“A thoroughly entertaining rendition of one woman’s search for belonging.” the candid life of meena dave
SHIFTY’S BOYS
Offutt, Chris Grove (272 pp.) $27.00 | June 7, 2022 978-0-8021-5998-4
THE CANDID LIFE OF MEENA DAVE
Patel, Namrata Lake Union Publishing (315 pp.) $14.95 paper | June 1, 2022 978-1-5420-3907-9 A young woman inherits an apartment from a total stranger and tries to figure out how she is connected to the person who bequeathed it. Meena Dave lost her parents in a tragic accident when she was a child. Ever since, she’s refused to get close to others, always keeping people at arm’s length. She lives as a nomad, working as a photojournalist and traveling constantly for work. She’s therefore quite puzzled when a lawyer informs her that she has inherited an apartment from a woman she’s never met. The apartment in the Back Bay area of Boston is part of a building called the Engineer’s House, which was purchased decades earlier by an Indian immigrant. Each of
y o u n g a d u lt
Another excellent Mick Hardin thriller set in rural eastern Kentucky. Mick Hardin, of the Army’s Criminal Investigation Division, once again finds himself back home in Appalachia, freeloading on his sister, Linda, the nononsense county sheriff, while he recovers from a roadside bombing. When the county’s heroin kingpin (or, it being a small place, the county’s heroin princeling) is found dead in a vacant downtown lot in the county seat, the city police are disinclined to investigate, on the “good riddance” principle of rough justice. Linda, who’s occupied with her reelection campaign—and the awful, endless round of glad handing, small favors, and pancake breakfasts it requires—is glad not to have the case on her plate. But when the dealer’s mother, the misanthropic and well-armed Shifty Kissick (a former love of Mick and Linda’s late father), asks Mick to investigate, he feels obligated to take a look...and the cycle of violence and revenge begins. As in The Killing Hills (2021), Offutt has fashioned a mystery plot that’s fast-paced, efficiently plotted, atmospheric, and compelling, but what again distinguishes the book is the author’s command of and affection for the setting and the people who live there. Come for the thriller, by all means; it delivers nicely. But stay for, and linger in, the marvelous incidentals and atmospherics: arguments about mall names; lore about snakes and birds and mushrooms; descriptions of a local shade-tree tinkerer’s Slinkylike version of a perpetual motion machine. Terrific characters; taut suspense. Another winner from Offutt.
the building’s apartments is occupied by other descendants of Indian immigrants, and Meena wonders if she, as a woman with dark skin but unknown background, might have a familial connection to the woman who left her the apartment. After learning she can neither sell nor sublet the home for six months, Meena decides to move in while she tries to uncover the mysteries of her past. She starts building relationships with the other people in the building and also discovers notes inside the apartment that have apparently been left for her to find. The longer she stays, the more connected she feels to the building’s other residents and to her past. Told from Meena’s perspective, the book has a light feeling, but it examines deeper issues like loneliness, abandonment, and cultural expectations. Through Meena’s interactions with her new neighbors, the author explores what constitutes a family and a home. With fascinating details about photojournalism, communal apartment living, and the experiences of Indian nationals who immigrated to Boston in the early 20th century, the novel illustrates the unconventional ways in which people attach to others in unfamiliar surroundings. Although the narrative is sometimes bogged down by unnecessary details, the supporting characters, with intertwined and nuanced histories, add richness to the absorbing story. A thoroughly entertaining rendition of one woman’s search for belonging.
GRAND HOTEL EUROPA
Pfeijffer, Iija Leonard Trans. by Michele Hutchison Farrar, Straus and Giroux (560 pp.) $30.00 | June 14, 2022 978-0-374-16590-1 A run-down European hotel, now being restored by its new Chinese owner, becomes the temporary home of a Dutch writer recording memories of “love in times of mass tourism.” Prolific Dutch poet, playwright, essayist, and novelist Pfeijffer delivers an epic new work featuring Leonard Pfeijffer, “an esteemed and popular writer,” who offers an account of his time with Clio, “the love of my life [who] isn’t my love any more.” Recollections of this intense, lusty Italian affair form a plotline that is sandwiched between the additional meat of the book— a disquisition on Europe, its history, significance, and decline under assault from tourists. Clio is an art historian whose work lends perspective to the view that Europe’s greatness is all in its past. The fictional Pfeijffer is writing a novel on the subject of tourism, setting up a hall of mirrors concerning fact and fiction. But the insistent, multifaceted focus on the continent and its identity, and the meanings and truths to be found therein— financial, philosophical, political, creative, and more—merge into a relentless drumbeat of a message, with every subtopic, whether Clio’s interest in a lost Caravaggio or visits made to Malta, Genoa, Amsterdam, or Abu Dhabi, expanding on or threading back to the thesis. Europe is in the business of selling its past to tourists, a “barbarian invasion” that is wringing “the |
kirkus.com
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fiction
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1 may 2022
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31
