Featuring 376 Industry-First Reviews of Fiction, Nonfiction, Children's and YA books
KIRKUS VOL. LXXXVII, NO.
17
|
1
SEPTEMBER
2019
REVIEWS Salman Rushdie
discusses his new novel, Quichotte, a modern retelling of Don Quixote and a dark satire of contemporary America. p. 14
from the editor’s desk:
On Losing a Literary Giant B Y T O M
Chairman H E R B E RT S I M O N President & Publisher M A RC W I N K E L M A N
B EER
#
Photo courtesy John Paraskevas
I saw the news on my phone as I rode the elevator up to Kirkus’ New York office on the morning of Aug. 6: Toni Morrison had died. Though Morrison was 88 and had used a wheelchair at public appearances in recent years, the news still stunned. Her wisdom and unimpeachable dignity—not to mention her groundbreaking literary achievements—seemed to make her almost immortal; it was hard to conceive of a world without Toni Morrison in it, speaking, writing, inspiring. Morrison has been part of the literary landscape for as long as I can remember. I discovered her 1973 novel, Sula, after reading about it in Barbara Smith’s semi-
Tom Beer
nal essay, “Toward a Black Feminist Criticism,” for a course on literary theory my sophomore year in college. (Are Sula and Nel lesbians? Smith read them as such,
and suddenly literary criticism seemed a lot less tame to me.) Sula led me to The Bluest Eye and Song of Solomon. The fall of my senior year, Morrison published Beloved—a novel about slavery in America that was also a ghost story; its moral gravity and imagina-
Vice President of Marketing SARAH KALINA skalina@kirkus.com Managing/Nonfiction Editor E R I C L I E B E T R AU eliebetrau@kirkus.com Fiction Editor L AU R I E M U C H N I C K lmuchnick@kirkus.com Children’s Editor VICKY SMITH vsmith@kirkus.com Young Adult Editor L AU R A S I M E O N lsimeon@kirkus.com Editor at Large MEGAN LABRISE mlabrise@kirkus.com
Senior Indie Editor D AV I D R A P P drapp@kirkus.com
writing about Beloved for my senior “comps” paper in English. That December, Morrison delivered a powerful eulogy for James Baldwin at his funeral
Indie Editor M Y R A F O R S B E RG mforsberg@kirkus.com
service; I hungrily read it in the New York Times Book Review later that month, and it sent me—where had I been?—to Baldwin’s own writing.
Associate Manager of Indie K AT E R I N A P A P P A S kpappas@kirkus.com
In the years since, Morrison’s books have come every few years like bless-
Editorial Assistant CHELSEA ENNEN cennen@kirkus.com
ings: Jazz, Paradise, Love, and more. She won a Pulitzer Prize and then a Nobel, and her place in the literary firmament seemed assured. But she was still very
Mysteries Editor THOMAS LEITCH
much of our world, engaged and involved. I was fortunate to be in the audito-
Contributing Editor G R E G O RY M c N A M E E
rium at The New School in New York City the night in 2015 that she accepted the Ivan Sandrof Lifetime Achievement Award from the National Book Critics Circle; she spoke with great
Copy Editor BETSY JUDKINS
humor and humility and, as one expected, insight. Yes, it was a lifetime achievement award—but it seemed
Designer ALEX HEAD
impossible to believe she wouldn’t be with us for years to come, an elder dispensing wisdom to her tribe. Now she’s gone. To memorialize her, start by reading Gregory McNamee’s Appreciation of Morrison on page 195. (We already had another piece in the can, but for this issue it really had to be Toni Morrison.) Then check out the list that fiction editor Laurie Muchnick assembled for our newsletter of “8 Toni Morrison Books Everyone Should Read” with their original Kirkus reviews. (I love this tour through the Kirkus archive, seeing what our reviewers said before a book’s reputation was fixed. For example, Beloved is “truly majestic…strong and intricate in craft; devastating in impact,” which seems exactly right.) Finally, please go back to the books themselves—works that will surely continue to deepen in richness as time goes by. Certain deaths have a similar effect: Ursula K. Le Guin. V.S. Naipaul. Philip Roth. All died last year, and those passings, like Morrison’s, are literary milestones. We miss the opportunity for further communion with a favorite author. Just this February, Morrison published The Source of Our Self-Regard, a collec-
tion of her essays, speeches, and other nonfiction writings. (Included is that 1987 eulogy for Baldwin.) It was a reminder that she was a great thinker as well as novelist. Toni Morrison is no longer with us, but we need her words now more than ever. Print indexes: www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/print-indexes Kirkus Blog: www.kirkusreviews.com/blog Advertising Opportunities: www.kirkusreviews.com/about/advertising opportunities
|
Editor -in- Chief TOM BEER tbeer@kirkus.com
Vice President of Kirkus Indie KAREN SCHECHNER kschechner@kirkus.com
tive power seemed to transform what fiction could do. Spellbound, I began
2
Chief Executive Officer M E G L A B O R D E KU E H N mkuehn@kirkus.com
1 september 2019
|
Submission Guidelines: www.kirkusreviews.com/about/submission-guidlines Subscriptions: www.kirkusreviews.com/subscription Newsletters: www.kirkusreviews.com/subscription/newsletter/add
from the editor’s desk
|
kirkus.com
|
Director of Kirkus Editorial L AU R E N B A I L E Y lbailey@kirkus.com Production Editor C AT H E R I N E B R E S N E R cbresner@kirkus.com Website and Software Developer P E RC Y P E R E Z pperez@kirkus.com Advertising Director M O N I Q U E S T E N S RU D mstensrud@kirkus.com Advertising Associate TAT I A N A A R N O L D tarnold@kirkus.com Graphic Designer L I A N A WA L K E R lwallker@kirkus.com Controller MICHELLE GONZALES mgonzales@kirkus.com for customer service or subscription questions, please call 1-800-316-9361
Cover photo by Rachel Eliza Griffiths
you can now purchase books online at kirkus.com
contents fiction
The Kirkus Star is awarded to books of remarkable merit, as determined by the impartial editors of Kirkus.
INDEX TO STARRED REVIEWS............................................................ 4 REVIEWS................................................................................................ 4 EDITOR’S NOTE..................................................................................... 6 INTERVIEW: SALMAN RUSHDIE ...................................................... 14 INTERVIEW: JEFFREY ARCHER........................................................ 24 MYSTERY.............................................................................................. 42 SCIENCE FICTION & FANTASY.......................................................... 50 ROMANCE.............................................................................................53
nonfiction
INDEX TO STARRED REVIEWS.......................................................... 56 REVIEWS.............................................................................................. 56 EDITOR’S NOTE................................................................................... 58 INTERVIEW: JAMES PONIEWOZIK..................................................70 INTERVIEW: DINA NAYERI................................................................ 76
children’s
INDEX TO STARRED REVIEWS........................................................ 106 REVIEWS............................................................................................ 106 EDITOR’S NOTE................................................................................. 108 INTERVIEW: IBTIHAJ MUHAMMAD...............................................122 INTERVIEW: HENA KHAN...............................................................126 WINTER HOLIDAY PICTURE BOOKS.............................................. 135
young adult
INDEX TO STARRED REVIEWS.........................................................150 REVIEWS.............................................................................................150 EDITOR’S NOTE..................................................................................152 INTERVIEW: DAVID YOON...............................................................154 INTERVIEW: ELIZABETH KEENAN.................................................160
The #MeToo movement forces a struggling young woman to confront the abusive relationship that defines her sexual and romantic past in this gut-wrenching debut. See the review on p. 37.
SHELF SPACE: REDISCOVERED BOOKS IN BOISE, IDAHO........165
indie
INDEX TO STARRED REVIEWS........................................................ 166 REVIEWS............................................................................................ 166 EDITOR’S NOTE................................................................................. 168 INDIE Q&A: KRISTEN ASHLEY........................................................ 178 IN MEMORIAM: ANNE LARSEN.......................................................191
Don’t wait on the mail for reviews! You can read pre-publication reviews as they are released on kirkus.com—even before they are published in the magazine. You can also access the current issue and back issues of Kirkus Reviews on our website by logging in as a subscriber. If you do not have a username or password, please contact customer care to set up your account by calling 1.800.316.9361 or emailing customers@kirkusreviews.com.
FIELD NOTES.....................................................................................194 APPRECIATIONS: TONI MORRISON (1931-2019)......................... 195 |
kirkus.com
|
contents
|
1 september 2019
|
3
fiction THE BROMANCE BOOK CLUB
These titles earned the Kirkus Star:
Adams, Lyssa Kay Berkley (352 pp.) $15.00 paper | Nov. 5, 2019 978-1-9848-0609-3
THE BROMANCE BOOK CLUB by Lyssa Kay Adams......................... 4 I LOST MY GIRLISH LAUGHTER by Jane Allen...................................5 MALINA by Ingeborg Bachmann..........................................................10
A baseball player attempts to heal his marriage with the help of his team’s romance-novel book club. Gavin Scott has it all—a killer baseball career, twin daughters, and a devoted wife. But when Gavin discovers that Thea has been faking it in the bedroom, he’s distraught. The two have a blowup fight that ends with Gavin moving out and Thea asking for a divorce. Thea, however, has been faking it in more ways than one—even though she’s painting the picture of a happy baseball wife, she’s actually miserable in that role and wishes she could go back to school and pursue art. Between Gavin’s busy career and their young children, he hasn’t even noticed how unhappy she is, and she has no plans to tell him. When Gavin confides in his teammates that his marriage is in trouble, their advice comes from an unconventional source: romance novels, specifically Regency romances full of lords and countesses. Gavin is skeptical, but his teammates persist—the books help them understand what their wives are thinking and learn how to verbalize their feelings. Feeling desperate, Gavin decides to give them a chance, starting with a book called Courting the Countess. Surprisingly, the advice from his friends works—but what will Gavin do when he has to stop using the romance novel’s words and start using his own? Adams creates a refreshingly open group of male friends who talk about emotional labor, toxic masculinity, and how pumpkin spice lattes and romance novels are mocked because women like them. They’re also, however, hilariously and believably crude (case in point: a running joke involves one of Gavin’s teammate’s “digestive problems”). Alternating between Gavin’s and Thea’s points of view, Adams never paints either character as the villain, instead pointing out how both spouses’ lack of communication led to their current predicament. Also included are passages from Courting the Countess, a detail sure to please historical romance fans. Gavin and Thea’s story begins at such a low point that it’s hard to imagine how they’ll ever fall back in love, but their reconciliation is built so slowly and realistically that readers will be rooting for their happily-ever-after. A fun, sexy, and heartfelt love story that’s equal parts romance and bromance.
THE BISHOP’S BEDROOM by Piero Chiara; trans. by Jill Foulston............................................................................ 13 THE INNOCENTS by Michael Crummey............................................16 WHAT HAPPENS IN PARADISE by Elin Hilderbrand......................22 AMERICAN GRIEF IN FOUR STAGES by Sadie Hoagland...............23 A LUSH AND SEETHING HELL by John Hornor Jacobs....................25 BIG FAMILIA by Tomas Moniz............................................................. 33 FORGOTTEN JOURNEY by Silvina Ocampo; trans. by Katie Lateef-Jan & Suzanne Jill Levine...............................34 THE PROMISE by Silvina Ocampo; trans. by Suzanne Jill Levine & Jessica Powell........................................................................................34 MY DARK VANESSA by Kate Elizabeth Russell................................. 37 THE REVISIONERS by Margaret Wilkerson Sexton..........................38 A STEP SO GRAVE by Catriona McPherson...................................... 48 THE ART OF THEFT by Sherry Thomas............................................. 49 LETHAL PURSUIT by Will Thomas.....................................................50 QUEEN OF THE CONQUERED by Kacen Callender.......................... 51 THE MERRY VISCOUNT by Sally MacKenzie....................................54 SCANDALOUS by Minerva Spencer................................................... 55 QUEEN OF THE CONQUERED
Callender, Kacen Orbit (480 pp.) $15.99 paper | Nov. 12, 2019 978-0-316-45493-3
4
|
1 september 2019
|
fiction
|
kirkus.com
|
THE DOLLMAKER
I LOST MY GIRLISH LAUGHTER
Allan, Nina Other Press (416 pp.) $16.99 paper | Oct. 15, 2019 978-1-59051-993-6
Allen, Jane Vintage (256 pp.) $16.00 paper | Nov. 5, 2019 978-1-9848-9776-3
A doll maker with dwarfism, a woman living in a mysterious asylum, and several unsettling Polish fairy tales converge in this third novel from British writer Allan (The Rift, 2017, etc.). Andrew Garvie has had an obsession with dolls since he was a child. He both collects them and creates his own from battered or scarred parts. When he responds to an ad in a collector’s magazine asking for information about Polish doll maker and fairy-tale writer Ewa Chaplin, he strikes up a correspondence with its writer, fellow doll enthusiast Bramber Winters. Through her letters, Bramber reveals that she lives in a kind of asylum run by a Dr. Leslie, whose credentials seem dubious at best. The other residents include people with mental illness as well as several little people. Andrew becomes convinced that he is in love with Bramber and sets off on a journey across the English countryside to rescue her from this strange place. Along the way, he visits doll museums and junk shops and reads some of Ewa Chaplin’s fairy tales, which bear troubling parallels with his and Bramber’s reality. That reality has a slightly sinister feel, as if the world is almost imperceptibly tilted on its axis, and the fairy tales themselves are disturbing. With alternating chapters—Andrew’s first-person narration, Bramber’s letters, and Ewa’s fairy tales—the book moves slowly toward a quick climax and neat conclusion. Andrew explicitly says that he makes his scarred dolls as “a kind of protest,” as “little dissidents….As human beings they would have faced lives of oppression….And yet they persist.” However, the novel’s constant characterization of difference—whether of size, appearance, ability, sexuality, race, or gender—as either strange, fetishized, or magical (or all three), leaves a lot to be desired in terms of exploring the oppression the protagonist ostensibly works against. There are gay characters but they are predatory; the only black woman character is described as large, and the protagonist speculates about her pubic hair. The many characters with dwarfism are consistently compared to dolls and fetishized by average-size people. While the rich imagery, sentence construction, and deft storytelling lend the novel charm and readability, these aspects of the narrative are disturbing. A gothic story which explores human nature while sometimes getting lost in stereotypes and unnecessary detail.
|
kirkus.com
|
fiction
|
1 september 2019
y o u n g a d u lt
This delicious satire of old Hollywood, originally published in 1938 and largely unknown even by cinephiles, gets a welcome reissue. The hijinks start early in this screwball sendup, since, as one Hollywood veteran tells a newbie writer, “We not only preoccupy ourselves with sex at the box office but feel we must live life as we see it on the screen for twenty-four hours a day.” Sidney Brand, the powerful Hollywood producer standing in for legendary real-life producer David O. Selznick (Gone With the Wind; Rebecca), gets the job done but, god, he’s a monster to work for. He’s narcissistic, needy, chauvinist, and a big ole liar, though he does work really hard, to give him a little credit. Allen dishes on the cupidities and venality of daily life
|
5
unsentimental educations Five years ago I wrote a column about “Moms Behaving Badly” novels, and, yes, that label makes me cringe now. The peg was Liane Moriarty’s then-new book, Big Little Lies, which has gone on to huge success, illuminating the intense drama of school dropoff in suburban Australia (changed to Monterey, California, on TV) for millions of fans. An earlier example, Maria Semple’s brilliantly witty Where’d You Go, Bernadette? has just gotten the big-screen treatment, too; in 2012, our review called it “a cleverly constructed internet-age domestic comedy about a wife/mother/genius architect who goes a little nuts from living in that cesspool of perfection and bad weather called Seattle…. She certainly hates everything about Seattle, especially the other mothers at [her daughter’s] crunchy-granola private school.” Bernadette is different from Moriarty’s women in that she doesn’t have any allies at school: “None of the other mothers like you, Bernadette,” her next-door neighbor and archnemesis tells her. “Do you realize we had an eighth-grade moms-and-daughters Thanksgiving on Whidby Island, but we didn’t invite you and Bee?” Whew; that’s harsh. Maybe it’s not surprising that Bernadette disappears. A more recent entry in the genre is Caitlin Macy’s Mrs., about life at Manhattan’s most exclusive preschool. Our review says that “Macy knows just how to nail the status anxieties of the rich; her people are ultraprivileged but insecure, constantly comparing themselves against each other.” One of my favorite things about Big Little Lies and Mrs. is the way they each feature a Greek chorus of other parents commenting on the action, enabling us to get both the inside and outside perspectives on what’s happening. Bruce Holsinger’s new novel, The Gifted School, pushes the parents-group genre to its logical extreme, following a set of four families in the fictional town of Crystal, Colorado, after the school district announces the imminent opening of a new magnet school for the “exPhoto courtesy Leah Overstreet
ceptionally gifted.” Doesn’t every white, upper-middle-class parent think their 11-year-old fits into that category? Rose, Samantha, Lauren, and Azra met in a swim class when their children were infants and have been friends for years, sticking together through a husband’s death, one couple’s divorce, a child’s drug use, and other traumas. But then comes the news about Crystal Academy, which will accept only “la crème la plus pure de la crème” of Crystal and the less-well-off counties that surround it, and soon the women—and their husbands— are lying, cheating, and keeping secrets from one another in a quest to get their kids a coveted slot despite the fact that the school’s principal says unforgivably pretentious things like “la crème la plus pure de la crème.” One thing that’s interesting about The Gifted School is that Holsinger doesn’t focus entirely on the women; the dads are behaving just as badly as the moms, and so are the kids, and there are chapters told from many different points of view. Lauren’s daughter, Tessa, is the only teenager in the group, and she’s just regaining everyone’s trust after having gotten drunk while babysitting and leaving Samantha’s daughter alone in the house. Tessa is keeping a video blog that she shares with her friends from rehab, and the transcripts inject a lively voice into the proceedings. There are also chapters told from the perspective of Ch’ayña, whose daughter, Silea, cleans house for Rose’s and Samantha’s families and whose grandson, Atik, really is gifted. Ch’ayña doesn’t want Atik going to school with the rich white kids, though, worrying that they’ll change him. Holsinger has pulled off a neat trick, combining a school dropoff novel similar to Big Little Lies with the “admit lit” genre that usually focuses on college admissions, as exemplified by Jean Hanff Korelitz’s excellent Admission. Considering that my son is starting his junior year of high school, I know I’ll be looking for more like it soon, however uncomfortable the picture it presents. —L.M.
6
|
1 september 2019
|
fiction
|
kirkus.com
Laurie Muchnick is the fiction editor.
|
MAMA HISSA’S MICE
in the big studio system of 1930s Hollywood through her protagonist Madge Lawrence’s letters home as well as interoffice memos, telegrams, journal entries, and gossip columns. Madge is new to Hollywood, hunting for a studio job; Brand hires her as his secretary. He’s desperate for a big commercial success but wants it to come off as a prestige number, so he counts on Viennese import Sarya Tarn (a double for Marlene Dietrich) to bring the quality, but she only brings a healthy dose of divadom. Brand’s frenemy at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, a rival studio, won’t loan him Clark Gable to play opposite Tarn, so the producer has to rely on Broadway success Bruce Anders, who makes Madge’s heart flutter; meanwhile, the studio’s publicity whiz, Jim Palmer, wittily, mordantly pursues her. This novel is the product of two writers, Silvia Schulman Lardner, who was Selznick’s secretary (and was married to writer Ring Lardner Jr.), and screenwriter Jane Shore. The characters and plot are so thinly veiled that the authors decided a single pseudonym was the wisest path to publication, as film scholar J.E. Smyth explains in her thoughtful introduction. This novel is a hell of a lot of fun.
Alsanousi, Saud Trans. by Hussain, Sawad AmazonCrossing (319 pp.) $24.95 | Nov. 12, 2019 978-1-5420-4217-8
Three boys grow up together in Kuwait. Katkout, Fahd, and Sadiq are about 12 when their native Kuwait is occupied by Iraqi forces. Some of the boys are Sunni, some Shiite, but all of them—and their families—suffer during the occupation. Katkout narrates this uneven novel from a distance, alternating between the late 1980s and the present day. Katkout’s parents happened to be in London just before Kuwait was invaded. They were stuck outside the country, with Katkout stranded at Fahd’s house, sharing a bedroom with Fahd’s grandmother Mama Hissa. In the present day, Katkout has formed a resistance group with Fahd and Sadiq; they’ve named it Fuada’s Kids, after a TV
y o u n g a d u lt
|
kirkus.com
|
fiction
|
1 september 2019
|
7
A STORM BLEW IN FROM PARADISE
show they watched as kids. Readers who aren’t already familiar with Kuwaiti history and culture might have trouble following some of these events. Alsanousi (The Bamboo Stalk, 2015) can be engaging, and many of his descriptions are vivid. But the movement of the novel feels stilted. The narrative jolts from one timeline to another, but neither one of them has a steady momentum. It’s unfortunate, too, that neither Fahd nor Sadiq emerges as a fully formed character. That Fahd loves music is as close as we get to his inner state. Sadiq is a mystery. As for Katkout, it’s unclear why he spends most of his narrative describing Fahd’s family (but not Fahd himself) rather than his own. There are moving scenes between Katkout and Mama Hissa, but these don’t make up for the rest of the novel’s sprawl. Uneven prose and flat characters detract from this novel’s many ambitions.
