“A daughter tells the grim story of the effects of her mother’s mental illness.” mother in the dark
techniques” is a pill-popping wreck who can hardly keep himself and his family together, but his observational powers rival those of Sherlock Holmes. He looks at a cop’s hand and deduces that he’d been at the firing range that day, that he has tennis elbow but doesn’t play tennis, and that the crown of his watch is about to fall off because of movements caused by his suppressed neurosis. Remarkable snap observations, Micaela observes. Not really, Rekke replies. It’s just one of many from this gem of a character. The complex plot includes the CIA with references to Abu Ghraib and the Salt Pit prison, but that’s not the main focus. The ending hints at a Rekke-Vargas sequel, and that would be most welcome. Kudos to Lagercrantz and translator Giles for a compelling read.
THE BOOK OF GOOSE
A daughter tells the grim story of the effects of her mother’s mental illness. Most of this debut novel takes place during the childhood of its narrator, Anna, with occasional chapters set when she is in her 20s; her mother, Diana, is at the center of the book. When Anna and her two younger sisters, Lia and Sofia, are small, their family lives in the working-class neighborhood near Boston that Diana grew up in and where she has the support of family and friends. But when her husband moves them to a raw new suburb where she knows no one, she spirals into mental illness. The author writes insightfully about a child’s perceptions of growing up amid neglect and conflict, and she depicts those conditions vividly. But for long stretches
y o u n g a d u lt
Li, Yiyun Farrar, Straus and Giroux (368 pp.) $28.00 | Sept. 20, 2022 978-0-374-60634-3
MOTHER IN THE DARK
Maiuri, Kayla Riverhead (304 pp.) $26.00 | Aug. 9, 2022 978-0-59308-6-421
Who lives, who dies, who tells your story—and is it your story to tell? (Apologies to Lin-Manuel Miranda.) Inseparable young teens Agnès and Fabienne share a world they’ve created for themselves in rural, ruined, post–World War II France. Fabienne is unschooled and rebellious, while the more passive Agnès is disenfranchised from her schoolmates and family members. A “game” concocted by the girls—that of writing stories so the world will (ostensibly) know how they lived—launches a series of events that propels Agnès to Paris and London and into the publishing world and a finishing school, while Fabienne remains at home in their rural village, tending to farm animals. The arc of their intense adolescent friendship comes under Agnès’ critical lens when she learns of Fabienne’s death after years of emotional and geographic distance between the two. Now freed to write her own story, Agnès narrates the course of events which thrust her into the world as a teen prodigy at the same time she was removed, reluctantly, from Fabienne’s orbit. Li’s measured and exquisite delivery of Agnès’ revelations conveys the balance and rebalance of the girls’ relationship over time but also illuminates the motivations of writers (fame, revenge, escape) and how power within a relationship mutates and exploits. The combination the girls bring to their intimate relationship and endeavors (one seeking to experience things she could not achieve alone, the other providing the experiences) leads Agnès first to believe they were two halves of a whole. Knives, minerals, oranges, and the game of Rock Paper Scissors sneak into Agnès’ narrative as she relates the trajectory of a once-unbreakable union. The relative hardness of those substances is a clue to understanding it all. Stunners: Li’s memorable duo, their lives, their losses.
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kirkus.com
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fiction
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1 july 2022
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