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Search - The House On R. Street

The House On R Street
Author: Sheila Kohler

Library Journal — Bill, a troubled girl of about 14, lives in a hot place--one of the leftovers of the British empire. Her father is a failed diamond mogul and her mother, a chronic invalid. Left to her own devices, Bill bullies everyone and answers to no one. In lieu of going to school, she goes to town to see the same film over and over again. ... more »She lives in a fevered state of eroticism that she attempts to alleviate during her unsupervised visits to town. When her mother's doctor brings a trained nurse to the house, something sinister begins happening to Bill's mother. Bill kidnaps her mother and sets her free--or does she? Kohler's style is eerie, providing rumor and innuendo but very few facts on which the reader can depend. Many questions arise, yet the searing heat and Bill's fevered existence are remarkable in their clarity. An interesting book; for general collections.

[Joanna M. Burkhardt, URI College of Continuing Ed. Lib.]

Publishers Weekly

Characterized by a mechanical pace and monochrome emotion, Kohler's second novel (after The Perfect Place ) establishes a potentially poisonous mood but fails to takes it anywhere. The protagonist, a teenaged girl in 1920s South Africa who goes by the name of "Bill" simply "because she behaves like a boy," evinces a tendency toward violence and a current of lesbian eroticism. As passages meant to disturb and provoke seldom do, if only because of the static pitch, it becomes apparent that Kohler's prose styling--a lush garden of present-tense sentences about a secretive and dangerous girl--is the book's raison d'etre. Concrete details are rare, but it is clear that Bill has recently shed her baby fat and reached adolescence as a devastating beauty, to the alarm of her drab sisters; she coolly strings men along, allowing them to fondle and kiss her in exchange for gold trinkets. Meanwhile, Bill's mother is bedridden by severe depression, while her father, a businessman who hoards diamonds, is sleeping with his wife's nurse. And something seems to have passed between Bill and her uncle, for she has mercilessly crushed one of his pet birds underfoot, and she's equally likely to turn this startling brand of violence on herself, using pins or other sharp objects. Elaborate hints about the reasons for Bill's self-destructive behavior never coalesce, however, and she remains an enigma, her story a pretentious and uni-dimensional affair.

ISBN-13: 9780679426066
ISBN-10: 067942606X
Pages: 143
Edition: 1st ed
Rating:

0 stars, based on 0 rating

Publisher: Knopf
Book Type: Hardcover
Reviews: Amazon | Write a Review

Genres:

Literature & Fiction >> World Literature

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