8
|
1 september 2019
|
fiction
|
kirkus.com
Anyuru, Johannes Trans. by Willson-Broyles, Rachel World Editions (256 pp.) $16.99 paper | Nov. 5, 2019 978-1-64286-044-3 An extraordinary life in exile inspires a multilayered novel. With perhaps a nod toward Kafka, Swedish novelist Anyuru (They Will Drown in Their Mothers’ Tears, 2019, etc.) opens on a protagonist named only as P facing his interrogators, who ask him, “Why did you come back?” “Back” is to Africa, where P says he has returned with an offer to fly a crop duster in Zambia. He had left his native Uganda some years earlier to train as a fighter pilot in Greece. After Idi Amin staged his coup in 1971 and began executing some of those who had resisted him, P felt he could not return home. Greece, in the midst of its own political
|
upheaval, said he could no longer fly. He had no home to return to in Africa, no home that would accept him in Europe. His passport had become worse than useless; he feared it might provide evidence against him. He has no idea what those holding him think his crimes might be. They have no idea where his loyalty lies. Perhaps he has no idea where his loyalty lies. “If you disappeared one day, just disappeared, who would miss you?” he was asked. And now he knows that no one would. Until a different narrative perspective enters the novel, a first-person narrator that the reader identifies with the author, an unnamed narrator who says that P is his father and that P has been telling him the stories that have filled the novel, stories that the novelist has perhaps embellished, has certainly recast in his own words. Like the father, the son has no country, no place where the marriage of his Swedish mother and Ugandan father, who are now divorced, makes him feel at home. “I travel between places I try to form into a nation,” says the son. “I think about how I am a tree with its roots pulled up.” In other words, like father, like son. The presence of the son signals to the reader that P survived and escaped, that he lived to become a father, while the son’s story illuminates his father’s final days. As the father’s story progresses forward and the son’s looks backward, they meet in a place filled with “all these stories that try to figure out my origins,” says the son. “There is no history. I just come from here. From this summer, when my father is dying.” A deeply moving meditation on identity and history, the personal and the political, blurring the boundaries between truth and fiction.
that it allows the reader to fully experience an individual character’s voice, but in Arnopp’s (The Last Days of Jack Sparks, 2016) novel, this turns out to be a detriment. Kate is a whiny, selfish slave to technology, which may make her the worst version of many of us, but the way she assumes Scott has left her rather than worrying that something dire has happened to him just makes no sense. It takes too long for the reveal, a problem exacerbated by the way the book constantly switches back and forth from the past to the present in very short chapters. The idea offers sharp commentary on our social media– obsessed society—but the execution lacks precision.
y o u n g a d u lt
GHOSTER
Arnopp, Jason Orbit (496 pp.) $15.99 paper | Oct. 22, 2019 978-0-316-36228-3 When Kate’s boyfriend goes missing, the only clue left behind is his smartphone. Handsome, charming Scott Palmer seems to have it all, and Kate Collins can’t believe that, after some struggles in her personal life, she’s finally found true love. Then Scott asks her to move in with him! When she shows up to find Scott’s apartment completely empty, though, and Scott nowhere to be found, her worry and anger war with a sense of inevitability. Strangely, the only thing Scott seems to have left behind is his smartphone, and Kate, who has struggled with phone addiction in the past, tries to avoid the temptation to snoop, but as it’s the only possible clue to Scott’s disappearance, she manages to hack her way in. She finds evidence that Scott is currently posting to various social media sites—but something still seems awry. Soon, Kate begins seeing strange lights in the apartment and deep gouges on the outside of the door. As she draws closer to discovering Scott’s fate, she realizes that she may also be in danger—and that some things we think we control may, in fact, be controlling us. One compelling argument for first-person narrative is |
kirkus.com
|
fiction
|
1 september 2019
|
9
A dark fairy tale told as a murder mystery. malina
MALINA
with his impeccable self-control, his imperturbable trust,” but something darker and harder to name. She is haunted by “murder thoughts” and the threat of violence, against anonymous women particularly. In the second section, ill and confined to her apartment, she is cared for by Malina while she dreams disturbingly of her father attempting to kill her beside “the cemetery of the murdered daughters.” The postwar years hang over the city and the book. “Here there is always violence. Here there is always struggle. It is the everlasting war.” As well as dreams, the narrative is interspersed with dialogues, an absurdist, hilarious interview, the story of a princess, fragments of the narrator’s writing, and unsent letters she signs “an unknown woman.” Her ways of coping as well as her despair come to feel inevitable. “I react to every situation, submit to every emotional upheaval and suffer the losses—which Malina notices, detachedly.” “Most men usually make women unhappy,” she tells us, “and there’s no reciprocity, as our misfortune is natural, inevitable, stemming as it does from the disease of men, for whose sake women have to bear so much in mind, continually modifying what they’ve just learned—for, as a rule, if you have to constantly brood about somebody, and generate feelings about him, then you’re going to be unhappy.” In the book’s final section, as Ivan’s feelings cool and Malina’s caretaking stifles, the narrator retreats into the story of a postman who, out of a sense of delicacy, stopped delivering the mail. “There is no beautiful book, I can no longer write the beautiful book.” Dense, compelling, often weirdly funny, a dark fairy tale told as a murder mystery. Rewarding and highly recommended.
Bachmann, Ingeborg New Directions (283 pp.) $16.95 paper | Jun. 25, 2019 978-0-8112-2872-5 Famed Austrian writer Bachmann’s only novel, set in Vienna and first published in 1971, takes on the vexed struggle between the sexes in a decaying city. The narrator, an author, lives with her partner, Malina, but is madly in love with Ivan, who lives nearby. On the surface the story of an affair, the first section of the novel (“Happy with Ivan”) captures the way love seems to affect the lover’s surroundings: “the incidence of pain in my neighborhood is decreasing, between Ungargasse 6 and 9 fewer misfortunes occur...the world’s schizoid soul, its crazy, gaping split, is healing itself imperceptibly.” She plans to write a “glorious book,” one that will make people “leap for joy.” The threat to her happiness is not Malina, who “torments me
ANYTHING FOR YOU
Black, Saul St. Martin’s (352 pp.) $27.99 | Nov. 5, 2019 978-1-250-19991-1
Detective Valerie Hart is hiding secrets of her own as she tries to solve a murder that becomes more opaque with each new revelation. When an insomniac glimpses a masked intruder fleeing his neighbor’s house, the police discover the bloody aftermath of a brutal attack: a husband dead and his wife barely clinging to life. The husband turns out to be Adam Grant, a former state prosecutor with no lack of enemies—and no lack of secrets. One of which is the fact that on a drunken night several years ago, Adam nearly slept with Valerie despite being married. Valerie knows she should recuse herself from the case, but she’s stubborn and tends not to do the things that would be best for her. She’s dealing with her own personal drama, in fact, as she and her husband have recently decided to try for a child even though all of Valerie’s self-destructive impulses are driving her toward sabotage. The Grant case seems like a slam-dunk when an ex-con’s fingerprints are found all over the room, but the suspect himself is nowhere to be found. As Valerie digs deeper 10
|
1 september 2019
|
fiction
|
kirkus.com
|
LOVE WITHOUT END
into his disappearance and Adam’s life, she keeps running into reports and evidence of a mysterious blonde. From the first gruesome scene of the novel it’s clear that this is a thriller with ragged edges, haunted characters, and graphic violence. Yet Black (LoveMurder, 2017, etc.) transforms this rawness into a strength through the character of Valerie. We see her wounded heart and her self-deprecating awareness of her own darkness, layers that illuminate the truth of the novel: that the actions we take for love are not always beautiful, or right, but they still carry meaning. It’s in learning to accept the consequences of our decisions that even the most troubled heart can find a kind of peace. Gritty and grim, this is a terrific thriller made more luminous by its refreshingly human detective.
Bragg, Melvyn Arcade (312 pp.) $25.99 | Nov. 5, 2019 978-1-948924-80-1
A scholar investigates the medieval passion of Heloise and Abelard and gleans insight into his own romantic woes in the latest by British broadcaster and author Bragg (In Our Time: Celebrat ing Twenty Years of Essential Conversation,
2018, etc.). Peter Abelard is a nobleman who gave up his birthright to lecture in philosophy, and Heloise is the well-educated niece and ward of high ranking Parisian cleric Canon Fulbert. (Bragg posits that Fulbert, who honors celibacy only in the breach, is actually Heloise’s father.) It may be unclear to modern readers why these iconic lovers were considered so transgressive long before each took holy orders: She is in her mid-20s and he is in his mid-30s,
y o u n g a d u lt
|
kirkus.com
|
fiction
|
1 september 2019
|
11
and the main impediment to their marriage—besides Heloise’s own fierce independence—is the fact that Abelard teaches at the Cathedral School of Notre Dame, where his self-imposed chastity has enhanced his reputation as a cerebral ascetic. In a metafictional frame story, Arthur, a British professor, is in the Latin Quarter writing a novel about the pair with the help of his daughter, Julia, who also hopes to extract the real reason for her parents’ estrangement. Abelard is hired by Fulbert to tutor Heloise, and the two fall helplessly in love and lust. When Heloise becomes pregnant, Fulbert beats her, and Abelard spirits her away to his ancestral Brittany, where she gives birth to their son, Astralabe. From there, the 12th-century European mores motivating what follows are tangled indeed. Suffice it to say that the couple’s attempts to mollify Fulbert—including a secret marriage—fail spectacularly: His hirelings drug and castrate Abelard. Thenceforth it’s the monastery for him, the convent for her—correspondence and one distant encounter will be their only congress. The biggest narrative challenge is historical reality: All the drama is front-loaded into a short time span. For the next few decades this notorious liaison plays out (in history) only in letters and (in the novel) thoughts, extrapolated from the letters. This approach
12
|
1 september 2019
|
fiction
|
kirkus.com
muffles the sad plights of two brilliant people who were, essentially, punished for having too good a time. And the moral for Arthur’s marriage is less than profound. A promising story hobbled by the known facts.
TINY LOVE
Brown, Larry Algonquin (464 pp.) $18.95 paper | Nov. 26, 2019 978-1-61620-975-9 A career-spanning collection by a master of American realism. When he decided to become a writer in 1980, Brown (A Miracle of Catfish, 2007, etc.) was a 29-year-old father, husband, and firefighter; he had never written fiction before. Fifteen years after his death, this sweeping collection charts Brown’s progress from tyro to master. It begins with “Plant Growin’ Problems,” Brown’s first publication, which appeared in Easyriders (yes, the motorcycle magazine) in 1982. The story is nothing special on its own—chronicling a marijuana-farming motorcyclist’s cartoonishly fateful run-in with a crooked sheriff—but, fascinatingly, it contains trace levels of the complicated humanism that characterizes Brown’s later work. In his debut collection, Facing the Music (1988), Brown is visibly casting around for his proper form. “Boy and Dog,” for example, is composed entirely of five-word sentences (e.g. “The dog was already dead”) and reads like an experiment. “The Rich,” meanwhile, set in a travel agency, is a language-driven social satire: “The rich often wear gold chains around their necks. Most of the rich wear diamond rings. Some of the rich wear gold bones in their noses. A lot of the rich, especially the older rich, have been surgically renovated. The rich can afford tucks and snips.” In between these experiments, however, Brown explores topics like alcoholism, infidelity, codependence, pity, shame, and emotional hypocrisy— topics that recur in his second collection, Big Bad Love (1990), and in the uncollected stories he wrote later. Some readers will be put off by Brown’s female characters, many of whom are appreciated (or not) for their sexual appeal (or perceived lack of it); others will be put off by the casual racism expressed by the otherwise positively portrayed (even idealized) World War II veteran at the center of “Old Soldiers.” Distasteful though some elements of Brown’s fiction can be, these contradictions—that certain men, desperate to be loved by women, can only notice them for their bodies; that a beloved father figure can also house within him unpardonable biases—are a collateral aspect of Brown’s chief strength as a fiction writer: He is intensely compassionate, and he extends this compassion to everyone; this includes the cruel sheriff in “Plant Growin’ Problems”; it includes the mentally disturbed genital flasher in the heartbreaking “Waiting for the Ladies”; it includes men and women—in “Kubuku Rides (This Is It),” in “Tiny Love,” in “Wild Thing”—who, in their lonely and self-destructive love for the bottle, systematically erode their connections to the only people in the world who love them. Compassionate and gritty and lyrical—a master class. |
Beneath the calm on the lake and the tranquility of the surrounding villages, darkness lurks, as if the horrors of war went underground. the bishop’s bedroom
THE BISHOP’S BEDROOM
forces and accelerates the body count between them. That this is the best premise for a Reacher novel in some time, even if it’s partly lifted from Akira Kurosawa’s film Yojimbo, can’t quite disguise that something has gone off in the series. Reacher’s apologies to a suffering old couple that there’s not much he can do isn’t really what we want in a hero—especially one who has always taken such pleasure in pissing off bullies. Whenever the plot shifts to the machinations between the rival gangsters it bogs down in exposition. And while Reacher’s ass-kickings have always been amusing, the series has never developed the dark ability to turn the violence into a deadpan sick joke. The carnage here should be funnier the more extreme it gets. It’s not bad, but it’s far from the tight, nifty execution that made the Reacher books so much fun to begin with. Perhaps if there were more time between chapters, Child’s series could recover the polish it deserves.
Chiara, Piero Trans. by Foulston, Jill New Vessel Press (151 pp.) $15.95 paper | Nov. 5, 2019 978-1-939931-74-0
y o u n g a d u lt
An unnamed sailor, stopping off in the northern Italian port of Oggebbio on Lake Maggiore in 1946, is drawn into the shadowy world of a villa owner who befriends him. The 30-ish sailor, who is returning to this area of grand old houses and lush gardens after having been a war refugee in Switzerland, is free and unattached. His new companion, Orimbelli, who invites him to stay in his villa, lives with his “schoolmarmish and snooty” older wife and widowed sister-in-law. While taking Orimbelli on recreational cruises to various ports and islands, the sailor becomes involved in a series of erotic adventures with women who join them along the way. Among them is a married woman the sailor regularly visits but whom Orimbelli can’t resist seducing in the sailor’s absence. “Maybe he wasn’t a demon…but a poor man shaken up by the wars,” the sailor rationalizes. “I knew it wasn’t easy for him—or me, for that matter—to be any other way, or to be better.” We learn that Orimbelli has an improper interest in his sister-in-law; he knows as she does not that her husband, who went missing during the war, is alive and wealthy in Ethiopia. First published in 1976 and made into a 1977 film starring Ugo Tognazzi, the late Italian novelist Chiara’s brief masterwork turns insinuation into high art. Beneath the dead calm on the lake and the sensual tranquility of the surrounding villages, darkness lurks, as if the horrors of war went underground. “One can’t escape here,” says the sailor before attempting to do exactly that. A first-rate book that is both a moody suspense novel and a haunting allegory.
BLUE MOON
Child, Lee Delacorte (368 pp.) $28.99 | Oct. 29, 2019 978-0-399-59354-3 Jack Reacher lends a hand to an elderly couple under threat from loan sharks and winds up in the midst of an underworld war in the 24th entry in this series (Past Tense, 2018, etc.). After Reacher saves an old man from a mugging, he finds out the man and his wife went into hock to get money for their daughter’s lifesaving medical treatment. Meanwhile, in the unnamed city where the novel is set, the Albanian and Ukrainian crime bosses who have divvied up the territory are vying to see who can take over for good before the appointment of a new police commissioner. The sudden appearance of Reacher makes each suspect he’s an agent for outside |
kirkus.com
|
fiction
|
1 september 2019
|
13
INTERVIEWS & PROFILES
Salman Rushdie
THE ACCLAIMED AUTHOR HAS WRITTEN HIS FUNNIEST NOVEL YET—A BLACK COMIC RETELLING OF DON QUIXOTE SET IN AMERICA IN THE “AGE OF ANYTHING-CAN-HAPPEN” By Michael Schaub Photo courtesy Rachel Eliza Griffiths
“Nuts, but also really quite sweet” is how Rushdie describes the hero of his latest novel. “I wanted him to be both this daffy old coot but also this essentially good person.” The novel takes place in modern America—or as Rushdie has it, “the Age of Anything-Can-Happen.” “The world as we have known it…has somehow begun to crumble,” Rushdie says. “We don’t understand how things are going to go any more. It’s impossible to predict things, from the weather to presidential elections.” In this age it seems perfectly possible that a pop-culture-poisoned salesman could win the hand of a wealthy young celebrity. And Quichotte’s mind has been compromised by a steady diet of low-quality television in which anything really can happen. “I use television as a kind of symbol, as a representative of a broader selection of popular culture which would in reality include the internet and a good few things other than reality TV shows,” Rushdie says. “I do think that there is a kind of dumbing down and corrupting effect of all of this, which is that we live in this moment when truth and lies seem to be very hard to distinguish from each other because they look like they have the same status on television or on the web.” The novel follows two other characters: Dr. Smile, Quichotte’s cousin and employer, who owns a pharmaceutical company that manufactures a sought-after (and frequently abused) opioid. And then there’s Sam DuChamp, a self-important but mediocre writer who happens to have invented Quichotte and his companions. Garden-variety realism, in other words, this is not. There’s a reason for that, Rushdie says: “When the world is chaotic, when two people can’t agree on what is the case, and that’s the world we now live in, then realism becomes difficult. It becomes, in a way,
Anyone who’s followed the career of Salman Rushdie won’t be surprised to hear that the legendary author’s take on Don Quixote comes at Cervantes from a unique angle. In Rushdie’s new novel, Quichotte (Random House, Sept. 3), the titular character is an aging Indian American pharmaceutical salesman whose television-addled brain has convinced him that he’s destined to be with Salma R—a beautiful, much younger television personality with (unbeknownst to Quichotte) a serious substance abuse problem. Quichotte, Rushdie’s 14th novel, follows the modern-day hidalgo as he and his imaginary son travel across the country, hoping to convince “America’s Oprah 2.0” to spend her life with the deluded businessman. 14
|
1 september 2019
|
fiction
|
kirkus.com
|
an inadequate response to reality, because reality has become contested and fragmented and problematic, and you have to find other ways to write about it.” There’s a lot of bleakness in Quichotte: The novel touches on drug addiction, racism, and the poison of American nativism. (There’s also Quichotte’s mental illness, which—helpfully for his job as a salesman— results in a “blurry uncertainty about the location of the truth-lie frontier.”) But in spite of this, it’s probably the funniest novel of Rushdie’s career. “I do think that comedy in general is a very good way of talking about serious things,” Rushdie says. “Black comedy is one of the great inventions of literature: to use comedy, when the world is not funny, to still approach it with a comic voice.” With its riffs on U.S. pop culture and settings in towns and cities across the nation’s heartland, Quichotte is at its core an American road novel. But does Rushdie, born in India and educated in England, consider himself an American writer? “By now, absolutely,” he says. “I’ve been here 20 years, you know. And I’ve even got the passport.”
HOMESICK
Cipri, Nino Dzanc (208 pp.) $16.95 paper | Oct. 15, 2019 978-1-945814-95-2
Michael Schaub is an Austin, Texas–based journalist and regular contributor to NPR. Quichotte received a starred review in the July 1, 2019, issue.
y o u n g a d u lt
Nine speculative stories capture the most universal parts of humanity through an organic and refreshing take on the paranormal, all while letting queer, neurodiverse, transgender, and nonbinary characters take the lead. Neuroatypical artist Jeremy is sure there’s an art-appreciating ghost in his closet, but he’s more interested in getting to know his bigender neighbor, Merion, in “A Silly Love Story.” The ghost is the perfect excuse to explore art, love, and personhood as, together, Jeremy and Merion try to paint the ghost a perfect still-life. Ghosts also roam freely in “Presque Vu,” though nobody knows why they suddenly arrived. Clay wakes every morning with a metal key lodged in his throat— his specific haunting—while also dealing with the day-to-day issues of depression and a new relationship with Joe, whose own haunting may know what the keys are for. In “She Hides Sometimes,” Anjana’s childhood home slowly, and literally, disappears when her mother develops dementia. Or is Anjana losing her memories too? Author Cipri, themself a queer, trans/nonbinary writer, uses the paranormal as the perfect lens for exploring everyday humanity. Interview transcripts between romantically entangled humans and monsters, zombie magazine quizzes, and archaeological mysteries wrap love and loss with a depth of character unusual in such short pieces. Some stories may have more paranormal elements than others, some may be sweeter or creepier, but they’ll all haunt readers long after the book is closed. A beautiful, sometimes haunting, always inviting and inclusive collection about life, love, and the paranormal.
THE MUTATIONS
Comensal, Jorge Trans. by Whittle, Charlotte Farrar, Straus and Giroux (192 pp.) $25.00 | Nov. 12, 2019 978-0-374-21653-5 Cancer takes center stage in this quietly powerful first novel by Mexican writer Comensal. Ramón Martínez lives a bourgeois life as a Mexico City lawyer, with a wife, Carmela, and two teenage children, Mateo and Paulina, and “their respective hobbies of masturbation and karaoke.” Then comes a day when his tongue is so sore that he can’t eat the pork torta he’s just ordered, followed by a couple of weeks of inconclusive hemming and hawing until his doctor sends him to see an oncologist. It’s cancer—cancer of the tongue, requiring the offending organ to be removed. Ramón’s success depends on his silvery orations |
kirkus.com
|
fiction
|
1 september 2019
|
15
RAVEN LANE
in the courtroom, and he’s left with the dreadful prospect of a life of silence, punctuated by fierce arguments with a lawyer brother, Ernesto, who loans him enough money for the operation but demands Ramón and Carmela’s home as collateral. Ernesto is as grasping as cancer is obdurate, but he’s just one element of the existential chaos that surrounds Ramón as he grapples with the terrible disease. Other characters bear their own burdens: One, Eduardo, a support-group denizen, having lived through childhood cancer, now fears all things white; as Comensal writes, “In Eduardo’s case, the essence of the Lacanian Other was the danger that lay in wait, the invasion of the leukemia that threatened to poison his blood with whiteness—with abnormal cells that were, precisely, white.” The mutations in Ramón’s body lead to mutations in his life, some introduced by his God-fearing maid, Elodia, who brings a parrot to Ramón as a gift, a parrot with gifts of profanity The bird voices Ramón’s mood perfectly as he undergoes treatment, even as the lives of everyone around him change in sometimes unexpected ways, adding clamor to his voicelessness. An assured debut by a writer from whom readers will want to hear more, and soon.
