ties" but "by the terror and misery their father inflicted upon them." As they "wake... his sorry ass" in old Irish fashion, they drink, smoke dope, insult each other, argue, and remember, dredging up bitter memories of intimidation and abuse. From Paddy, a "marginalized Bohemian who'd gone to art school," to Terry, an incoherent derelict who lives in an abandoned bus, the ten sons all share their father's drunkenness and violence to varying degrees. The sisters, "small, tough, and pretty," include Oona, a former Hare Krishna nun, and tattooed Samantha, whose former boyfriend, Johnny Stiletto, was the "quintessential greaseball." Stephens, sharp enough not to find literary "dignity" in the dysfunctional House of Coole, does evoke a sad irony and gritty humor from the bleakness and grime of their lives. Recommended for general readers.
- Ron Antonucci, Hudson Lib. & Historical Soc. , Ohio
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.
- Ron Antonucci, Hudson Lib. & Historical Soc. , Ohio
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.