Cowie, Amber Lake Union Publishing (288 pp.) $24.95 | $14.95 paper | Nov. 12, 2019 978-1-5420-0372-8 978-1-5420-9120-6 paper A deadly accident stirs up a hornet’s nest of secrets, lies, and adultery in an exclusive Pacific Northwest neighborhood. Former model Benedict Werner now co-owns a modeling agency while his wife, Esme, a talented chef, owns the successful restaurant Dix-Neuf; they both adore their brilliant 17-year-old daughter, Zoe. Along with the other residents of Raven Lane, they form a tightknit group. Frequent parties, mostly hosted by real estate agent Kitty Dagostino (who keeps a tight rein on who gets to buy a house on the street), keep things interesting and friendships thriving. However, the ties that bind them begin to fray when Benedict hits bestselling novelist Torn Grace with his car when pulling out of his driveway. Benedict didn’t see Torn coming around the corner on his bicycle, and Torn wasn’t wearing his helmet. Numerous witnesses, including Esme, insist it was an accident, never mind the wine Benedict consumed before getting into the car and, as it’s later discovered, the MDMA pills he popped before coming home that night. When Torn dies from his injuries, his husband, Aaron, is devastated. So is Esme, whose passionate affair with Torn ended in dramatic fashion shortly before the accident. When Esme and Torn’s affair is revealed to the police, Benedict is arrested and swiftly charged with second degree murder. Events spiral into an all-out circus when the media discovers Esme’s past as a rising movie star whose career was cut short by scandal. Cowie (Rapid Falls, 2018) alternates past and present to tell the story of a woman who feels that she’s compromised herself for the men in her life, but her characters are thinly drawn, and she frequently resorts to melodrama to heighten the tension. Excerpts of Torn’s claim to fame, the Lovecraftinspired novel The Call, which Esme reads to comfort herself in the wake of Torn’s death, are more distracting than illuminating, and a wildly implausible twist in the final act may cause some eyes to roll. An unconvincing drama.
THE INNOCENTS
Crummey, Michael Doubleday (304 pp.) $26.95 | Nov. 12, 2019 978-0-385-54542-6
Orphaned and alone in 1800s Newfoundland, a young brother and sister contend with the dire hazards of their coastal surroundings and their own strange physical awakenings. 16
|
1 september 2019
|
fiction
|
kirkus.com
|
Evered, 11 at the start of this epic, and Ada, two years younger, have in short order lost their parents and their newborn sister to illness. Their childhood largely denied them—Evered’s hair turns white after burying his father at sea—the siblings must overcome food shortages, bone-chilling cold, ferocious storms, temporary blindness caused by exposure to the vast ice field, sickness, and the occasional wandering bear. They live for the next visit from The Hope, a schooner that arrives every six months to trade food staples and supplies for cod. Between visits, they take great risks to find food sources and, on a wrecked ship outside the cove, warm clothes. Nestled up against each other for warmth, Evered and Ada sleep in the same bed, an arrangement that will open them to a world of mysteries they never knew existed. Watch out for the drunken shipmen from The Hope looking the teenage Ada over. Crummey, whose distinctive vision informed the Newfoundland stories in Galore (2011) and Sweetland (2015), writes in a style consistent with the period. (Those tired of the usual phrases for lovemaking might try “They two joined giblets.”) But the book’s central image— the traumatizing sight of naked dead bodies in the hold of a wrecked ship—shocks in a contemporary way. And Crummey’s refusal to go where you might expect—the offbeat humor can catch you by surprise—provides page-turning pleasures. You can’t wait to see what happens next. An unusual, gripping period novel from a much-honored Canadian writer.
million per ounce and has unknown and possibly great potential. Meanwhile, that round trip is no day in a dinghy. Bell blows up icebergs to avoid being icebound, wards off a 10-foot-tall polar bear, parries attacks from a French vessel, and deals with fire, betrayal, and plenty of murder. He deals with one disaster after another with smarts, bravery, loyalty, honesty, and no small amount of luck. When it’s all over, he wants to return to his dear wife, Marion, in America, but business before pleasure. And yes, all of this connects to the Titanic in the title. The fun begins with the prologue and doesn’t stop till the end. Too bad the heroes can never meet.
y o u n g a d u lt
THE TITANIC SECRET
Cussler, Clive & Du Brul, Jack Putnam (400 pp.) $29.00 | Sep. 10, 2019 978-0-7352-1726-3 Cussler and Du Brul circle back to Cussler’s Raise the Titanic (1976) in the latest derring-do adventure featuring Isaac Bell (The Cutthroat, 2017). Dirk Pitt of the National Underwater and Marine Agency bookends the tale with the prologue and epilogue, but the story belongs to Bell. In the present day, Pitt discovers the diary of the Van Dorn Detective Agency’s top investigator, “perhaps the greatest detective of his—or any—generation.” Pitt reads that in 1911, Bell was hired to find out whether nine men have faked their deaths in the Little Angel mine disaster in Colorado. Then he’s hired to help the miner Joshua Hayes Brewster smuggle a thousand pounds of the ore of “a rare element called byzanium” to the United States from Novaya Zemlya, the “hellhole” island in the Russian arctic where the miners really are. But not so fast— people are already trying to kill Bell before he leaves Colorado. Once safely across the pond, he hires an Icelandic whaling skipper who knows how to navigate the deadly ice floes to bring him to a desolate Russian mine and return everyone and the ore to Scotland and ultimately to America. On the island, Bell finds eight desperately ill men who appear “not unlike the dead” because the mineral is radioactive. But it’s worth more than $1 |
kirkus.com
|
fiction
|
1 september 2019
|
17
THE LITTLE BLUE KITE
raid sellers’ medicine cabinets, and growing anxiety about an integrating Boston neighborhood. (A Mephistophelean figure keeps encouraging the white family to sell as more black families move in.) The trajectory there, and throughout the book, is built on slow decline, not big symphonic conflicts, which makes Delaney’s storytelling engrossing and emotionally nuanced. He can deliver that effect when the stakes are higher. In “David,” a bullied teen morphs into a school shooter; the opening “Clean” tracks the long aftereffects of a murder; and in “Medicine,” a man reckons with guilt over his girlfriend’s granddaughter getting badly injured on his watch. That last story is part of a cycle narrated by a lifelong drifter, and Delaney neatly balances a sense of rootlessness and failure with a respectable nobility. (The source line for the book’s title summarizes the feeling: “Living like you’re comfortable with what life deals you, that’s the big impossible sometimes.”) The conceits of some stories can be fussy: “My Name Is Percy Atkins” pits the protagonist’s life in a retirement home against his stint during World War I, and the narrator of “Street View” Googles his way through dour childhood memories. And humor is in short supply excepting the lit-world satire of “Writer Party.” But Delaney’s sensitivity and command are steady throughout. Not path-breaking but a sturdy and careful set of portraits of men struggling not to be swallowed up by their failures or upbringings.
Danielewski, Mark Z. Pantheon (96 pp.) $25.95 | Nov. 5, 2019 978-1-5247-4769-5
A windy New Age parable by postmodern novelist Danielewski (The Famil iar, Volume 5: Redwood, 2017, etc.). Danielewski has spent the last few years writing endlessly long, genre-crunching novels that are projected to build to a series of a couple dozen thick volumes, making Proust look like a piker. This latest, falling outside that series, isn’t on its face intended for children, since it’s got big words like “devastated” and “endeavoring” and big themes like death and psychological dread, but it’s full of kid’s-book elements, if perhaps as filtered through the post-apocalyptic Hawaiians of David Mitchell’s Cloud Atlas. Kai is a kid with a penchant for flying kites, even as his granny warns that with enough string he might “reach the edge of the Murk.” It would spoil the fun to reveal just what the Murk and the “immense monster too immense for any one name and hungrier than all the emptiness that haunts the space between all the stars” are, but suffice it to say that Kai isn’t shy of tempting fate, the more so as he grows older. And grow older he must, and when he does—well, he’s got to choose whether to hunker down in the Murk or throw off the bonds and strings of grown-up life and fly free in the clear blue sky. Guess which he elects? Let Danielewski tell it: “Kai’s mind is wide open! Kai’s mind has become a sky!” One wonders if Kai’s been reading Michael Pollan’s book on psychedelics, but no matter; thanks to the little blue kite, he enjoys a fine trip. It’s not quite so straightforward, though, for, ever intent on playing language games, Danielewski offers three different ways to read the book, two of them signaled by typographic elements and the other the boring, old-fashioned method of reading the thing straight through. It’s up to the reader to judge which is most rewarding—and whether the trip, though refreshingly brief, was worth the effort. Think Jonathan Livingston Seagull with a long, winding tail, and you’ll have some of the feel of Danielewski’s latest.
VERNON SUBUTEX 1
Despentes, Virginie Trans. by Wynne, Frank Farrar, Straus and Giroux (352 pp.) $16.00 paper | Nov. 5, 2019 978-0-374-28324-7 French punk rockers get old. There’s a lot of Gen X history here, some aging French pop culture, and a general feeling of hysteria at living in a dystopian time. Let’s start from the top. Despentes (Pretty Things, 2018, etc.) is a French writer, filmmaker, etc. who is most famous for her debut novel, Baise-Moi (1992), which she adapted and directed into the controversial cult film. Like her characters, the author seems to have aged but not grown, which isn’t all that troublesome at a time when Danny Boyle has fashioned Irvine Welsh’s profane swindlers from Trainspotting (1993) into a sequel. This is literally a portrait gallery of French punk rockers passing middle age, most of them badly. The central figure is the titular 50-ish Vernon Subutex, who can pretty much be summed up by “used to own a record store.” (Thanks, High Fidelity.) Much like a TV series (Surprise! There’s already a French series based on this book), this is a soap-operatic portrait of a variety of burnouts rather than an actual narrative. With Vernon as the central figure and the death of famous rock star Alex Bleach as the semi-uniting event, Despentes drops in on the lives of a dozen or so desperate people who don’t know how to fill the holes in their own lives. Vernon is simple: He’s broke and couch-hopping at the best of
THE BIG IMPOSSIBLE
Delaney, Edward J. Turtle Point (240 pp.) $17.00 paper | Sep. 10, 2019 978-1-885983-74-9 Busted men, usually from busted homes, populate this well-turned collection from the veteran Delaney (Follow the Sun, 2018, etc.). The novella House of Sully is a crystalline portrait of a dysfunctional family: Its narrator recalls being a teenager in 1968 as the year’s political turmoil thrums under a story about a closed-off father, a mother nabbed by police for visiting open houses to 18
|
1 september 2019
|
fiction
|
kirkus.com
|
SPACE INVADERS
times. Most notable is Xavier Fardin, nominally a screenwriter but mostly a psycho who makes Welsh’s Begbie look like a lapdog by comparison. We also visit Vernon’s weird ex, Sylvie; Laurent, a successful but obsessive filmmaker; ex-porn star Pamela, who is still competing with her dead rival; and Lydia Bazooka, a journalist who doesn’t know it’s too soon to start a biography of Alex. The writing here is evocative of any number of transgressive writers, including Welsh and Kathy Acker, but while the characters are tangible, the lack of a narrative keeps the book from feeling satisfying. A caustic portrait of the blank generation facing middle age.
Fernández, Nona Trans. by Wimmer, Natasha Graywolf (88 pp.) $14.00 paper | Nov. 5, 2019 978-1-64445-007-9
NOTHING MORE DANGEROUS
Eskens, Allen Mulholland Books/Little, Brown (304 pp.) $27.00 | Nov. 12, 2019 978-0-316-50972-5
Eskens’ latest novel is a warmhearted story of a white teenager’s awakening to the racial tensions that run through his Missouri town in 1976. Years before he’ll become a successful attorney (The Shadows We Hide, 2018, etc.), Boady Sanden struggles to navigate all the usual high school ordeals in smalltown Jessup, including boring subjects and bullying by the likes of all-state wrestler and prom king Jarvis Halcomb. In Boady’s case, these everyday problems are aggravated by his outsider status as a non-Catholic freshman at St. Ignatius High School, his home life with his widowed, introverted mother, Emma, and, most recently, the arrival of some new neighbors, the Elgins. Charles Elgin is definitely an improvement on indolent Cecil Halcomb, Jarvis’ father, whom he replaces as manager of the local manufacturing plant after bookkeeper Lida Poe disappears with more than $100,000 of the plant’s money. Jenna Elgin is excellent company for Emma Sanden, whom she helps draw out of her shell. And after a comically unfortunate first encounter, Boady quickly takes to their son, Thomas, who’s exactly his age. But the Elgins, like Lida Poe, are African American, and the combination of an unsolved embezzlement, good old boy Cecil’s displacement by an outsider, and the town’s incipient racism works slowly but inexorably to put Boady, recruited by the Crusaders of Racial Purity and Strength, under pressure to betray his new friendship. Declining to join the racists but repeatedly running away rather than refusing their demands point blank, Boady must navigate a perilous route to supporting his community and claiming his own adult identity. Perfect for readers who wish To Kill a Mockingbird had been presented from a slightly older, male point of view.
y o u n g a d u lt
Chilean actor and writer Fernández explores the dark years of the Pinochet dictatorship in this affecting portrait of childhood friendship. Estrella González, 10 years old, appears one morning in 1980 at a Santiago school, her right shoe untied, accompanied by a father distinguished by his officer’s cap—a telling detail, for, as Fernández writes, “the new constitution proposed by the military junta was approved by a broad majority.” Outside the doors of the school a totalitarian state flourishes, but within it the children who befriend Estrella, bearing names like Zúñiga, Donoso, and Maldonado, are innocent of politics, absorbed by the video game of the title and other childhood pursuits. The Pinochet regime was infamous for “disappearing” its opponents, but in this slim novella it is Estrella who disappears: “The desk at the back of the classroom sits empty now. For some reason, the girl never occupies it again.” That reason remains hazy, but Estrella reappears in occasional letters and in dreams as her friends grow into young adulthood and take on political lives of their own. Slowly, page after page, the reader learns of the tragedies that beset Estrella, who signs her letters with a star—the meaning of her name in Spanish—even as she reveals bits and pieces of her life: “I should try to obey my dad. He deserves to be obeyed, for me to obey him.” Dad has everything to do with Estrella’s sudden departure from school and her friends’ lives; later, the dictatorship finally ends, but the violence of everyday life continues, lending a tragic end to a story that has hitherto unfolded quietly and with only occasional moments of drama. Like compatriot Alia Trabucco Zerán’s recently published novel The Remainder, Fernández takes a sidelong, subtle approach to the grim realities of life in the Chile of her youth, episodes of which, she suggests, figure in her story. A slender story, impressively economical, that speaks volumes about lives torn by repression.
HUMILIATION
Flores, Paulina Trans. by McDowell, Megan Catapult (272 pp.) $16.95 paper | Nov. 5, 2019 978-1-948226-24-0 Stories about lonely, disaffected people in contemporary Chile. The characters in Flores’ debut collection are a lonely, motley bunch. They’re isolated and poor; their families are dysfunctional; they yearn for something they can’t always |
kirkus.com
|
fiction
|
1 september 2019
|
19
name. In “Lucky Me,” Denise wants desperately to feel something—anything. She’d lived an itinerant childhood, “and as she was living in shared rooms in other people’s houses, the hope began gestating that when she finally found herself surrounded by her own things, she would feel something in her heart.” But like many of the other characters, Denise is disappointed. Flores has won several prizes in her native Chile, and it’s not hard to see why: Her prose (deftly translated by McDowell) is fluid and assured. But there’s a sameness to these stories that can sometimes dip down into blandness. The narrators’ voices are too similar; even as the characters differ in age, gender, and circumstance, each narrator sounds just like the last. Many of the tales feature children. In the title story, two young girls accompany their father to a job interview. In other stories, Flores seems to strive for a hard-edged—even harsh—tone, but here, she borders on precious: “Simona was sure that her father loved her, but she could also tell that something was making him feel lonely, and that all the love she could give him didn’t help.” At other times, Flores runs into the opposite mistake. Trying to avoid sentimentality, she goes too far and misses out on real feeling. This collection marks the arrival of an interesting young writer, if not a fully developed one.
that’s girded by the adopted brother’s being described as quiet and painfully isolated. But it’s not hard to appreciate how Fuks is trying to capture the sense of loss that comes with a life that’s delivered “an infinity of small hurts.” Though the novel operates at a curiously low boil considering the turmoil at its center, Fuks impressively inhabits the near despair that comes with the fragmentation of family and country.
INVENTED LIVES
Goldsmith, Andrea Scribe (336 pp.) $17.00 paper | Nov. 5, 2019 978-1-947534-90-2 After her mother’s death, a young Russian woman continues with the plans they had shared, immigrating to Australia and experiencing, alone, the complexities of starting over. Female characters discover inner strength through altered circumstances in Goldsmith’s (The Memory Trap, 2013, etc.) elegant, character-driven new novel, which traces several generations of a Russian Jewish family, the Kogans, who have survived not only Soviet anti-Semitism, but also terrible events like Stalin’s purges and the siege of Leningrad. Galina Kogan, 24, is the youngest member of the line and the one who leaves Russia in 1986 to live out her mother’s dreams of a new beginning. A random encounter in Leningrad with Andrew Morrow, an Australian visitor who knocks her down in the badly paved street, points Galina toward that continent, and she settles in Melbourne, eventually reconnecting with Andrew, who has never forgotten her. But this novel is neither a conventional saga nor a straightforward love story. Instead, Goldsmith shifts her focus to Andrew’s parents, Sylvie and Leonard, whose 30-plus-year-long marriage may look solid and affectionate but is in fact a hollow shell. Both Galina and Sylvie have shifts of orientation to make, and it is the author’s detailed scrutiny of these two characters during that process that fills most of the pages, leaving less room for dramatic events or even similarly full-blooded portraits of the men. Sensitive Andrew and secretive Leonard remain less persuasive figures, as does Galina’s unpleasant old uncle, Mikhail, who suddenly arrives to invade her contentment as an independent woman with a new life writing and illustrating children’s books. Sylvie, meanwhile, spends some time discovering the suppressed parts of herself yet remains the constant wife. This choice and the women’s shared inclination to leave things unsaid intensifies the novel’s period feel. Calm, contained, careful: Goldsmith’s latest offers insight but rather too much restraint.
RESISTANCE
Fuks, Julián Trans. by Hahn, Daniel Charco Press (154 pp.) $15.95 paper | Nov. 5, 2019 978-1-9998593-2-9 A somber contemplation of brotherhood in the context of Argentina’s Dirty War of the 1970s. This elegant, essayistic novel, the first translated into English by this Brazilian writer, is a family drama with the dramatic parts deliberately quieted. The narrator’s parents were involved in the resistance to Argentina’s junta, forced to leave the country months after adopting a baby boy, eventually resettling in São Paulo. But though the narrator recalls his father’s office being ransacked and his perpetual fear of “the crash of shoulders against the door...rough arms turning his things upside-down,” the book is less concerned with the emotions of displacement and the horrors of political violence that with the impact their exile had on the family. The narrator keeps returning to the question of where his adopted brother came from, with escalating concern that the brother’s story intersects with those of the families of the disappeared under the dictatorship. The narrator skips around his family’s chronology and moves gingerly around the questions that gnaw at him, which gives the novel’s title a dual meaning, at least; it’s a story about the impact of pushing against political power but also about the silence within families. “I can’t decide if this is a story,” he laments at one point; “I don’t really know who I’m writing to,” he says elsewhere. That uncertainty is a risky move for a novelist, and the recursive, self-questioning nature of the narrative can feel static, a feeling 20
|
1 september 2019
|
fiction
|
kirkus.com
|
y o u n g a d u lt
|
kirkus.com
|
fiction
|
1 september 2019
|
21
DIE, MY LOVE
live with, and care for a wife struggling with severe depression. The erratic, stream-of-consciousness narrative provides a window into her crumbling state of mind. Both attacker and the attacked, she often feels like a cornered animal: “But I felt his gaze like a kitchen knife on my throat each time he came closer.” She spends much of the novel wondering what would be the worst case scenario for herself: living or dying. She fears the latter, not for herself, but for her son: “At most they’d sympathise a bit, but not with me. With the little boy who’s now motherless….No one grieves for the wretched woman with scarred arms who was consumed by the misery of life.” Unrestrained and unadorned, Harwicz’s writing has a wild beauty: “The sun began to set over their heads, the gentle light of dusk slowly tinting their bodies”; “I let the balsam of desire carry me away.” There’s a small sliver of light at the end of the novel, which is a much-needed exhale for both protagonist and reader. A portrait of motherhood, passion, and mental illness that cuts to the bone.
Harwicz, Ariana Trans. by Moses, Sarah & Orloff, Carolina Charco Press (123 pp.) $13.95 paper | Oct. 15, 2019 978-1-9997227-8-4 A young mother living in the French countryside is driven to madness. Longlisted for the 2018 Man Booker International Prize, Argentinian author Harwicz’s first novel translated into English follows an unnamed mother heading toward a full mental breakdown. Living in a foreign (to her) countryside with her husband and young son, she feels at odds with every part of her life: her body, home, neighbors, desires, and mind. In a flashback of her pregnancy, she thinks “I’m one person, my body is two.” Her inability to balance being a mother and maintaining a sense of self beats incessantly at the heart of the novel. Her husband finds himself unable to understand,
WHAT HAPPENS IN PARADISE
Hilderbrand, Elin Little, Brown (352 pp.) $28.00 | Oct. 8, 2019 978-0-316-43557-4 Back to St. John with the Steele family, whose tragic loss and horrifying discovery have yielded an exciting new life. In Winter in Paradise (2018), Hilderbrand introduced Midwestern magazine editor Irene Steele and her adult sons, Baker and Cash, then swept them off to the island of St. John after paterfamilias Russell Steele was killed in a helicopter crash with his secret mistress, leaving a preteen love child and a spectacular villa. While the first volume left a lot up in the air about Russell’s dubious business dealings and the manner of his death, this installment fills in many of the blanks. All three Steeles made new friends during their unexpected visit to the island in January, and now that’s resulted in job offers for Irene and Cash and the promise of new love for single dad Baker. Why not move to St. John and into the empty villa? Mother, sons, and grandson do just that. Both the dead mistress’s diary and a cadre of FBI agents begin to provide answers to the questions left dangling in Volume 1, and romantic prospects unfold for all three Steeles. Nevertheless, as a wise person once said, shit happens, combusting the family’s prospects and leading to a cliffhanger ending. On the way, there will be luscious island atmosphere, cute sundresses, frozen drinks, “slender baguette sandwiches with duck, arugula and fig jam,” lemongrass sugar cookies, and numerous bottles of both Krug and Dom Pérignon, the latter served by a wiseass who offers one of his trademark tasting notes: “This storied bubbly has notes of Canadian pennies, your dad’s Members Only jacket, and… ‘We Are Never, Ever, Ever Getting Back Together.’ ” You’ll be 22
|
1 september 2019
|
fiction
|
kirkus.com
|
A captivating debut collection probes the trauma of being human. american grief in four stages
THE WHEATON
counting the days until you can return to the Virgin Islands with these characters in the concluding volume of the trilogy. Print the bumper sticker—“I’d Rather Be Living in an Elin Hilderbrand Novel.”
Jackson, Joanne Stonehouse Publishing (289 pp.) $14.95 paper | Nov. 1, 2019 978-1-988754-17-8
AMERICAN GRIEF IN FOUR STAGES
A new job at an independent-living facility causes a widowed retiree to reconsider his life in this touching debut novel. A year and a half after his wife, Elaine, dies, 61-year-old former mail carrier John Davies, father to three grown children, is beginning to realize that a life of walking his golden Lab, Clementine, around his neighborhood in a small town in the Canadian plains isn’t enough to carry him through the potentially long years ahead. On an impulse, he applies for a job at The Wheaton. Initially appalled by the vision of upcoming old age that the residents suggest to him, he gradually starts to get to know them as individual people and to relish his connection with them. The
Hoagland, Sadie West Virginia Univ. Press (168 pp.) $18.99 paper | Nov. 1, 2019 978-1-949199-21-5
y o u n g a d u lt
A captivating debut collection probes the trauma of being human. In 15 assured, haunting, and deeply empathetic stories, Hoagland imagines characters struggling with loss and beset by a disquieting, persistent sense of the fragility of life. A mother reacts to her parents’ wartime deaths by reverting to childhood, shrinking until she becomes “a tiny shape” requiring care from her adolescent daughter. A young woman stunned by her teenage brother’s suicide wishes she had seen warning signs. “I’m still just stuck as the unfruitful, albeit disappointed survivor,” she admits, as she replays her last conversations with her brother, innocuous exchanges filled with “idioms, clichés, old wives’ words.” A father, realizing he cannot protect his maturing daughter from harm, wishes his world could remain “intact,” like “an uncut peach.” Like many of Hoagland’s characters, he feels overcome by “the shape of loss he was afraid may someday loom over him.” A few of the 15 stories, most previously published in literary journals, evoke the slyly surreal worlds of Lydia Davis: “American Family Portrait, Clockwise From Upper Right” depicts ghosts, “gendered remains, hollowed beauty, amazing absence,” and a mother’s “head tilt of love.” In “Six and Mittens,” the narrator, diagnosed with childhood schizophrenia, reveals her imaginary friends, who sometimes erupt like “a noise in your brain that hurts,” and describes in chilling detail the fierce conflict between her parents, at “wit’s end” over how to treat her illness. Several characters have been traumatized by violence: An elderly woman recalls her complicity in the execution of witches in 17th-century Salem; a dinner guest recalls an Aztec feast that devolves into bloodshed; an Iraq War veteran and a woman whose parents died in a murder-suicide confront the unlikely possibility of becoming “a normal, happy couple.” In their quiet revelations, Hoagland’s characters give voice to the disquieting fears and dark secrets that, as one character puts it, produce “heartbreaking revisions of our world.” Intimate portraits of loneliness and longing.
|
kirkus.com
|
fiction
|
1 september 2019
|
23
INTERVIEWS & PROFILES
Jeffrey Archer
AT THE AGE OF 79, THE BRITISH CRIME NOVELIST LAUNCHES A NEW SERIES—AND A NEW PROTAGONIST—WITH NOTHING VENTURED By Jocelyn McClurg Photo courtesy Broosk Saib
Nothing Ventured (St. Martin’s Press, Sept. 3) is the first of seven planned William Warwick books. “The aim is to take [William] from constable to sergeant to inspector to chief inspector to superintendent to chief superintendent to commander to the commissioner,” Archer says by phone from London. “But I’ve got to live that long,” says the cheery writer, who hits the gym two or three times a week. “I’ll be 80 next April. You can’t count on these things!” Fans of the Clifton Chronicles series will recognize Warwick as the fictional creation of Harry Clifton, Archer’s novelist alter ego. Warwick is hardly your average copper. His father is a distinguished Queen’s Counsel who wants William to practice law. The likable young man follows his own path, first studying art history. By the 1980s, he’s a newbie at Scotland Yard in the Art and Antiques Unit. A stolen Rembrandt leads to Warwick’s chief nemesis, the glamorous but crooked art collector Miles Faulkner. (“Villains are much more fun to write because they can get away with so much,” says Archer.) The novelist drew on his love of art and the “amazing” stories of shady collectors he’s heard for years at Sotheby’s and Christie’s. Archer has an art collection to rival Faulkner’s. It takes the writer a minute to remember all the masters hanging on his walls. “David Hockney—I’m looking down the corridor now—Bonnard, Pissaro, Monet, Sisley, Utrillo, Picasso. . . .It’s been a lifelong love affair.”
Jeffrey Archer’s life could fill the pages of a pulpy potboiler. The British novelist and former Member of Parliament once teetered on the edge of bankruptcy after a financial scandal; he sued a newspaper for libel and won (he was accused of consorting with a prostitute); after it emerged he had lied, he ended up in prison. But past public disgrace hasn’t kept the colorful Archer down. All that personal drama has been fodder for 40-plus years of bestselling sagas like Kane and Abel and the Clifton Chronicles, not to mention three volumes of prison diaries. Now, at 79, Archer is launching a new fictional series starring an ambitious young policeman. 24
|
1 september 2019
|
fiction
|
kirkus.com
|
Archer interviewed retired officers from Scotland Yard to add authenticity to Nothing Ventured, which includes a subplot about a man who forges author signatures in rare books. (Archer collects first editions and has a signed copy of A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens.) He used his own life again for another subplot, this one about the father of Warwick’s girlfriend, who’s in Belmarsh prison, where Archer spent time. “Oh yes, I always say to every young author who comes to see me, ‘Use whatever experience you have.’ ” While politics is in this Conservative Party member’s past, he’s happy to share his thoughts on everything from Britain’s Brexit crisis (he voted “Remain”) to the dubious state of American politics. “You’re talking to someone who considers Jefferson a hero, who considers Theodore Roosevelt a hero,” Archer says. “What I don’t understand: You produced Jefferson and Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt and Franklin D. Roosevelt. In a population of 300 million, where are they?”
residents—an alcoholic former lawyer, a sweet former veterinarian, an ex–CEO loaded with complaints, and many others— are fully rounded characters with complicated pasts and equally complicated present lives. Running alongside their stories is that of John’s bumpy attempt to form new relationships with his children, whose primary bonds were with their mother. Occasional melodramatic flashbacks to John’s earlier married life lack the vitality, complexity, and humor of the present-day story, and the dialogue in these scenes is oddly stilted. The John of the past comes across as distinctly unlikable, particularly in comparison to the relatively saintly Elaine. Rather than trusting John’s gradual evolution and reentry to the world of the living to provide a framework for the plot, Jackson sometimes leans too heavily on gimmicky twists such as mysteriously vanishing jewelry and a supposed Grim Reaper the residents keep seeing. But when she sticks to daily life at The Wheaton and John’s slowly growing delight in his role there, she evokes a warm sense of community. A sweet tribute to the possibility of recovery from grief.
y o u n g a d u lt
A LUSH AND SEETHING HELL
Jacobs, John Hornor HarperCollins (384 pp.) $19.99 | Oct. 8, 2019 978-0-06-288082-6
Jocelyn McClurg, the former books editor at USA TODAY, is a freelance writer in New York. Nothing Ventured was reviewed in the July 1, 2019, issue.
Two lush, sprawling novellas that are nothing like each other except that they’re both scary as hell. Arkansas-based novelist Jacobs (Infernal Machines, 2017, etc.) is a wildly diverse writer whose work ranges from the teen-oriented Incarcerado trilogy to a wetwork nightmare zombie survival epic (This Dark Earth, 2012). Like some of his contemporaries, Jacobs is stretching his talents and imagination like never before, turning in two spectacular novellas. After a glowing foreword by Jacobs’ fellow fabulist Chuck Wendig, the book launches into The Sea Dreams It Is the Sky, a Lovecraft-ian horror story set in a fictionalized South American nation. In it, a young academic named Isabel Certa becomes involved with a famous one-eyed poet named Rafael Avendaño, a cavalier scoundrel who’s heading into a war zone, leaving Isabel money, his apartment, and a cat for her protection as well as an obsession-inducing poem called “A Little Night Work” that Isabel spends all her time translating. The story is operatic in scale while the flavor leans closer to Roberto Bolaño or the weirdness of César Aira than the traditional horror genre. Then there’s the chill-inducing, artfully paced My Heart Struck Sorrow, in which we’re introduced to Cromwell, a librarian from the Library of Congress who specializes in oral tradition— and is suffering extreme shame about cheating on his wife. Through sheer coincidence, he accidentally stumbles upon a long-hidden treasure trove of blues recordings from the 1930s. Along with his assistant, Hattie, “Crumb,” as she calls him, delves into the strange recordings and diary of Harlan |
kirkus.com
|
fiction
|
1 september 2019
|
25
THE WORST KIND OF WANT
Parker, a researcher much like himself who becomes obsessed with performances of the murder ballad “Stagger Lee.” Falling somewhere between House of Leaves (2000) and The Blair Witch Project, it is a terrifying, gothic descent into madness. This book has a fitting title if there ever was one, and these nightmares are worth every penny.
Jacobs, Liska MCD/Farrar, Straus and Giroux (224 pp.) $26.00 | Nov. 5, 2019 978-0-374-27266-1
A Californian flies to Rome to help her widowed brother-in-law care for her troubled teenage niece; instead, she wreaks havoc. Self-pity, self-indulgence, self-rationalization, and general resentment are narrator Cilla’s principal charms in Jacobs’ (Catalina, 2017) second novel. Not that some of Cilla’s general resentment is not justified. She is stuck caring for her aging mother, a former actress who frequently compares Cilla to her younger, prettier sister, Emily. Now 43, Cilla was seduced when barely 15 by her screenwriter father’s 33-yearold protégé, Guy, with whom Cilla remains entwined personally and professionally despite his new, very young girlfriend. While she blames the predatory creep for damaging her life, it irks Cilla that Emily always distrusted him, first as a young girl and more recently as a mother. It also irks Cilla that Emily rose from a “failed” modeling career and drug issues to become college professor Paul’s wife, a celebrated belle in his academic circle. But Emily has recently died of cancer, and Paul has moved to Rome with their 15-year-old daughter, Hannah, who has begun “acting out” in small delinquencies and running with a group of older teens. When he asks Cilla to visit, she jumps at the chance to escape her hospitalized mother. But instead of offering Hannah nurturing support, Cilla joins in partying with the teens and quickly begins an ever escalating flirtation with 17-year-old Donato, who happens to be the son of Paul’s close friends. Thoughtless lust combines with ambivalent jealousy/grief regarding Emily, whom Hannah and Paul remember as more loving and thoughtful than Cilla has described, and ambivalent protectiveness/competitiveness regarding Hannah, who has a serious crush on Donato and is the same age Cilla was when Guy seduced her. As Cilla rationalizes her selfish behavior with Donato, the novel moves slowly but inexorably toward disaster. Only the extent of the mess selfish, narcissistic Cilla leaves in her wake will be a surprise. An unlikable protagonist can be an invigorating challenge, but in this case a better title might have been The Worst Kind of Woman.
26
|
1 september 2019
|
fiction
|
kirkus.com
|
THE FAMILY UPSTAIRS
THE ACCOMPLICE
Jewell, Lisa Atria (320 pp.) $27.00 | Nov. 5, 2019 978-1-5011-9010-0
Kanon, Joseph Atria (336 pp.) $28.00 | Nov. 5, 2019 978-1-5011-2142-5
Three siblings who have been out of touch for more than 20 years grapple with their unsettling childhoods, but when the youngest inherits the family home, all are drawn back together. At the age of 25, Libby Jones learns she has inherited a large London house that was held in a trust left to her by her birthparents. When she visits the lawyer, she is shocked to find out that she was put up for adoption when she was 10 months old after her parents died in the house in an apparent suicide pact with an unidentified man and that she has an older brother and sister who were teenagers at the time of their parents’ deaths and haven’t been seen since. Meanwhile, in alternating narratives, we’re introduced to Libby’s sister, Lucy Lamb, who’s on the verge of homelessness with her two children in the south of France, and her brother, Henry Lamb, who’s attempting to recall the last few disturbing years with his parents during which they lost their wealth and were manipulated into letting friends move into their home. These friends included the controlling but charismatic David Thomsen, who moved his own wife and two children into the rooms upstairs. Henry also remembers his painful adolescent confusion as he became wildly infatuated with Phineas, David’s teenage son. Meanwhile, Libby connects with Miller Roe, the journalist who covered the story about her family, and the pair work together to find her brother and sister, determine what happened when she was an infant, and uncover who has recently been staying in the vacant house waiting for Libby to return. As Jewell (Watching You, 2018, etc.) moves back and forth from the past to the present, the narratives move swiftly toward convergence in her signature style, yet with the exception of Lucy’s story, little suspense is built up and the twists can’t quite make up for the lack of deep characters and emotionally weighty moments. This thriller is taut and fast-paced but lacks compelling protagonists.
In 1962, the year of Adolf Eichmann’s execution, CIA analyst Aaron Wiley, nephew of famed Nazi hunter Max Weill, tracks notorious concentration camp torturer Otto Schramm to Argentina— where Aaron becomes involved with
Schramm’s daughter. Max, a Holocaust survivor who was on the cover of Time magazine with his “old rival” Simon Wiesenthal, refuses to believe official accounts that Schramm is dead. Maybe another evil Nazi, but not the one with whom he once studied medicine and the one who conducted hideous experiments on children at Auschwitz. Not the Mengele associate who chatted with Max at the camp knowing Max’s son was being led into the gas chamber.
y o u n g a d u lt
|
kirkus.com
|
fiction
|
1 september 2019
|
27
The Nazi hunter’s skepticism is borne out when, joined by Aaron at an outdoor cafe in Hamburg, he spots Schramm, whom he recognizes from the way he walks. Max’s failing health doesn’t allow him to pursue Schramm, aka Helmut Braun, after his prey slips away. Reluctantly, Aaron takes his uncle’s place. It doesn’t take him long to get introduced to the daughter, Hanna, in Buenos Aires. Quickly attracted to her, he finds himself in the untenable position of secretly tailing her when not enjoying her considerable charms. Fueled by brilliant scenes of dialogue between Aaron and Hanna, who, at considerable psychological cost, has come to accept her father’s evil past, Kanon’s latest sophisticated thriller is teeming with suspense. Surrounded by aggressively anti-Semitic acquaintances of Hanna’s who are hoping for a Fourth Reich and working with British and Israeli operatives with conflicting agendas, Aaron is an endangered odd man out. As fast as the pages turn, though, the novel stumbles with less-than-convincing character developments and plot turns. While elements of the Casablanca formula work well at first, ultimately they don’t. A fast-paced, atmospheric thriller that works less well in reflecting on the banality of evil.
and “when they did so, the spot on Yuko’s body where they had touched her would sparkle. Like a nighttime parade.” Is Yuko real or another visitor from the spirit world? At once melancholic and joyful, the story satisfies Sensei, the cicadas begin to chirp again, and life goes on, if suffused in strangeness. Like so much of Kawakami’s work, an elegant mystery that questions reality in the most ordinary of situations.
JOSEPH CONRAD’S HEART OF DARKNESS
Adapted by Kuper, Peter Illus. by the adapter Norton (160 pp.) $21.95 | Nov. 5, 2019 978-0-393-63564-5
Cartoonist Kuper (Kafkaesque, 2018, etc.) delivers a graphic-novel adaptation of Joseph Conrad’s literary classic exploring the horror at the center of
colonial exploitation. As a group of sailors floats on the River Thames in 1899, a particularly adventurous member notes that England was once “one of the dark places of the earth,” referring to the land before the arrival of the Romans. This well-connected vagabond then regales his friends with his boyhood obsession with the blank places on maps, which eventually led him to captain a steamboat up a great African river under the employ of a corporate empire dedicated to ripping the riches from foreign land. Marlow’s trip to what was known as the Dark Continent exposes him to the frustrations of bureaucracy, the inhumanity employed by Europeans on the local population, and the insanity plaguing those committed to turning a profit. In his introduction, Kuper outlines his approach to the original book, which featured extensive use of the n-word and worked from a general worldview that European males are the forgers of civilization (even if they suffered a “soul [that] had gone mad” for their efforts), explaining that “by choosing a different point of view to illustrate, otherwise faceless and undefined characters were brought to the fore without altering Conrad’s text.” There is a moment when a scene of indiscriminate shelling reveals the Africans fleeing, and there are some places where the positioning of the Africans within the panel gives them more prominence, but without new text added to fully frame the local people, it’s hard to feel that they have reached equal footing. Still, Kuper’s work admirably deletes the most offensive of Conrad’s language while presenting graphically the struggle of the native population in the face of foreign exploitation. Kuper is a master cartoonist, and his pages and panels are a feast for the eyes. Gorgeous and troubling.
PARADE
Kawakami, Hiromi Trans. by Markin Powell, Allison Soft Skull Press (96 pp.) $11.95 paper | Nov. 5, 2019 978-1-59376-580-4 Enigmatic novella in which the world of Japanese mythology intrudes into the mortal realm. Readers familiar with Kawakami (The Ten Loves of Nishino, 2019, etc.) will know her alter ego–ish character Tsukiko Omachi and the onetime high school teacher known only as Sensei, who figure in such recent works as Strange Weather in Tokyo. In an afterword, Kawakami writes, elusively, that “the world that exists behind a story is never fully known, not even to the author.” Two worlds, in fact, exist here. The first is Tsukiko’s quiet life, which, on this summer day, the air loud with cicadas, is punctuated by a visit from Sensei, who, as ever, is critical: She doesn’t know how to make somen noodles, her habit of touching her earlobe is off-putting, she’s old enough that the imprint of the tatami mat on her skin doesn’t go quickly away after a nap. “That’s a rude thing to say,” says Tsukiko of Sensei’s last jibe, though she complies with his demand to tell him a story. The one she obliges him with is odd: As a child, she says, she was awakened one night by the clamor of two—well, somethings fighting, not animal, not human, but tengu, “the spirit creatures I had seen in folktale books.” Others see them, too, but ignore them, even as Tsukiko’s mother recounts that in her day it was a fox that followed her around, while some of Tsukiko’s classmates have companion ghosts, badgers, and the like. The most understanding of those classmates, a young girl named Yuko, seems sympathetic enough—until, as Tsukiko notes, the tengu touch her, 28
|
1 september 2019
|
fiction
|
kirkus.com
|
y o u n g a d u lt
|
kirkus.com
|
fiction
|
1 september 2019
|
29
Lisbeth Salander is back for her sixth adventure, and she’s got vengeance on her mind. the girl who lived twice
THE GIRL WHO LIVED TWICE
wearing a white shirt and her black suit…because it had become habit and she wanted to blend in better.” There’s nothing like launching a full-bore assault on a crime-lord sister and her nasty entourage to call attention to yourself, however conservative the appearance. This being Stieg Larsson by way of Lagercrantz, there’s a deeply tangled plot underneath all this, involving politicians with questionable records, hackers, motorcycle gangs, and cops who are lucky to be able to tie their shoes in the morning. More, Lagercrantz stirs in improbable elements, including superhuman DNA—not just Salander and her family, with their “extreme genetic features,” but also our poor dead beggar, whose story ties in with Sherpas on Everest, a murder plot, and a highup member of Sweden’s seemingly orderly government. Toss in small subplots—a fling Salander has with an abused woman whose ill-behaved husband requires serious correction as only the tattooed genius can deliver it, for instance (“Then she put tape over his mouth and eyed him the way a wild beast eyes its prey”). If Lagercrantz strays into Smilla’s Sense of Snow levels of unlikelihood in weaving all these threads, he writes economically, and though he works ground he’s covered in his two earlier contributions to the series, disbelief suitably suspended, it all makes for good bloody fun. Formulaic, but it’s a formula that still works, as Salander and assorted bad guys spread righteous mayhem wherever they go.
Lagercrantz, David Trans. by Goulding, George Knopf (368 pp.) $27.95 | Aug. 27, 2019 978-0-451-49434-4
Lisbeth Salander is back for her sixth adventure (The Girl Who Takes an Eye for an Eye, 2017, etc.), and she’s got vengeance on her mind. A small man, not 5 feet tall, sweats his way through a Stockholm heat wave wearing an expensive parka, an unusual accoutrement given his otherwise ragtag appearance. He dies. In his pocket the authorities find a scrap of paper bearing crusading journalist Mikael Blomkvist’s phone number. Why? Blomkvist has been busy taking down a Russian troll factory that has been seeding the media with propaganda and lies. Not coincidentally, Salander is in Moscow. She’s cleaned up nicely for the occasion: “Her piercings were gone and she was
THE COLONEL’S WIFE
Liksom, Rosa Trans. by Rogers, Lola Graywolf (168 pp.) $16.00 paper | Nov. 5, 2019 978-1-64445-008-6
An intimate investigation of authoritarianism from the Finnish author of Compartment No. 6 (2016). In the middle of a cold, dark Finnish night, an old woman commences to set down the story of her life. She begins with a portrait of herself as a young girl most at home in nature. These early vignettes have an almost magical quality, and readers who aren’t well-versed in the history of Finland between the world wars might not fully grasp what’s happening as a wild child turns into a fascist young woman. This transition is quite clear by the time the narrator says of herself and her sister, “We figured Nazism was where we belonged. There was only one leader for us, and it was Hitler.” Nazism is, of course, a live topic in American civic life right now, but even as we examine the survival of this philosophy in contemporary culture, most of us remain largely unaware of the extent to which the Nazis found enthusiastic followers outside of Germany before and during World War II. The narrator finds herself near the center of party life when she marries the Colonel, an eager collaborator. The Colonel is many years her senior, and their relationship is a mix of ferocious sexuality, hideous abuse, and luxury during a period of terrible privation. This is not a confession, and there is something horribly fascinating 30
|
1 september 2019
|
fiction
|
kirkus.com
|
in reading the words of someone who is eager to speak about her Nazi past without apology. But the narrator’s lack of interest in introspection ultimately makes her recitations of events almost boring, especially for readers who don’t have the historical knowledge to follow the shifts back and forth in time. This slim novel works best when it reads like a dark fairy tale or a fable about the day-to-day experience of evil. Unusual and uneven.
29 SECONDS
Logan, T.M. St. Martin’s Press (368 pp.) $27.99 | Sep. 10, 2019 978-1-250-18229-6
y o u n g a d u lt
A Christopher Marlowe scholar contemplates a Faustian bargain to rid the world of a serial sexual harasser. English professor Sarah Haywood, 32, has spent the last two years fending off unwanted advances from lecherous department head Alan Hawthorne. Reporting him is pointless; Queen Anne University needs the Cambridge-educated TV academic’s fame and grant money too much to discipline him, and Hawthorne has enough clout to ruin any accuser’s career. Sarah assumes things will improve when her position becomes permanent—until Hawthorne informs her that she must sleep with him to earn tenure. Sarah is despondent; she can’t afford to cross Hawthorne—particularly since her husband, Nick, left her with their two young kids to go “find himself.” Then one night, while racing through London’s side streets to collect her children from day care, Sarah thwarts the attempted kidnapping of James Grosvenor’s daughter. Intent on repaying her, Grosvenor hands Sarah a burner phone and gives her 72 hours to call him with the name of someone she wants to disappear. If she declines the offer, it’s gone forever. If she accepts, there’s no going back. And if she tells anyone, her family will pay. Sarah tries to forget the encounter, but as the Hawthorne situation deteriorates, she can’t help but wonder—what if? Logan (Lies, 2018) squanders a strong, tense start with preposterous twists, underdeveloped characters, and a paper-thin plot. Although Sarah’s terror and anguish ring true, her anger remains at an exasperating simmer and she lacks agency throughout. Hawthorne quickly devolves from convincing creep to moustache-twirling villain, further sapping the tale of authenticity and heft. Short chapters push the pace, but an abrupt conclusion fails to satisfy. Logan delivers a disappointing take on the #MeToo thriller.
|
kirkus.com
|
fiction
|
1 september 2019
|
31
CHRISTMAS IN AUSTIN
a compound down the road from Austin in rural Wimberley (who will live in this place with him is sadly unclear) and also into daily fitness training so he can keep up with Lance Armstrong, whom he bikes with on Sundays. But he and Dana have a young son, and his mother, Liesel, is unhappy about the split. She invites Dana to attend the weeklong gathering despite the fact, as she herself points out in the first sentence of the book, “There are too many of us.…Fifteen, including Bill and me.” The omniscient narrator is deep inside the heads of 14 of them—the nursing baby gets a pass—convincingly and insightfully tracking the micromovements of emotions, relationships, and conversations. The Austin setting is remarkably granular as well, including myriad geographic details and street names, restaurant and Christmas tree vendor recommendations, capturing the ethos of the town with confident panache. “Nathan, when he saw her, was reminded of how much he liked Austin, that it could produce such people—independent, dignified, unobtrusive, free-thinking….Around election time she always stuck a simple blue-and-white Lloyd Doggett US Congress sign in her front yard.” For readers who value detailed observation of human nature and those who’d like to visit Austin without springing for plane fare.
Markovits, Benjamin Faber & Faber (352 pp.) $25.95 | Nov. 7, 2019 978-0-5713-5425-2
A week of holiday togetherness has its ups and downs for three generations of a large, accomplished family. In a follow-up to A Weekend in New York (2018), Markovits brings back the Essinger family, which convened in the first book to watch Paul, one of four siblings, compete in the U.S. Open. In this installment, parents Liesel and Bill host the annual Christmas celebration at the family home in Austin, Texas. All are returning to the homestead from points on the East Coast and beyond except for Paul, who has retired from tennis, split up with his girlfriend, Dana, and moved back to the area. With nothing but money in the bank and time on his hands, he’s thrown himself into building
THE LOST CAUSES OF BLEAK CREEK
McLaughlin, Rhett & Neal, Link Crown (336 pp.) $26.00 | Oct. 29, 2019 978-1-984822-13-0 Comedy duo and YouTube superstars McLaughlin and Neal (Rhett & Link’s Book of Mythicality, 2017) craft a novel about things that go bump in the night. Stranger Things carries a lot of cultural weight by itself these days—the legacy of Steven Spielberg, Stephen King, and the many weird movies and books that don’t get the credit they deserve—but these comedy writers have hit that vein hard with this VHS–era kicker that references the Jean-Claude Van Damme movie Kickboxer on the very first page. This is Bleak Creek, North Carolina, circa the early 1990s. We have three buddies, natch: Rex McClendon, whose dad owns a funeral home; his bestie, Lief Nelson; and their mutual crush, Alicia Boykins. They’re making PolterDog, an indie movie, because why not? Anyone who grew up in this era will be delighted by all the pop-culture references, from Goodfellas to Smokey and the Bandit. Of course, we need some reasonable adults around to help, too, so we get Janine Blitstein, a filmmaker just graduated from NYU film school, and her cousin Donna Lowe. Things get creepy in a hurry when Alicia is banished because of “bad behavior” to a local private school called Whitewood, founded in 1979. The big bad here is Wayne Whitewood, head of the school where every student is robbed of an identity and known only as “Candidatus”—Whitewood is the so-named “Keeper,” assisted by the Nurse Ratched–esque 32
|
1 september 2019
|
fiction
|
kirkus.com
|
A quiet, thoughtful story about coming-of-age at middle age. big familia
BIG FAMILIA
“Helper.” All the students are threatened at every turn by torture, most commonly “The Roll,” in which they’re confined in a carpet for days on end. Of course, there’s a rescue mission, but because we’re in that Stephen King territory, there are also a bunch of supernatural threats, including a cursed spring and something known only as “The One Below.” Sure, it’s kind of a rip-off, but it’s scary, it’s fun, and it’s one hell of a carnival ride.
Moniz, Tomas Acre (192 pp.) $19.00 paper | Nov. 15, 2019 978-1-946724-22-9 A quiet, thoughtful story about coming-of-age at middle age. Juan Gutiérrez is enjoying a life of pleasant routine. He and his ex-wife share mostly amicable custody of their teenage daughter, Stella. He’s dating a smart, handsome man named Jared. He sees his buddies twice a week at a crappy local bar. Sure, he could stand to lose a few pounds, but he’s working on it, just like he’s preparing himself for Stella’s leaving home and starting college. But just as Juan and Jared are sharing more of their lives with each other, it becomes clear that they want different things from their relationship. Then Stella gets pregnant. And Juan’s father dies. With his first novel, poet Moniz tells a story that is simultaneously timeless and quite timely. Juan
THE WORK
Meindl, Maria Stonehouse Publishing (260 pp.) $14.95 paper | Nov. 1, 2019 978-1-988754-16-1
y o u n g a d u lt
A Canadian theater troupe moves from its early beginnings to wider acclaim over several decades under a charismatic, demanding leader. It’s Toronto in the mid-1980s, and Rebecca is working as stage manager for a rickety performance of South Pacific. The leading lady, Amanda, gets poor reviews, but that hardly matters, because Amanda brings two things into Rebecca’s life that change the course of it forever. The first is Amanda’s parents, the television and theater impresario Leon Garten and his actress wife, Sylvia, who have cash to burn supporting Amanda’s endeavors. The other is Marlin Lewis, Amanda’s lover and the visionary behind a burgeoning theater company, SenseInSound. Funded by the Gartens, this cutting-edge company practices what Marlin calls “The Work,” a kind of movement-based theater that emphasizes being in “The Now,” regressing to childlike states, and tapping into primal emotions through “Journeys,” group exercises that serve as a platform for Marlin to test the troupe members’ loyalties and their willingness to submit. And as the decades wear on, Rebecca and Amanda must decide how much they are willing to sacrifice for the company they love. Throughout the novel, Meindl (Outside the Box, 2011) keeps the narrative largely with Rebecca, interspersing her perspective with excerpts from archival documents like newspapers and letters that are being collected by an academic studying the history of SenseInSound from the present day. These archival excerpts, with the relief of their critical distance, point to the fact that Meindl means to offer a critique of Marlin and the group’s dynamics, but these portions are so brief, and Rebecca’s obsessional devotion made to seem so heroic, that Meindl’s intentions get muddled. Fun details from inside the world of experimental theater are tempered by a narrative that never quite comes clear.
|
kirkus.com
|
fiction
|
1 september 2019
|
33
A masterpiece of midcentury modernist literature triumphantly translated into our times. forgotten journey
is Chicanx—Stella taught him the term—and bisexual. Jared is black and gay. Characters deal with and talk about racism and homophobia, gentrification and police brutality. These are some of the challenges they endure as they navigate universally human experiences like connection, community, birth, and death. Juan is an engaging narrator, someone who is fully aware of his limitations and is trying to change—for himself and the people he cares for. None of these characters exist solely—or primarily—as a portrait of “difference” because white and straight aren’t default categories here. Being sexually and romantically attracted to men is not a problem for Juan; his problem is that he is emotionally unavailable and uneasy about commitment, and it turns out that neither of those problems is insurmountable. Diverse characters and a deeply likable protagonist make this a standout debut.
“The Two Houses of Olivos,” in which two young girls take advantage of their guardian angels’ siestas to escape to heaven, “a big blue room with fields of raspberries and other fruits,” riding on the back of a white horse. Sometimes Ocampo’s play with surrealism and metaphysical symbolism is more overt, as in “Sarandí Street,” in which the speaker’s entrapment in her family’s house is blamed on her sisters, “dying of strange diseases,” who emerge from their rooms with “their bodies withered away and covered in deep blue bruises, as if they had endured long journeys through thorny forests.” Indeed, it is Ocampo’s skill with the blurred line between dream and memory that marks her oeuvre and distinguishes her from contemporaneous masters of the modernist vantage like Virginia Woolf or Katherine Mansfield. Yet regardless of the author’s historical importance, it is for the precise and terrible beauty of her sentences that this book should be read. A masterpiece of midcentury modernist literature triumphantly translated into our times.
FORGOTTEN JOURNEY
Ocampo, Silvina Trans. by Lateef-Jan, Katie & Levine, Suzanne Jill City Lights (134 pp.) $14.95 paper | Sep. 17, 2019 978-0-87286-772-7
THE PROMISE
Ocampo, Silvina Trans. by Levine, Suzanne Jill & Powell, Jessica City Lights (114 pp.) $14.95 paper | Sep. 17, 2019 978-0-87286-771-0
The first English translation of Argentinian surrealist Ocampo’s debut book. By any account, Ocampo is an underrecognized literary innovator. Born in Buenos Aires in 1903, she trained as a visual artist under the tutelage of Giorgio de Chirico in Italy but returned home to launch a career as the lucid chronicler of Argentina’s characters, colors, and drifting seasons. Her legacy is often overshadowed by her association with her sister, the well-known editor Victoria Ocampo, her marriage to acclaimed novelist Adolfo Bioy Casares, and her friendship with Jorge Luis Borges, but Ocampo’s short vignettes—determinedly dreamlike, constitutionally opposed to traditional structures, quietly feminist in their focus on domestic menace and the underrecorded lives of women, children, and the laboring class—hold their own as masterworks of midcentury modernism. In her debut collection, originally published in 1937, Ocampo introduces the reader to singular characters like Miss Hilton, the world-traveling tutor undone by her apparent lack of modesty, who “blushed easily, and had translucent skin like wax paper, like those packages you can see through to all that’s wrapped inside”; or Mademoiselle Dargere, the caregiver to a “colony of sickly children,” who is haunted by the vision of a man’s head wreathed in flames; or Eladio Rada, the caretaker of a stately country home who measures the seasons of his life by the house’s relative emptiness. Ocampo’s landscapes are just as central to the stories’ thematic development as her unforgettable characters. Set on the streets of Buenos Aires itself, in the decaying summer homes of the country’s interior or the fishing villages along its coast, Ocampo’s stories lovingly detail the landscape that nurtures, haunts, or condemns her characters within the spiral cycles of their lives. Often these stories culminate in dreams or dreamlike violence—as in “The Lost Passport,” in which 14-yearold Claude dreams of the fire that sinks her trans-Atlantic ship, or 34
|
1 september 2019
|
fiction
|
kirkus.com
A woman relives the people and places of her life while stranded in the middle of the ocean. The premise of Argentinian writer Ocampo’s posthumously published novella, which she worked on for the final 25 years of her life, is a grand metaphor for the authorial condition. On her way to visit family in Cape Town, the nameless narrator somehow slips over the railing of her trans-Atlantic ship and regains consciousness in the water, watching “the ship…calmly moving away.” Adrift, facing almost certain death, she makes a pact with St. Rita, the “arbiter of the impossible,” that she will write a “dictionary of memories,” and publish it in one year’s time, if she is saved. What follows is an intensely focused series of vignettes in which the characters of the narrator’s life once more walk through their dramas. There’s Leandro, a handsome and feckless young doctor with “a face as variable as the weather”; Irene, his intensely focused lover and a medical student in her own right; Gabriela, Irene’s obsessive daughter; and Verónica, a notso-innocent ingénue. These central characters’ stories entwine and begin to form the basis of a tale that includes our narrator— who is present as a voyeur but never an active participant—but her drifting consciousness is just as likely to alight upon less crucial secondary characters like Worm, Gabriela’s countryside companion, or Lily and Lillian, devoted friends who fall in love with the same man because “instead of kissing him they were kissing each other.” As the narrator’s memories progress, and sometimes repeat, they grow increasingly nightmarish in their domestic surrealism. Meanwhile, as all chance of rescue fades, her sense of self is diluted by the immense mystery of the sea. Completed in the late 1980s, at a time when Ocampo |
THE FACTORY
was grappling with the effects of Alzheimer’s, the book can be read as a treatise on the dissolution of selfhood in the face of the disease. However, its tactile insistence on the recurrence of memory, its strangeness, and its febrile reality are themes that mark the entirety of Ocampo’s oeuvre and articulate something more enduring even than death. “I’m going to die soon! If I die before I finish what I’m writing no one will remember me, not even the person I loved most in the world,” the narrator exclaims in the final pages. This urgency and despair seem to sum up the central tenet of the artist’s condition—even in the final extreme, the act of making is a tonic against obscurity. Art is the cure for death. A seminal work by an underread master. Required for all students of the human condition.
Oyamada, Hiroko Trans. by Boyd, David New Directions (128 pp.) $13.95 paper | Oct. 29, 2019 978-0-8112-2885-5
MONA IN THREE ACTS
op de Beeck, Griet Trans. by Hutchison, Michele AmazonCrossing (448 pp.) $14.95 paper | Nov. 12, 2019 978-1-5420-0544-9
Three episodes in a young woman’s life expose the parental pressures that shape her personality and the consequences as she moves into adulthood. The long chain of cause and effect within families is exposed in all its subtle, cumulative force in Flemish author op de Beeck’s second novel, her first to be translated into English. Spanning some 25 years, it opens in 1976 with Mona, a 9-year-old middle-class girl, shut in the dark, a punishment inflicted by her strict mother, Agnes. But then Agnes dies in a car accident, and her withdrawn husband, Vincent, quickly remarries, delivering a needy, manipulative stepmother, Marie, to Mona and her young brother, Alexander. Sensitive Mona, constantly anxious not to disappoint or anger her parents, feels responsible for taking care of Alex and, later, her new half sister, Anne-Sophie—even, at times, Marie too. In the second section, Mona is 24, living independently and holding down a prestigious job in the theater. She has friends and a lover who’s an established writer, but people treat her poorly and she permits it, tolerating second-rate relationships rather than confronting them. The last section heralds change, as Vincent succumbs to a life-threatening illness and begins to open up to his daughter about his real affections, about Agnes’ abusive father, and about the circumstances of Mona’s birth. These revelations, and a stranger’s pointed advice—“We forget what we’re worth and don’t dare believe that we genuinely deserve something good”— help Mona to begin the process of change. It’s a simple, predictable scenario and a long one, but there are poignant moments, especially in the late scenes with Victor; and seeing boundaries finally being drawn brings perennial satisfaction. No surprises in this story of slow, achingly anticipated self-discovery, but the journey is engaging.
y o u n g a d u lt
In Oyamada’s cautionary Englishlanguage debut, three recent hires at an inscrutable industrial factory find themselves bewildered by their strange new world. “In times like these, a job’s a job,” Yoshiko thinks before signing on as a contractor who will shred documents all day in the basement of the eponymous factory. Her brother has taken a temp position proofreading the factory’s paperwork, a task so dizzying and incomprehensible that he can’t stop falling asleep at his desk. The factory itself is staggeringly large and byzantine; its bureaucracy is predictably opaque; and strange new species are mutating within its walls. This phenomenon we observe mostly through Furufue, a moss scientist hired to green-roof the factory complex, who, given neither direction nor deadline, is left to languish in an unstructured sinecure. But as the narration judders disorientingly across time and multiple perspectives, we realize that neither characters nor plot are the point of this book; rather, Oyamada is interested in crafting an atmosphere—somewhere between mind-numbingly mundane and mind-bendingly surreal—to explore and illuminate the depersonalizing nature of work in contemporary Japan. This results in a kind of lobotomized Kafkaesque quality: The novella’s protagonists are so disaffected that they don’t have any depth or agency; and after a century-plus of modernity and its discontents, the satire comes across as tame rather than trenchant. What’s new and interesting here is the ecological aspect of the critique: Oyamada deftly ties together the plights of human and nature, both becoming unrecognizable in an inflexible industrial economy. But with so few moments of intimacy or optimism, the novella is ultimately a document of deadpan despair, resigned to exaggerate the absurdities of the present rather than try to change them. Tedium, meaninglessness, and alienation abound in this urgent but unsubtle fiction about the Japanese precariat.
ALL OUT WAR
Parnell, Sean Morrow/HarperCollins (416 pp.) $27.99 | Sep. 3, 2019 978-0-06-266881-3 An elite American soldier who is out for vengeance uncovers a menacing terrorist plot. Retired U.S. Army captain and combat veteran Parnell (Man of War, 2018) delivers the second installment of the |
kirkus.com
|
fiction
|
1 september 2019
|
35
RETURN TO THE ENCHANTED ISLAND
adventures of special operative Eric Steele. On the mend from a showdown with a rogue agent, Steele is preparing for a quiet dinner at home with his mother. The wine is quickly forgotten and the steaks start burning when Russian assailants bring the war to his doorstep. Using RPGs, C-4 explosives, and a SAW machine gun, the Russians are after a mysterious package sent from someone deeply connected to Steele’s past. Steele narrowly escapes the attack with his life, but his mother ends up in intensive care. Shoulders heavy with guilt, Steele must use his connections and skills as an Alpha—an elite operator who answers only to the president—to find those responsible for the attack. Pumped up with prescription steroids and with his “keeper” and close friend, Demo, at his side, he takes off for Europe to follow the only clue offered by a former president, who cryptically refers to some offthe-books operation called Cold Storage. The mission becomes increasingly complex, dangerous, and engaging once Steele learns that the attack on his home is tied to assassination plans for some of the world’s most prominent leaders. A well-written and well-researched page-turner.
Ravaloson, Johary Trans. by Charette, Allison M. AmazonCrossing (176 pp.) $19.95 | Nov. 5, 2019 978-1-5420-9353-8
A rich and privileged scion of a famous Malagasy family reacquaints himself with his roots after a trying period abroad in Ravaloson’s English language debut. You can call Ietsy Razak spoiled. His ancestors might have sailed the seven seas to reach the island nation of Malagasy, but once there they established their dominance over generations: “They replaced the original masters of this land, transforming their existence into myth by integrating them, conquering them, or driving them to the wilder ends of the earth. They wound their way into the delicate, tightly interlaced caste system, asserting their dominance by force, alliances, or more often the timely breaking of alliances. They always supported the kingdom’s expansion and took their share of the spoils.” To this day, the Razaks know which side the bread is buttered on. Nevertheless when tragedy strikes close to home, Ietsy’s father packs him off to France, where Ietsy pursues law and continues his spoiled-brat existence: “What are you going to live off of?” a friend asks. “I…am blessed by the Gods and Ancestors,” Ietsy replies. Sure, pal! Such callous pigheadedness is not viable currency for long, and a rather banal incident, which grows out of control, forces Ietsy back to his homeland. By this time, his poor little rich boy act has gotten tiresome. What’s more, the unevenly translated novel also tries to tell the story of Malagasy’s origins, but that plotline turns out to be even more frustrating. “For the Children of the Broken Vow, the original people of the great island—whether they be those of the coasts, Vazimban-driaka; of the forests, Vazimban’ala; of the mountains, Vazimbam-bohitra; or the waters, Vazimban-drano, and later of the savannas, Vazimban-tanety, established where the great Ietsy had sculpted their ancestors—were all forever betrayed by those who came after belatedly answering the Great Ancestor’s call, more greedy and having made no vows, to seize the land of the Vazimbas.” A lot of head-scratching later, the central thesis remains as muddy as ever. Set in an island nation, the novel drowns under the weight of its own confusing narrative.
36 RIGHTEOUS MEN
Pressfield, Steven Norton (352 pp.) $26.95 | Nov. 5, 2019 978-1-324-00289-5
In the spring of 2034, during a relative cool spell in New York—it’s only 112 degrees outside—a lone assassin has targeted 36 men whose elimination promises to bring about the end of the world. The letter-shaped bruises found on the crushed throats of four early victims point to a Jewish legend, Biblical scholar Jake Instancer tells NYPD Detective James Manning: After the flood, God promised that “so long as there are Thirty-Six Righteous Men somewhere on Earth, He will never again take action to destroy the human race.” Unaware of their special status, these men are hidden around the world. As long as any one of the righteous men remains alive, things are safe. Manning is a “troglodyte,” says his hip 28-year-old underling, “Dewey” Duwai, who narrates the story. “The closest he comes to conversation is thinking out loud.” In going up against a seemingly invincible villain, Manning puts his Neanderthal traits to good use. With its caustic sensibility, fast and furious action scenes, and brusque dialogue (which is presented in a boxy screenplay format), the book boasts a lively comic-book sensibility. The action extends to Israel, where an intense do-or-die climax takes place in archaeological tunnels beneath accursed Gehenna. This leads to a conference in Cyprus dubbed “Earth’s Last Chance,” which may leave you wondering whether Pressfield, had he known when he started the book just how fast climate change is progressing, would have put global warming on a more equal footing with his human serial killer as an immediate threat. Cop mentality meets religious fanaticism meets the future in a highly entertaining pop noir. 36
|
1 september 2019
|
fiction
|
kirkus.com
|
The #MeToo movement forces a young woman to confront the abusive relationship that defines her sexual and romantic past. my dark vanessa
ASH
Briskly paced, vigorously written thriller about a man out to rescue his kidnapped 10-year-old son. Author Rayburn—pen name for South African crime writer Roger Smith (Wake Up Dead, 2010, etc.)—kicks off this chase thriller with two startling scenes. The first surrounds Jane Ash, who, we later learn, may have been working for the United States against China. Now she’s on an island beach, “part of a cluster flung like jewels between Bohai and the Yellow Sea.” As Jane gazes at paramour Victor Fabian, “a Zelig-like” associate of “dictators and strongmen and martinets,” she spots a man who once made her feel “the kind of fear that came from being in the presence of pure evil.” She instinctively flees, climbing a sheer cliff, but the man pries her fingers loose and she falls to her death. The next scene, taking place a year later in a small town near Seattle, finds Jane’s son, Scooter, breakfasting with his father, Danny Ash, and a seemingly nurturing neighbor. In a stunning turnabout, the woman stops washing dishes, grabs a syringe, and plunges it into the boy’s neck. The boy pitches forward, the woman punches Ash in the gut, and “a scrum of men in dark clothes” burst in to abduct Scooter. Ash is off to find the boy. The kidnapped-child trope is well worn, but Rayburn revs it up. He throws Ash in with some perverse characters he draws in sharp, short takes. There are Patty Peach and her baby-faced accomplice, Orlando, assassins hired by Fabian. There’s an information source too fat to leave his fetid bedroom. And there’s Fabian, a clandestine associate of the president of the United States, who kidnapped the boy to silence Ash for telling the press the U.S. government had murdered his wife. Ash and company traverse an America of “sad, sagging houses” and “boarded up buildings,” presided over by “that clown in the Oval Office,” images adding heft to the foreground action. In the end, though, the Hitchcock-ian chase, speeding from the Northwest to the East Coast in search of the child, is the focus, and it’s more than enough. Fast from the starting gate all the way to the finish line.
y o u n g a d u lt
Carl Logan is a former city schoolteacher who’s just moved his family—much to his wife’s chagrin—to Paradise Valley, a tiny ranching town where he’s been hired as manager of the spread owned by wealthy outsider Peter Kenwood. Carl is both a newcomer and, many believe, a kind of usurper, since Kenwood has bypassed longtime hand Lester Ruth to hire Carl. So when rival rancher Tom Butcher, a bon vivant bachelor with a reputation as a ladykiller who is in some ways both the town’s most popular and most despised person, is found beaten to death with a baseball bat, suspicion falls first and most heavily on Carl. The mystery of who’s offed Tom and why becomes the engine of the novel but not its subject or reason for being: This is a love letter to the small-town, rough-and-tumble, fisticuff-heavy ranch life of 50 years ago. Rowland’s interest in the murder plot is mainly as a way to explore a subject that cozy mysteries generally gloss over: How do you live in a community where neighbors have no choice but to stay in close contact, to trust and rely upon each other, when you know that one of those neighbors must be a killer who’s hiding in plain sight? In straight-ahead, unfussy prose, Rowland keeps the novel humming along. The mystery fizzles a bit in the end, but by then the reader will know that’s not where this book’s heart is. A quick-moving, plainspoken, mostly charming exploration of the hardscrabble life of the livestock rancher of old.
Rayburn, James Blackstone Publishing (364 pp.) $26.99 | Nov. 5, 2019 978-1-5385-0751-3
MY DARK VANESSA
Russell, Kate Elizabeth Morrow/HarperCollins (384 pp.) $27.99 | Jan. 28, 2020 978-0-06-294150-3 The #MeToo movement forces a struggling young woman to confront the abusive relationship that defines her sexual and romantic past. At 15, Vanessa Wye falls for her English teacher at Browick, a private boarding school. Jacob Strane is 42, “big, broad, and so tall that his shoulders hunch as though his body wants to apologize for taking up so much space.” Strane woos Vanessa with Nabokov’s novels, Plath’s poetry, and furtive caresses in his back office. “I think we’re very similar, Nessa,” Strane tells her during a one-on-one conference. “I can tell from the way you write that you’re a dark romantic like me.” Soon, Vanessa is reveling in her newfound power of attraction, pursuing sleepovers at Strane’s house, and conducting what she feels is a secret affair right under the noses of the administration. More than 15 years later, at the height of the #MeToo movement, Taylor Birch, another young woman from Browick, publicly accuses Strane of sexual abuse. When a young journalist reaches out to Vanessa to corroborate Taylor’s story, Vanessa’s world begins to unravel. “Because even if I sometimes use the word abuse to describe certain things that were done to me, in someone else’s mouth the word turns ugly and absolute....It swallows me and all the times I wanted it, begged for it,” Vanessa tells herself. Russell weaves Vanessa’s memories of high school together with the social
COLD COUNTRY
Rowland, Russell Dzanc Books (248 pp.) $16.95 paper | Nov. 12, 2019 978-1-945814-92-1 From veteran novelist and longtime Montanan Rowland (Arbuckle, 2018, etc.), a new novel that looks at first like a murder mystery...but turns out to be mostly a dark-toned but affectionate pastoral about ranch life in rugged 1968 Montana. |
kirkus.com
|
fiction
|
1 september 2019
|
37
A conjure woman who escaped slavery obliquely guides her descendants in 2017 New Orleans. the revisioners
An intermittently potent illustration of the formidable obstacles to equality that remained—and persist—post– Brown v. Board of Education.
media–saturated callout culture of the present moment, as Vanessa struggles to determine whether the love story she has told about herself is, in fact, a tragedy of unthinkable proportions. Russell’s debut is a rich psychological study of the aftermath of abuse, and her novel asks readers both to take Vanessa’s assertions of agency at face value and to determine the real, psychological harm perpetrated against her by an abusive adult. What emerges is a devastating cultural portrait of enablement and the harm we allow young women to shoulder. “The excuses we make for them are outrageous,” Vanessa concludes about abusive men, “but they’re nothing compared with the ones we make for ourselves.” A gut-wrenching debut.
THE REVISIONERS
Sexton, Margaret Wilkerson Counterpoint (288 pp.) $25.00 | Nov. 5, 2019 978-1-64009-258-7 A conjure woman who escaped slavery obliquely guides her descendants in 2017 New Orleans. This second novel from Sexton confirms the storytelling gifts she displayed in her lushly readable debut, A Kind of Freedom. The new book opens as cash-strapped Ava Jackson is reluctantly moving herself and her 12-year-old son, King, into the mansion of a declining Martha Dufrene, her white grandmother. The first sentence—“It was King who told me we forgot the photograph”—suggests this object will matter. And indeed, Ava goes back for the portrait of Miss Josephine, her “grandmother’s great-grandmother,” a woman with second sight. Her part in the secret sect “the revisioners” is shrouded in time, but Josephine serves as the spine of this deftly structured novel. In one thread of chapters, she narrates her 1855 escape from bondage as a child and, in another, her rise to rural matriarch. In the framed 1924 photo, a widowed Josephine stands on the edge of her farm: “I still find new mercy in the fact this house belongs to me; that the pine boards overlap to keep the rodents out; the windows swing all the way open.” But this is the year that an aging Josephine makes the mistake of pitying a white neighbor, Charlotte, who confides that she married her brutish husband because “her mama said that he wore nice shoes, that his mama had all her teeth.” A third braid of chapters follows Ava, letting the reader slowly grasp a parallel treachery coiled in Martha and Charlotte. Martha’s creepy home conjures its own Get Out– flavored claustrophobia, and Charlotte eventually cozies up to the Klan. In this wondrous telling, King can lie on the sofa playing Fortnite in the same short book where Josephine’s fleeing family is hobbling “the other horses whose shoes need to be damaged so no one could follow us straight away.” At the intriguing crossroads of the seen and the unseen lies a weave among five generations of women.
FREEDOM LESSONS
Sanchez, Eileen Harrison She Writes Press (256 pp.) $16.95 paper | Nov. 12, 2019 978-1-63152-610-7 When “all deliberate speed” becomes “all of a sudden,” not much changes. Written from the author’s own experience as an elementary school teacher, Sanchez’s debut chronicles one school year, 1969-70, during which Colleen Rodriguez and her husband, Miguel, are transplanted from New Jersey to Kettle Creek, Louisiana. Miguel, a Cuban émigré, will serve as a drill sergeant on a nearby Army base, and Colleen, a white woman, begins teaching second grade at West Hill, the “Negro school.” As a preface points out, Brown v. Board of Edu cation, ordering desegregation, was decided in 1954, but many Southern school districts adopted a “Freedom of Choice” policy, which delayed integration of schools. But now, the federal government has mandated immediate integration. West Hill is closed overnight, and its elementary and high school students are shoehorned, no longer separate but still far from equal, into the hitherto all-white Kettle Creek schools. West Hill elementary pupils are shunted off into trailers near their new school, and their black teachers are let go, with the exception of two, including Evelyn, Colleen’s reluctant mentor. Frank, West Hill’s star football player, had hoped for an athletic scholarship, but at Kettle Creek High, he and the other black players are demoted to second string. He is forced to find a job to have any hope of affording college—and the prospect of Vietnam looms. This is only the beginning of many outrages to follow. Sanchez sensitively depicts this grudging desegregation and its many Catch22s for the black students and teachers. When it’s time to fight back, Evelyn’s and Frank’s perspectives take over, and Colleen steps back; though, as an afterword suggests, Sanchez, a white woman, is quite aware that she is not an #ownvoices author, she isn’t trying to write “a white savior story.” Percolating in the background is an underdeveloped murder mystery involving an unsolved hate crime against Frank’s late father. A major plot thread is left dangling while overattention to day-to-day minutiae feels like padding. 38
|
1 september 2019
|
fiction
|
kirkus.com
|
PAIN
A middle-aged woman confronts her first love. As a teenager, Iris meets the love of her life: Eitan, a thin, gangly boy caring for his sick mother. They plan to get married, but after Eitan’s mother dies, he tells Iris he can’t see her anymore—she reminds him too much of his grief. Thirty years later, Iris is married, with two children, and principal of a rigorous Jerusalem school. She is 10 years past a terrible injury sustained when a suicide bomber blew up a bus, but she is still haunted by pain. Iris’ relationship with her husband, Mickey, is tepid, and her feelings for her children are clouded by disappointment: They aren’t the children she’d have had with Eitan, after all. Then, unexpectedly, Iris runs into Eitan, and all the passion her life has been lacking rushes back. Shalev’s (The Remains of Love, 2013, etc.) latest novel to appear in English is primarily concerned with the nature of that passion. Should Iris go back to Eitan, or should she stick with the life she’s built? While she’s trying to decide, that life seems to be splintering: Any day now, her son is due to be drafted, and her daughter seems to have fallen under the sway of a charismatic, cultlike leader. Shalev’s depiction of Iris’ tortured, conflicting thoughts is convincing, if claustrophobic. We’re stuck in Iris’ mind for the duration of the novel, and the result can feel somewhat stifling. Then, too, since the novel begins at a high pitch, as it goes higher and higher, the prose starts to feel hyperbolic. Shalev is a vivid and impassioned writer, but her latest novel, by its end, seems both airless and overheated.
y o u n g a d u lt
that tethers doctors to keyboards and monitors, where they find themselves “treating the screens, not the patients,” jeopardizing both their patients’ well-being and their own in the process. Daily life is a war between the hospital and insurance companies, each side single-mindedly dedicated to maximizing its profit, with the doctors collateral damage in that ceaseless conflict. But when HEAL, the $2.6 billion electronic health records system at Man’s 4th Best Hospital, crashes and stops transmitting OUTGOING data, forcing the doctors to connect with the vulnerable human beings in their care, there’s a hint of what a patient-centered world might look like. The novel is infused with manic activity, but with the exception of Fat Man, Roy, and Roy’s wife, Berry, a psychologist whose Buddhist beliefs can’t wean her from an unhealthy attachment to what Roy calls her “ ‘I’-phone,” the characters tend to get lost in the swirl of the crisis-driven plot. Shem’s comic touch is broad, his villains the usual suspects, and his prescription for curing what he sees as the disease of a system driven by the unceasing imperative to earn more money facile, but perhaps his vision of a medical world that applies a human touch to technology will inspire those seeking to achieve it. A veteran physician performs radical surgery on American health care in this uneven satire.
Shalev, Zeruya Trans. by Silverston, Sondra Other Press (368 pp.) $17.99 paper | Nov. 5, 2019 978-1-59051-092-6
DISASTER’S CHILDREN
Sloley, Emma Little A (320 pp.) $24.95 | Nov. 5, 2019 978-1-5420-0406-0
Growing up among privileged doomsday preppers, Marlo has always known that the end of the world was nigh. But she never suspected trouble from within her community. Climate change, poisoned soil, rising sea levels—the harbingers of ecological collapse prompted Marlo, her adoptive parents, and a group of wealthy, likeminded survivalists to settle a secluded community in the wilds of Oregon. Adopted at 14 months old, Marlo has grown up on the ranch, with only occasional visits to the outside world, a place known as the Disaster among the ranchers. Now 25, Marlo has few friends left now that Alex and Ben have moved out. With sporadic access to the internet, Marlo doesn’t get many updates from them about their adventures in eco-activism. But the sleepy wait for an apocalypse abruptly ends when five bald eagles are discovered dead on the ranch with no clear cause of death. Curious about life in the Disaster and restless to participate in the fight against climate change, Marlo makes plans to temporarily leave the ranch. But her overprotective, smothering parents have other ideas. Serendipitously, a mysterious stranger arrives at the ranch. His name is Wolf, and he may be the answer to at least some of Marlo’s prayers, as they quickly connect and fall in love. In this, her debut novel, Sloley masterfully weaves together the tropes of dystopia, romance, and mystery. Suspicions and questions abound: Is Wolf too good to be true? Who is posting ominous religious quotations around the
MAN’S 4TH BEST HOSPITAL
Shem, Samuel Berkley (384 pp.) $27.00 | Nov. 12, 2019 978-1-9848-0536-2
The madness of life in a busy urban hospital. With the issue of health care atop the American political agenda, the time couldn’t be better for a darkly comic look at some of the worst excesses of the current system. Shem (The House of God, 1978, etc.) gathers the cast of that earlier novel in a hospital owned by a rapacious conglomerate known as BUDDIES. There, at the Future of Medicine Clinic: Care, Compassion, and Cancer conceived by their former mentor, Fat Man, their goal is to “put the human back in health care.” In the spirit of Catch-22 and M.A.S.H., narrator Roy Basch and fellow physicians with nicknames like Eat My Dust Eddie and Hyper Hooper struggle to subvert the operation of a system |
kirkus.com
|
fiction
|
1 september 2019
|
39
THE INVOLUNTARY SOJOURNER
community? Who hid the mysterious gun cache? Yet as alarming events compound, the rising sense of menace is undercut by Marlo’s naiveté. Her sheltered life and overdependence on her parents prevent her from seeing the dangers that the reader sees at every corner. With so many questions left unanswered, this dystopia is ripe for a sequel.
Tenhoff, S.P. Seven Stories (256 pp.) $17.95 paper | Nov. 12, 2019 978-1-60980-964-5 Borges meets Saunders in Tenhoff ’s debut collection of 10 cerebral stories that tilt toward fabulist and unfold in places real and invented, familiar and farflung, contemporary and futuristic. “Ten Views of the Border” establishes Tenhoff ’s interest in the arbitrariness of borders. Here, a town is divided in two by a painted red line for no apparent reason. More disturbing, the residents immediately obey the new restrictions on their movements. “The Involuntary Sojourner: A Case Study” tests the force of divisions as Victor, a scholar studying “involuntary sojourners,” or people who find themselves in foreign countries with no memory of traveling there, seems to become the subject of his own research. Finally, in “Kurobe and the Secrets of Puppetry,” puppets assume the role of masters as a celebrated puppeteer slides into dementia. The collection’s more conventional character-driven stories flip the familiar narrative about the power of male desire and show just how weak and conniving men can be. In “The Visitors,” a lonely dentist tries to win the affection of a recent immigrant by offering the woman’s son free dental care—even though the boy’s teeth are perfect. And in “Ichiban,” a Japanese businessman steals money he and his wife have been saving for a house in hopes that the perfect (expensive) gift will secure the love of a woman he meets in a hostess club. Tenhoff ’s experimental bent occasionally yields overly abstract tales, but when humans and their contradictions take center stage, these stories soar and his insights deliver a visceral punch. Fantastic (and fantastical) work from a writer who appreciates that borders of all kinds are often just a fiction.
THE BEST AMERICAN COMICS 2019
Ed. by Tamaki, Jillian & Kartalopoulos, Bill Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (400 pp.) $25.00 | Oct. 1, 2019 978-0-358-06728-3 Series editor Kartalopoulos taps Tamaki (They Say Blue, 2018, etc.) to help curate the 2019 edition of this annual collection of exceptional graphic storytelling. In her introduction, Tamaki observes, “It’s not a bad time to make comics, if one absolutely must and is able to do so, and one’s work is marketable enough.” The wry caveat nods to an eternal struggle: The labor-intensive craft of comic creation often means small financial return for creators. Perhaps stating this struggle up front cleared the collection to plunge directly into art itself; though Lauren Weinstein’s “Being an Artist and a Mother” entwines art and money in her struggle to retain her productive-artist self once she gives birth to her first child (“unless you can pay [for child care]…you don’t have access to your hands”), the story is mostly about Weinstein’s connection to a past artist whose painting captivated her as a new mother. Eleanor Davis’ incisive “Hurt or Fuck” contemplates art and human need on an allegorical, visceral level in what could almost be a two-actor stage play. Erik Nebel’s “Why Don’t We Come Together” ingeniously explores the possibilities of a rigid format—repeating but shifting shapes and colors, figures and patterns play across a set of equal-sized panels stacked into a grid, clicking through simple, whimsical stories like a filmstrip of thesis, antithesis, and synthesis. Jed McGowan’s “Uninhabitable” explores the forces of change as well, old and new colliding in a science-fiction tale of terraforming, hive minds, action, reaction, and creation. The collection also includes an excerpt from the first graphic novel longlisted for the Booker Prize, Sabrina by Nick Drnaso, and new work by master of graphic journalism Joe Sacco on the topic of climate and economy. It’s called “best” for a reason.
40
|
1 september 2019
|
fiction
|
kirkus.com
JAKARTA
Tizano, Rodrigo Márquez Trans. by Bunstead, Thomas Coffee House (160 pp.) $16.95 paper | Nov. 5, 2019 978-1-56689-563-7
An impressionistic, abstract portrait of a society clawing back from a viral epidemic. The unnamed narrator of Tizano’s debut lives in Atlantika, which seems constructed out of stray parts from other dystopian novels. The ruling government is a technocratic autocracy that soothes the populace by encouraging it to bet on games of Vakapý, a modified version of jai alai played by robots. (The Orwellian-sounding Department of Chaos and Gaming handles the transactions.) A devastating outbreak called the Ź-Bug has wiped out a chunk |
A funny and touching fable about love for kids, even the ones on fire. nothing to see here
of the population, and the narrator of the novel is a veteran of the Ź-Brigađe, charged with clearing rats from sewers and other unpleasant sites. Back at home, the narrator’s partner, Clara, is consulting with a large, vaguely oracular glowing stone that calls up, among other things, memories of the narrator’s classmates at a religious school before they were pressed into Ź-Bug service. The novel’s milieu evokes Philip K. Dick at his gloomiest, and the narrator’s mood can be as defeated as anybody’s in Atwood or Orwell. (“Progress, hope, all of that: I never bought any of it.”) Its style is unique to Tizano, however. The novel is structured in numbered paragraphs, each an often digressive study of a childhood memory, a vision from the stone, or Atlantika’s despairing society. The nonlinear approach can befuddle, and though translator Bunstead ably stabilizes the tone, stray plot threads can be hard to parse. (Is the snow there really red, or is the narrator imagining things?) The title partly refers to a code name for the narrator, and the story invites readings as an allegory for our loss of identity in the face of social and epidemiological threats. Clear lessons are in short supply, though. An assured but challenging anti-narrative, its offbeat structure evoking a world slipped off its axis.
dialogue that could have come from a weirder version of Gilmore Girls. Most of that is due to Holly’s voice, which is quirky without ever being annoying, and the cast of wacky side characters who are satirical while still feeling like real human beings. There are even several laugh-out-loud moments, most of them revolving around the bug infestation destroying the town’s prized topiaries, a privileged problem that highlights just how hilariously ridiculous the Village of Primm is. A unique and over-the-top look at modern motherhood, full of funny and cringeworthy moments.
NOTHING TO SEE HERE
Wilson, Kevin Ecco/HarperCollins (272 pp.) $26.99 | Nov. 5, 2019 978-0-06-291346-3
HOLLY BANKS FULL OF ANGST
Valerie, Julie Lake Union Publishing (378 pp.) $14.95 paper | Nov. 1, 2019 978-1-5420-1406-9
A mom tries—and spectacularly fails—to fit into her new picture-perfect town. When Holly Banks moves to the Village of Primm, she hopes it will be the start of a new adventure for her family. With its wonderful school system, immaculately tended lawns, and superinvolved parents, Primm couldn’t be anything less than perfect. However, aspiring-filmmaker Holly soon realizes that the town bears a slightly creepy resemblance to Stepford (of the famous wives), and no one appreciates her minor failures to live up to the status quo—like, for example, showing up to kindergarten drop-off while wearing pajamas or accidentally hitting a school bus in her attempts to move her car. Holly quickly finds a nemesis in PTA president Mary-Margaret St. James, a bizarrely Primm-obsessed mom who talks about herself in the third person and won’t let Holly leave the premises without volunteering for something (and not just for napkin duty, because everyone knows only the slacker moms sign up to bring napkins). But Holly has other things to worry about—for starters, she thinks her husband might be having an affair, she constantly has to pay her mother’s gambling debts, and she’s feeling bored and restless after putting her filmmaking dreams aside. Holly starts making her own documentary using the subject matter in front of her but soon realizes that Primm’s perfect veneer hides more than a few secrets. There are many novels about women struggling to fit into upper-class communities, but debut author Valerie manages to create a story that feels fresh, with sparkling |
kirkus.com
|
fiction
|
1 september 2019
|
y o u n g a d u lt
Decades after an unforgivable trespass, two childhood friends are reunited in a most unusual arrangement. Wilson is a remarkable writer for many different reasons, as demonstrated by his quirky novels, Perfect Little World (2017) and The Family Fang (2011), and tons of short stories. One of his greatest strengths is the ability to craft an everyday family drama and inject it with one odd element that turns the story on its head. He’s done it again here, writing once more about family but with some most unusual children and a particularly charming narrator. Back in the day, Lillian and Madison were besties at an elite boarding school, the former a smart scholarship student and the latter a quirky but spoiled rich girl. But when Madison got into trouble, privilege reared its ugly head, and Lillian was the one kicked out of school. Now grown, she spends her days at her dead-end job and her off hours getting stoned. Out of the blue, Madison reappears, now mother to her darling boy, Timothy, and the wife of a U.S. senator and budding political star. But the family is in a quandary over what to do with the senator’s twin children from a previous marriage, Bessie and Roland. Oh, and by the way, the twins spontaneously combust when they’re angry or upset. No harm comes to them, but clothes, houses, and anything else in their orbit can go up in flames. Lillian is offered a job looking after the twins for the summer until the fam can figure out what to do with the little fireballs. To her own surprise, Lillian turns out to be a terrific guardian, despite her own doubts. “They were me, unloved and fucked over, and I was going to make sure they got what they needed,” she affirms. The book’s denouement is a bit predictable, but Lillian develops into an engaging parental proxy in Wilson’s latest whimsical exploration of family. A funny and touching fable about love for kids, even the ones on fire.
41
m ys t e r y
NOT A THING TO COMFORT YOU
Wortman-Wunder, Emily Univ. of Iowa (148 pp.) $17.00 paper | Oct. 15, 2019 978-1-60938-681-8
POPPY REDFERN AND THE MIDNIGHT MURDERS
Arlen, Tessa Berkley (320 pp.) $16.00 paper | Nov. 5, 2019 978-1-9848-0580-5
In each of these challenging stories, Wortman-Wunder presents nature not as a static specimen but a dynamic presence that interacts with, and often unsettles, human relationships. A quick flip through this debut collection will tell you that nature is a clear theme for the author. Her characters have “crawled into town from the riverbed” covered in “tar… and gravel, and river mud,” stuffed their bodies into bears’ hibernaculum during the dead of winter, and spent their days burning oakbrush to try to revive suffering ecosystems. But while skimming these stories might convey the “lazy, late summer” tunes of song sparrows and the “damp and algae and mud” smell of life alongside a creek, and would certainly demonstrate the author’s poetic gusto, such a cursory glance would only tell half the story. Per the titular warning, this is not a book of comfort. While the mysteries of science and beauty of nature consume her characters, the author is clearly here to explore the messiness of human emotions and the ways people long for, envy, and challenge one another amid these natural environments. “Otters,” for example, considers Cynthia’s resentment toward her husband, Billy, who has moved with her to a trailer along the Dolores River. As Billy grows to appreciate “homesteading in rafting country” and takes pleasure in his wife’s fieldwork, Cynthia sleeps late and yearns for a more civilized life. In “The Endangered Fish of the Colorado River,” a marine biologist traces the evolution of her bond with her deceased son. As she reflects on the endangered fish she studied during his lifetime, each species serves as a milestone of sorts in their rocky relationship. Not all protagonists are researchers. In the title story, a nurse named Annie tends to a homeless woman who has thrown herself off a freight train. Hungry for details about the woman’s life “of freedom,” Annie tries to get close to the stranger while eschewing her coworkers’ focus on donation drives and social work brochures. Instead of rehashing the trope of man versus nature or romanticizing lives on the margins, Wortman-Wunder offers a fresh take on the murkiness of the connection between humanity, society, and the natural world. An honest look at the complexity of human emotion and the influence the natural world can have in everyday lives.
42
|
1 september 2019
|
fiction
|
kirkus.com
Edwardian specialist Arlen (Death of an Unsung Hero, 2018, etc.) leaps forward 25 years to showcase a dedicated wartime volunteer who learns that the real danger in her hometown is not from the enemy
overseas. Little Buffenden was a quiet English village before World War II, but in the midst of the battle with the Nazis, the more immediate invasion is from the Yanks. Poppy Redfern and her grandparents have turned over their ancestral home, Reaches, to the American airmen known as the Midnight Raiders and moved temporarily to a smaller building on the property. Poppy, who serves as the Air Raid Precaution warden for the village, has a nighttime run-in with Lt. Griff O’Neal, one of the pilots, when each mistakes the other for the enemy. After that meetcute, Poppy tries to focus on her business of enforcing blackout rules, but the other young women in the village are more attuned to the social benefits of so many visiting soldiers so eager for female companionship. In fact, village gossip suggests that one of the airmen has helped Doreen Newcombe get over her grief for her late fiance. After Doreen’s body, strangled with a nylon stocking, is found in the churchyard, sleepy Little Buffenden is no longer safe, and Poppy’s grandparents prevail upon her to accept Cpl. Sid Ritchie of the Home Guard as an escort. Although Poppy finds Sid tiresome, she agrees to please her grandparents. A second murder of one of the young women she’s known all her life motivates Poppy to do her own detective work, with some help from her dog and the increasingly friendly Griff. The nighttime actions of a bird-watcher suspected of the murders, Poppy’s discovery of a secret tunnel, a clue in the form of camphor, and her ambivalence about whether to accept Griff ’s suit lead to an unsurprising denouement featuring a suspect who’s been under Poppy’s nose all along. History, suspense, and an appealing heroine combine in a series debut that should attract war buffs and many others.
|
Rousing period pulp for those who miss the ’80s or the glory days of men’s magazines a generation earlier. killing quarry
THE CHOCOLATE SHARK SHENANIGANS
definitely worth serious coin, but unwilling to take the Broker’s place as just another middleman, he comes up with the idea of choosing random names from the list, stalking them until he figures out whom they’ve staked out themselves, and then telling the marks they’ve been targeted and offering to take out their killers for a price. This new regimen works fine, at least according to the standards of murder for hire, until Quarry gets on the scent of Bruce Simmons, a hit man whose target is Quarry himself. A face-off between the two businessmen ends with Simmons predictably dead, shot by Lu, his partner in crime, who years ago had a brief fling with Quarry but hasn’t seen him since. After Quarry’s disposed of the body, showered to get rid of the blood and brains, he has sex with the beauteous Lu, who reveals that her own handler, the Envoy, is the client who hired her and Simmons to kill Quarry. Why would someone target an inoffensive hit man who’s now switched to killing only his own kind, along with the inevitable collateral damage? The answer awaits at a very, very exclusive investment conference at the Lake Geneva Golf and Ski Resort, which just happens to be run by Quarry’s poker buddy Dan Clark—an event at which discussions of high finance will take a back seat to sound and fury. Rousing period pulp for those who miss the ’80s or the glory days of men’s magazines a generation earlier.
Carl, JoAnna Berkley (256 pp.) $25.00 | Nov. 5, 2019 978-0-593-10000-4
An accountant and her lawyer husband must revisit his high school days in order to solve a murder. Lee Woodyard is no fan of the scheme her husband, Joe, and her uncle, Hogan Jones, the local police chief, hatch to buy the Bailey house next door and flip it. But even though she’d rather be at her job as business manager at her aunt’s chocolate specialty shop (The Chocolate Bunny Brouhaha, 2016, etc.), she agrees to meet with the plumber for an estimate—a meeting that turns dangerous when plumber Digger Brown finds a bundle of rags in the cellar. When he drops them, a gun hidden in the bundle goes off, sending a bullet whizzing past Lee. No one seems to know where the old fashioned six-shooter came from, but the accident recalls a past incident in which the Sharks, a group of high school boys that included Brad Davis, Chip Brown, Sharpy Brock, Tad Bailey, and Spud Dirk, pulled a prank that could have been deadly. Years ago, when several Sharks pretended as a joke to rob a convenience store in which Brad was working, Brad pulled a real gun and fired but hit nothing more vital than the Frozen Rainbow Machine. Now Brad’s the president of the VanHorn–Davis Foundation, whose charitable donations underwrite many improvements to the Michigan lakeside town of Warner Pier. When Lee accompanies Hogan to the Bailey house to show him where the gun was, they find more than they bargained for—Spud’s corpse in a cupboard. Although Hogan’s the police chief, he must stay out of the investigation because Spud had been competing with him to buy the Bailey house. So Lee, who’d prefer to stick to chocolates, is forced to join Joe in detective work. A run-of-the-mill mystery that includes some welcome tips on the health benefits of chocolate.
THE ANGELS’ SHARE
Crosby, Ellen Minotaur (368 pp.) $26.99 | Nov. 5, 2019 978-1-250-16485-8
Is a cache of fabulously valuable Madeira hidden at Montgomery Estate Vineyard, whose straitened finances could certainly benefit from the discovery? That’s one of the questions Lucie Montgomery (Harvest of Secrets, 2018, etc.) seeks to answer after a strange conversation with wealthy Prescott Avery. His family is hosting an after-Thanksgiving party, and Lucie and her fiance, Quinn Santori, have been invited to enjoy a Brazilian meal and plenty of booze. Now that Prescott’s pledged to give most of his fortune away, his heirs are busy fighting among themselves, especially over his plans to sell the Washington Tribune. Escorting Lucie to his wine cellar, Prescott offers to buy the Madeira her great uncle purchased in the 1920s, a wine originally slated to be served at a ceremony marking the anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence attended by President James Madison. But Lucie’s never heard of it—and if it did exist, she assumes her father sold it to finance his gambling habit. Showing Lucie a handwritten copy of the Declaration given to Madison by Jefferson, Prescott tells her to look for clues in a safe-deposit box he insists her father used and hints at a mysterious treasure that could be dangerous if revealed. Lucie’s ready to leave when she realizes she left her phone in the cellars and returns to find it along with Prescott’s body. Prescott’s death proves to be murder, and his family members are the prime suspects. At length, Lucie finds the hidden keys to the safe-deposit
KILLING QUARRY
Collins, Max Allan Hard Case Crime (224 pp.) $9.95 paper | Nov. 12, 2019 978-1-78565-945-4 Professional killer Quarry’s 1980s midlife career change to selling potential targets the ultimate protection from the people who’ve marked them for death comes a cropper in a way that would be unusual for anyone but him. Double-crossed by his longtime handler, the Broker, Quarry (Quarry’s Climax, 2017, etc.) has executed him and taken the extensive list of contract killers whose services he handles. Intent on monetizing the list, which is |
kirkus.com
|
mystery
|
1 september 2019
|
43
ISLAND OF LAST RESORTS
box. The papers inside provide further clues about Prescott’s dangerous secret. Fascinated by a mystery that involves the Founding Fathers, the Masons, and even the Jamestown Colony, Lucie plows ahead despite the danger. Wine lore and mystery, both historical and modern, combine in an enthralling read.
Ellis, Mary Severn House (224 pp.) $28.99 | Nov. 1, 2019 978-0-7278-8934-8
A private eye is separated from colleagues she may have to rescue as they are forced to solve the murder of a millionaire’s wife. As the newest PI in Nate Price’s little company, Kate Weller doesn’t feel that she can turn down the boss when he invites her on a company retreat with the other employees and their partners. Nate insists that Kate’s boyfriend, Eric Manfredi, join the gang as well, though Eric’s reluctant to leave the Manfredi family restaurant, Bella Trattoria, in the hands of the other chefs in his large, close family. But Kate, who’s been through periods of serious ambivalence about her connection with Eric (Sweet Taste of Revenge, 2018, etc.), puts her foot down until he agrees. When the couple finally respond to the invitation, they find that Nate, his wife, Isabelle, and the two other invited couples have already left to enjoy the privacy Nate has secured as guests on reclusive millionaire Julian Frazier’s private paradise, Elysian Island. The guests’ initial dinner with Frazier reveals that what they thought would be a vacation will be more like a week working at a private prison: Frazier wants Price’s team to solve the murder of his late wife, and he’s prepared to use force to get answers. Ellis’ conceit follows the team on a “Ten Little Indians”–style quest while Kate and Eric frantically try to get to the island, just knowing that something must be wrong. And they’re absolutely right: The thoroughly dislikable Frazier is eliminating suspects while the members of the Price team have lowered their expectations from vacationing to surviving. Perhaps the last of a series more notable for its plotdriven narratives than for providing more nuanced character development.
DRESSED TO KILL
Delaney, Kathleen Severn House (208 pp.) $28.99 | Nov. 1, 2019 978-0-7278-8894-5 A Halloween bank robbery by a killer in a clown suit strikes fear into the denizens of a California town. Mary McGill and her cocker spaniel, Millie, have earned a reputation as crime solvers (Blood Red, White and Blue, 2017, etc.). Despite her experience, Mary is stricken when the sound of what she thinks are firecrackers coming from the bank turns out to be gunfire. She arrives just in time to see a woman lying in a pool of blood, her beloved nephew-in-law, Police Chief Dan Dunham, wounded, and the clown responsible racing off and vanishing. With Dan laid up with a badly wounded shoulder, Mary must use her skills to find the killer of talented dressmaker Victoria Witherspoon, whom the clown shot twice for unknown reasons. Mary, a retired schoolteacher busy with many town activities, has an extensive knowledge of the town and its residents that she hopes will help her discover a motive. Unfortunately, a detective sent from out of town to work the case doesn’t care for any help from Mary and her friends. When Mary goes to Victoria’s shop to check on the wedding gown she made for a friend of Mary’s from the dog world, she discovers material and a pattern for a clown costume. The bank teller thinks Victoria might have been killed because she made the costume and recognized the robber. Victoria’s log book reveals that she made four clown costumes but used only initials to indicate their purchasers. Despite the obstacles she faces, Mary’s happy to get help from Dan’s team, including newcomer Janelle Tucker. Eventually Mary learns enough to put her in danger before the killer is finally cornered. Not much of a mystery but a charming read, especially for dog lovers.
44
|
1 september 2019
|
fiction
|
kirkus.com
DEATH HAS DEEP ROOTS
Gilbert, Michael Poisoned Pen (288 pp.) $14.99 paper | Nov. 5, 2019 978-1-4926-9953-8
Can’t decide whether to read a British courtroom drama or a tale of continental adventure? This tour de force, originally published in 1951, provides both. According to Crown Prosecutor Claudian Summers, Victoria Lamartine came from France to the U.K. after the war to find Maj. Eric Thoseby, the British officer working with the Resistance who’d fathered her late son, and killed him when he finally agreed to meet with her at London’s Family Hotel, where owner Honorifique Sainte, who’d come from the same Loire region as her, employed her as a receptionist. Vicky’s own take on this story is of course different: She’d had no reason to stab Thoseby |
Think winning the lottery would make your dreams come true? Think again. the devil’s own game
to death because she’d never had an affair with him but sought him out only in the hope that he could give her information about Lt. Julian Wells, the real father of her child. On the eve of her trial, Vicky fires the solicitor who’d planned to plead her guilty and ask for mercy and instead begs young Nap Rumbold to take over her defense. After Rumbold briefs barrister Hargest Macrea to assume courtroom duties and asks Maj. Angus McCann to look for exculpatory evidence in England, he books passage for Angers in search of Wells. His quest is complicated by persistent rumors that his quarry was discovered, captured, and executed by the Gestapo during the war and hints that a group of gold smugglers somehow involved with the case are determined to keep Nap from learning anything, even if they have to resort to violence. “This isn’t a detective story,” grouses Macrea, but he’s doubly wrong: After deftly cutting back and forth between Nap’s increasingly fraught inquiries and Macrea’s legal tactics, Gilbert (The Curious Conspiracy: And Other Crimes, 2002, etc.) pulls them together with a virtuoso snap, producing an ending as logical as it is surprising. A grand example of Gilbert’s ceaselessly inventive attempts to expand the remit of the traditional whodunit.
is unmemorable as a whodunit, it has never been excelled by its long line of progeny as a courtroom drama. Hardly a single witness testifies without some surprising development, and the mystery is admirably calculated to provide successively more revealing peeks at the passions that seethe beneath its decorous surface. A must-read for nostalgia buffs, this seminal tale of legal intrigue holds up remarkably well even for casual fans.
THE DEVIL’S OWN GAME
Hogsett, Annie Poisoned Pen (352 pp.) $15.99 paper | Oct. 15, 2019 978-1-4642-1151-5
Think winning the lottery would make your dreams come true? Think again. Since blind college professor Tom Bennington won $550 million in the MondoMegaJackpot, his life and that of his love, Allie Harper, have been, well, interesting. They’ve fought off killers and launched a detective agency with the ill-advised name of T&A (Murder to the Metal, 2018, etc.), made new friends, hired bodyguards, and become patrons of the arts. At a Touch Tour for the blind, they encounter Kip Wade, who’s both blind and nasty. When he’s shot dead by a sniper near the museum, an uncomfortable question arises: Did the killer think he was Tom? Olivia Wood, the Cleveland Homicide officer who catches the case, soon becomes a friend who’s willing to work with them and their bodyguard, retired cop Otis Johnson. Security footage leads them to a woman pretending to be blind, who’d handed Allie a note before the shooting, and to Tito Ricci, who’d failed to steal Tom’s millions and is now out for revenge. Both these suspects will die; when Tito is found brutally murdered, the police assume the sniper has struck again. The killer announces that he wants money, but he’s in no hurry to collect, and the suspense drives Allie to bouts of hysteria. Her attempt at therapy is to take on a new case, and one arrives on cue. The unpleasantly clueless woman who formerly owned their lakeside mansion claims that her husband has faked his death and is planning to kill her to take over her trust fund. No sooner has T&A gone into action than the sniper makes a move, and a dangerous cat-and-mouse game ensues. Overlapping plots, sometimes humorous, often confusing, undermine a promising mystery full of interesting characters.
THE BELLAMY TRIAL
Hart, Frances Noyes Penzler Publishers (264 pp.) $15.95 paper | Nov. 5, 2019 978-1-61316-144-9 A pair of Long Island society types stand trial for upper-crust murder in this distinguished reprint first published in 1927. Hank Phillippi Ryan, whose introduction pronounces this one of the very first legal thrillers, notes that Hart (1890-1943) drew freely on accounts of the 1922 Hall-Mills murder, the most notorious of her day. But the trial of Stephen Bellamy and Susan Ives for the fatal stabbing of Bellamy’s wife would have been sensational on its own. Mimi Dawson had been romantically involved with both self-made stockbroker Patrick Ives and equally eligible Elliot Farwell, and Pat had eloped with Sue Thorne, Elliot’s former girlfriend whose wealthy father disinherited her in disgust, only a few days before Mimi married Stephen. The combustible mixture of once and future lovers, linking Pat and Mimi once more despite their marriages to others, boils over when Mimi is found stabbed to death in the gardener’s cottage on the grounds of Orchards, the old Thorne estate. The evidence, which places both the accused at the scene around the time of the murder, suggests that Sue Ives stabbed her rival to death with the active encouragement of the victim’s husband. But the eight days of the trial bring out an abundance of new evidence, partly at the hands of wily prosecutor Daniel Farr, partly through the dogged research and cross-examination of defense counsel Dudley Lambert, an old family friend of the Thornes who at first seems utterly overmatched. The pace is stately, the oratory ceremonious, and the climax unnecessarily self-serious. But if the tale |
kirkus.com
|
mystery
|
1 september 2019
|
45
SINS OF THE FATHERS
that it might be in her best interest to go down to Devonshire and help the Edgerton family find out what happened to the diamond their late grandfather kept in his safe before his death. Not only could she benefit from some time in the country, he argues, but her divorce from Michael Black might proceed more smoothly if the court had less reason to believe the suggestion of a recent anonymous correspondent that her suit was prompted by her own interest in Tom rather than by her husband’s mistress’s impending delivery of Michael’s child. The Edgertons, effusive to the point of mania, clasp Fran to their collective bosom, lending her evening attire so that she can be properly clad for their sumptuous family dinners at Sunnyside House, decking her out as Juliet to attend a fancy dress ball at a neighboring estate, answering her extensive inquiries about their grandfather’s last day, and chauffeuring her about the countryside to interview neighbors about how an elderly invalid might have pushed his own wheelchair over a cliff into the sea. In the end, the Edgertons seem less interested in finding out how their grandfather died, or even where the diamond has got to, than in finding a way to integrate Fran into their family. Nevertheless, she persists, to the delight of readers who want more than just a cozy. The delightful interplay between sleuth and suspects makes this an all-around winner.
Jance, J.A. Morrow/HarperCollins (384 pp.) $26.99 | Sep. 24, 2019 978-0-06-285343-1 The title of J.P. Beaumont’s new case, which could equally well have introduced any number of his previous 23 (Proof of Life, 2017, etc.), is more pointed than the Seattle cop–turned–private eye can possibly know. Alan Dale, the former carpenter for the traveling crew of singer Jasmine Day, who became Jasmine’s romantic partner 30 years ago and stayed with her until she died of Hepatitis C, shows up on Beaumont’s doorstep with a newborn baby and an urgent request. Naomi Dale, Alan and Jasmine’s troubled daughter, went AWOL from a maternity ward shortly after giving birth to Athena Dale, leaving her methadone-addicted baby behind, and disappeared. The 6-week-old has been weaned off the drug, and Alan’s doing his best to make a home for her. But he’d feel a lot better if Beaumont found Naomi. No sooner has Beaumont started his search than he discovers, or rather fails to discover, another person who’s even more comprehensively missing: Petey Mayfield, Naomi’s boyfriend and Athena’s father, who abandoned his pregnant wife months ago. Although Petey’s led the life of a will-o’-the-wisp, Beaumont suspects that his disappearance has darker overtones connected to the estate of his late grandmother, Agnes Mayfield, whose quitclaim to a parcel of land crucial to the plans of a West Seattle developer left her grandson out in the cold when she died. Agnes’ daughter, Lenora Harrison, who inherited the estate instead of her nephew, puts on such airs with Beaumont that he takes particular pleasure in the prospect of tying her to the two disappearances. And he really needs that pleasure, because mounting evidence suggests that his own one-night stand with Jasmine 29 years ago may well have made him Naomi’s father and Athena’s grandfather. It’s lucky that Beaumont’s second wife left him well off, because his pecunia ex machina comes in very handy in setting this quest to rights. A bighearted search among family skeletons whose main surprise is how easy it all is.
THE DEAD DON’T WAIT
Jecks, Michael Creme de la Crime (256 pp.) $28.99 | Nov. 1, 2019 978-1-78029-120-8
A cowardly assassin’s lust keeps him in constant trouble. April 1555. While the Catholic Mary sits on the English throne, former cutpurse Jack Blackjack (A Missed Murder, 2018, etc.) is working for John Blount and his friends, who plot to make Elizabeth queen. Although he’s a paid assassin with a nice little house and a servant, Jack spends most of his time dallying with wenches in taverns. Forced into making a small wager by trickster moneylenders, Jack soon sees the amount he owes rise and the threats escalate. He’s distracted by the lovely Cat, whom he meets in a tavern. When he gets her home, her accomplice, Henry, appears and threatens him, but he disarms the pair by telling them that their act will not fool most people. Jack is almost pleased when Coroner Sir Richard of Bath arrives and accuses him of murdering the priest Father Peter in a small village outside London. The priest had a wife and children from the period when King Henry’s religion ruled, but once Mary ascended the throne, the priests were given a choice of renouncing their wives or being expelled from the church. Jack accompanies Sir Richard to the village, where Jack’s old enemy Master Atwood had accused him of the murder, in order to examine the body and find the real killer. By now, the body’s been moved and evidence destroyed by the priest’s widow, who’d followed her husband to his new posting desperate for his
THE MISSING DIAMOND MURDER
Janes, Diane Severn House (208 pp.) $28.99 | Nov. 1, 2019 978-0-7278-8954-6
A female detective helps find the family jewel. Thanks to a generous gift from her aunt, Frances Black (The Poisoned Chalice Murder, 2018, etc.) doesn’t need to earn her living as an investigator. But her partner, Tom Dod, suggests 46
|
1 september 2019
|
fiction
|
kirkus.com
|
A sardonic shamus helps a lady in distress clear the name of her shady boyfriend. boxing the octopus
A NOËL KILLING
help. His refusal forced her to work in the local tavern and share the tavern-keeper’s bed. Father Peter is described alternately as a wonderful man and a priest who took advantage of women. Sir Richard, who admits he’s the priest’s brother, is sure he was an honorable man. Jack is no great thinker, but native cunning and the fear of death move him to investigate the murder for his own sake. The improbably and delightfully humorous protagonist moves the story to a surprising conclusion.
Longworth, M.L. Penguin (304 pp.) $16.00 paper | Nov. 12, 2019 978-0-14-313406-0 A community carol sing turns deadly. Christmas season is a trying time for examining magistrate Antoine Verlaque (The Secrets of the Bastide Blanche, 2018, etc.). Booths crowd the town square of Aix, blocking access to his favorite cafes, and when he watches his friends celebrate, it brings back sad memories of his own neglectful parents. But this year, his wife, Marine Bonnet, on leave from her job teaching law to write a book, seems unusually eager to join the community caroling at the Anglo-Protestant Church of Aix, so he reluctantly agrees to accompany her. And it’s a good thing he does, since right before the service, American expat Cole Hainsby eats a plate of food provided by vendors from Aix’s sister cities across Europe, Africa, and North America—and dies. Verlaque quickly determines that Hainsby was poisoned. The list of suspects is extensive. Hainsby was a shady operator who may be in debt to even shadier Corsicans from Marseille. His wife, Debra, is exasperated by his financial failures and perhaps a little too cozy with her boss, Alain Sorba, who runs an expensive private school for students who don’t quite fit into Aix’s excellent public schools. Verlaque must also ponder whether the couple from Perugia who made the eggplant Parmesan or the Philadelphia siblings who whipped up the cheesesteaks may have had some unknown reason to do away with the entrepreneur. But the knotty problem doesn’t prevent Verlaque from enjoying his favorite eating places and even discovering an excellent new addition to Aix’s dining scene. A typical Longworth cassoulet of good food, fine wine, and murder.
GI CONFIDENTIAL
Limón, Martin Soho Crime (384 pp.) $26.95 | Oct. 15, 2019 978-1-64129-038-8
In 1970s South Korea, a pair of righteous U.S. military cops team up with a crusading reporter to bust a prostitution ring and solve a string of bank robberies. A trio of daring American soldiers is targeting South Korean banks. The aptly nicknamed Sgt. Strange gets two-fisted Criminal Investigation Division agents Ernie Bascom and George Sueño (Line, 2018, etc.) interested in the case, which the Army’s higher-ups seem to want to sweep under the rug. In short order, they learn that the two assigned agents, a pair of brown-nosers named Burrows and Slabem, are engaged in a coverup to keep suspicion from falling on the Americans. This raises the righteous ire of Sueño, who narrates in a punchy first person. When the next robbery leaves a teller dead, Bascom and Sueño take over the investigation. Details of the robberies appear in the local Overseas Observer, amping up the pressure to solve the case. So before they do anything else, Bascom and Sueño decide to look for Katie Byrd Worthington, the dogged reporter who broke the story. She eludes them for a while, but they finally pin her down at the Dragon Goddess Tea House. Fearing arrest and deportation, she displays an incriminating picture of the duo as protection. Once they gain her trust, she tells them about a prostitution ring exploiting South Korean girls and run by a powerful American general. Even as they agree to help her interrogate him, Sueño wonders if he’ll be able to marry Yong In-Ja, the Korean “business girl” with whom he has fallen in love. Sueño and Bascom’s lively 14th investigation is long on action, gritty dialogue, and period authenticity.
BOXING THE OCTOPUS
Maleeny, Tim Poisoned Pen (368 pp.) $26.99 | Oct. 22, 2019 978-1-4642-1139-3
A sardonic shamus helps a lady in distress clear the name of her shady boyfriend. Hank Ryan is waiting—along with $5 million—in an armored truck at Pier 39 for Lou, his partner in crime, when Lou appears behind the wheel of a UPS truck and rams Hank into San Francisco Bay. Police find the vehicle in the bay but not Hank or the cash. Friendly cop Vincent Mango tips off private detective Cape Weathers (Greasing the Piñata, 2008, etc.) that Hank’s girlfriend, Vera Young, insists he’s innocent of stealing the money. Convinced of her sincerity though not uncritically accepting her claim, Cape agrees to help her. Unbeknownst to |
kirkus.com
|
mystery
|
1 september 2019
|
47
Cape, Sergey, a creepy ice pick–wielding Russian, and Eva, his lollipop-loving kid sister, are waiting not so patiently outside one of Lou’s hideouts as Lou, alive and well, plots with his creepy associate Cragg. As these subplots unfold, Cape follows a suspicious character he dubs the Flannel Man, whom he spots accepting a wad of cash at a doughnut stand near the pier. Fortunately, Cape has an invaluable sidekick in Sally, an assassin trained in the martial arts by a triad in Hong Kong. Also in the mix: a murderous doctor, introduced in the murky prologue, who pops up again as the plot thickens; Anastasia, Sergey’s domineering older sister; and Oscar, an 800-pound octopus. The doctor turns out to be a mad scientist of the first order. Don’t even ask about the octopus. Maleeny moves his colorful cast around with giddy panache. His detective’s fourth caper is a Hiaasen-esque delight.
when the local police identify a passing tramp as her killer, a conclusion so ludicrous that Dandy and her family, joined by her fellow sleuth Alec Osborne, return to Applecross seeking the truth of a complex case steeped in folklore and family secrets. A sophisticated, elegantly written, intensely powerful mystery, the best of an excellent series.
CUTTING EDGE
Ed. by Oates, Joyce Carol Akashic (288 pp.) $15.95 paper | Nov. 5, 2019 978-1-61775-762-4 “Is there a distinctive female noir?” asks Oates (The Pursuit, 2019, etc.) in her introduction. This collection may not settle that question, but it goes a long way toward supplying candidates for an emerging canon. There are 15 stories here, all but one of them new, and half a dozen new poems. From Aimee Bender’s enigmatic “Firetown,” in which a female private eye searches for a missing husband and cat on behalf of a client whose motives are even more mysterious than the disappearance, to Cassandra Khaw’s fablelike “Mothers, We Dream,” in which the man who’s miraculously survived a shipwreck finds himself hemmed in by both his female interrogator and his female associates, these stories show empowered women either running roughshod over men or ignoring them entirely. Even the heroines of Livia Llewellyn’s “One of These Nights,” S.J. Rozan’s “A History of the World in Five Objects,” S.A. Solomon’s “Impala,” and Sheila Kohler’s “Miss Martin,” all victims of abusive men, find unexpected ways to transform their victimhood into violent agency. Lisa Lim’s heavily illustrated “The Hunger” dramatizes a savage mode of female mourning; Edwidge Danticat’s “Please Translate,” first published in 2014, collects 41 frantic phone messages from a woman to the husband who’s run off with their son; Margaret Atwood’s six poems include meditations on female werewolves and the maternal side of the Sirens; Oates’ own “Assassin” follows a woman who methodically hatches and executes a plan to decapitate the prime minister. The women here are equally comfortable—that is, equally disturbing—when they’re cast as reluctant detectives, as in Steph Cha’s “Thief,” witnesses to possible crimes, as in Elizabeth McCracken’s “An Early Specimen,” accused murderers, as in Valerie Martin’s “Il Grifone,” or potential healers, as in Lucy Taylor’s “Too Many Lunatics” and Jennifer Morales’ “The Boy Without a Bike.” The punchline of the one story with a male lead, Bernice L. McFadden’s “OBF, Inc.,” entirely justifies its outlier status. Not every story will be to every taste, but the average is high enough to satisfy readers of all genders.
A STEP SO GRAVE
McPherson, Catriona Quercus (336 pp.) $26.99 | Nov. 5, 2019 978-1-473-68235-1
An upper-crust detective tackles a case that deeply affects her own family. It’s February 1935, and Dandy Gilver (Dandy Gilver and a Spot of Toil and Trouble, 2017, etc.), her husband, Hugh, and their two sons, Donald and Teddy, have come to the remote Scottish estate of Applecross to meet the family of Donald’s intended, Mallory Dunnoch. Mallory’s mother, Lavinia, Lady Dunnoch, Viscountess Ross, is known as Lady Love. And it does indeed seem that she’s loved by all, including Donald, who clearly has a crush on her. At 30, Mallory, Lavinia’s elder daughter, is older than Donald, but Dandy comes to admire her as she gets to know her better. Lavinia’s husband, Lord Ross, has used a wheelchair ever since he was wounded during the war saving the life of the estate gardener’s son. His nurse and old pal, Dickie Tibball, is the father of Martin, who’s married to the Rosses’ younger daughter, Cherry, a partner just as devoted as Martin to managing the estate. The party assembled for Lavinia’s birthday also includes Dickie’s wife, Biddy, and Capt. David Spencer, another man in Lavinia’s thrall. Despite years of living in Scotland, Dandy’s still taken aback by local mores and frowns on Lavinia’s horticulturally rooted relationship with her gardener, Samuel McReadie, which is fueled by their mutual passion for Applecross’s stunning gardens. Although Dandy pooh-poohs several mysterious portents of danger, she agrees to wear a talisman to ward off evil. When Lavinia announces that she’s divorcing her husband and vanishes, taking her clothes and other personal property, Hugh refuses to countenance Donald’s marriage and insists that his family leave the estate. No sooner have they arrived back home, however, than they’re greeted by a police inspector who announces that the unseasonable snow has melted to reveal Lavinia’s corpse in her beloved garden. The inspector is furious 48
|
1 september 2019
|
fiction
|
kirkus.com
|
A heist becomes more complicated than Victorian England’s greatest sleuth could have predicted. the art of theft
THE BIG BOOK OF REEL MURDERS Stories That Inspired Great Crime Films
A CHRISTMAS GATHERING
Perry, Anne Ballantine (208 pp.) $20.00 | Nov. 5, 2019 978-0-525-62101-0
Ed. by Penzler, Otto Vintage Crime/Black Lizard (1,200 pp.) $28.95 paper | Nov. 1, 2019 978-0-525-56388-4
Back from their adventures in Jerusalem (A Christmas Message, 2016), Lord Victor Narraway and his wife, Lady Vespasia, trudge dutifully to an obligatory holiday party in an English country house whose promised tedium is shattered by a violent attack. On the face of it, the four couples Max Cavendish and his wife, Lady Amelia, have invited for Christmas have nothing in common. Narraway, of course, is former head of Special Branch, an intelligence service with which Vespasia has also been repeatedly involved. Ex–military man Rafe Allenby is an explorer Vespasia’s encountered on several foreign excursions that his wife, Rosalind, decided to skip. Dorian Brent and his wife, Georgiana, are moneyed do-nothings. Art restorer James Watson-Watt and his wife, Iris, are so much younger than the others that they seem to have wandered over from a different party. When Iris is attacked and left for dead sometime past midnight at the orangery of Cavendish Hall, a pile Lady Amelia inherited from her branch of the family, the general reactions are bewilderment and shock. But not Narraway’s. He’s come to the gathering specifically to collect some top-secret information about German submarines from Iris, who’s working for Special Branch. Already haunted by his failure to protect another such courier from getting murdered at a house party in Normandy over 20 years ago, he can’t help feeling that history is repeating itself, casting him once more as its weakest link. As James hovers over his unconscious wife’s bedside and the assembled worthies soldier on without either notifying the police or disbanding (“For such an unfortunate event, one does not abandon one’s friends,” observes Vespasia), only one thing is certain: The mystery will be solved and the gathering uplifted just in time for Christmas. A hyperextended short story bulked up with flashbacks, petty social slights, and holiday cheer.
Indefatigable editor Penzler’s latest 61-scoop sundae is a treasure trove of short stories that were filmed, though most readers won’t care to sample more than a fraction of its contents. Acknowledging that “most of the greatest mystery crime films were adapted from novels or were original screenplays,” Penzler (The Big Book of Female Detectives, 2018, etc.) introduces seven sections containing suspense stories, crime comedies, thrillers, horror stories, stories about criminals, fatal romances, and detective stories. A significant fraction of the volume’s 1,200 pages are devoted to the editor’s story-by-story introductions, but these short essays, which are filled with anecdotes, breezy evaluations, information about the production histories of the movies based on these stories, and the occasional spoiler, are often more interesting than the stories they introduce. As for the selections themselves, some (Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Murders in the Rue Morgue,” Arthur Conan Doyle’s “The Five Orange Pips,” G.K. Chesterton’s “The Blue Cross,” Richard Connell’s “The Most Dangerous Game”) are anthology chestnuts fans will already know. Most of these, along with Doyle’s “The Adventure of the Six Napoleons” and Dashiell Hammett’s “The House in Turk Street,” are better than any of the film versions that provide the hook for their inclusion. Other stories changed beyond recognition in filming—Edgar Wallace’s “The Death Watch” and “The Ghost of John Holling,” Sapper’s “Thirteen Lead Soldiers,” Hammett’s “On the Make,” Barry Perowne’s “The Blind Spot,” Stuart Palmer’s “The Riddle of the Dangling Pearl,” Palmer and Craig Rice’s “Once Upon a Train,” Fredric Brown’s “Madman’s Holiday,” Ian Fleming’s “From A View to a Kill”—and will provide mostly bewilderment from readers familiar with their film versions. Only a handful—E.W. Hornung’s “Gentlemen and Players,” Agatha Christie’s “The Witness for the Prosecution,” W. Somerset Maugham’s “The Letter” and “The Traitor,” Daphne du Maurier’s “Don’t Look Now,” Irwin Shaw’s “Tip on a Dead Jockey,” and several of the eight noir tales by Cornell Woolrich, a welcome minianthology within this anthology—are memorable stories made into equally memorable films. The happiest discoveries for most readers will be the mostly forgotten stories that provided the basis for Broken Blossoms, Brother Orchid, Smart Blonde, The Killer Is Loose, Possessed, Gun Crazy, The Wild One, On the Waterfront, Bad Day at Black Rock, and (even before Robert Bloch’s novel) Psycho. Who knew? The ideal audience: cinephiles who’ve never read any of these stories before. But everyone will find something to treasure.
THE ART OF THEFT
Thomas, Sherry Berkley (304 pp.) $16.00 paper | Oct. 15, 2019 978-0-451-49247-0 In the new cat-and-mouse Charlotte “Sherlock” Holmes novel, a heist becomes more complicated than Victorian England’s greatest sleuth could have predicted. An unexpected visitor from the British Raj leads to a new assignment for lady detective Charlotte Holmes, one that reveals layers of mystery at each step. |
kirkus.com
|
mystery
|
1 september 2019
|
49
science fiction and fantasy
Charlotte and her sister, Olivia, plunge into the investigation with Mrs. Watson, Lord Ingram, and a few characters who have appeared fleetingly in the series and another from two of Thomas’ other novels. Picking up a few months after Hollow of Fear (2018), this latest adventure pits Holmes and her intrepid band against an unknown blackmailer’s demands, which lead them to a French chateau. On arriving there for reconnaissance, however, the group starts to piece together a far broader and more dangerous game at work. Grafting a classic house-party mystery onto a plot of international intrigue and criminal gangs, Thomas has Holmes weave together those threads while still mulling over the long-term fate of her smoldering relationship with her almost-divorced friend, Ingram. Romance fans will have to be satisfied with a few touches and some passages of internal longing, a bit of a letdown after the events of the previous novel. But the restraint fits the personalities of both main characters, and the extra time given to Mrs. Watson’s lost Indian love and Olivia’s budding one decentralizes Holmes’ love plot in interesting ways. Thoughtful yet brief remarks critique patriarchy, heteronormativity, and colonialism, fitting organically into an absorbing whodunwhat arc. An exciting addition to the mystery series; Holmes meets Oceans 11 meets A Vindication of the Rights of Woman.
MAGEBANE
Aryan, Stephen Orbit (528 pp.) $16.99 paper | Aug. 6, 2019 978-0-316-55485-5 Gods, mages, warriors, and sneaky politicians battle for the lives of mortals and the survival of magical knowledge in the final installment in the Age of Dread trilogy. In previous volumes (Mageborn, 2017; Magefall, 2018), the assassin goddess Akosh stoked prejudice against those born with the ability to do magic, harnessing hatred and fear to gain new worshippers and increase her power. But her work has attracted a dangerous ally–turned–treacherous competitor, the older and far more dangerous Kai, a god who feasts on pestilence. Kai seeks to dominate on two fronts. In Zecorria, the ever suspicious Regent Choilan, who previously banned all magic, now plans to strengthen his political position by creating his own army of mages. Unfortunately, these young magic-wielding guards are ignorant of the full use of their powers, forcing Choilan to rely on the unsavory assistance of the mage Marran, who may have more magical skill but is also a secret devotee of Kai. Kai has also spread a particularly vicious plague in Perizzi, capital of Yerskania. Tammy, leader of the Guardians (an elite Yerskanian law enforcement agency), works to contain the plague even as former magic students Wren and Tianne lead a small group into the isolation zone in an attempt to cure it. Meanwhile, a group of strong mages aided by the warrior god Vargas and Danoph, who previously believed himself to be a human student mage but is actually the most recent incarnation of the Weaver, a god who sees into the past and all possible futures, must defeat Kai and undo the damage he and Akosh have caused. While drawing these storylines to an acceptably satisfactory conclusion, Aryan leaves matters openended enough to suggest that he still has tales to tell about these people and their world. A reasonably, if not spectacularly, interesting exploration of the poisonous consequences of prejudice and the wider effects of small choices.
LETHAL PURSUIT
Thomas, Will Minotaur (320 pp.) $27.99 | Nov. 12, 2019 978-1-250-17040-8
It should be a simple and prestigious job for two London private enquiry agents: At the prime minister’s request, they are to transport a satchel to a courier waiting in Calais. But when the agents are Caleb Barker and Thomas Llewelyn, it’s no surprise that mayhem, sabotage, and even murder will ensue. Readers who have followed this lively, intelligent series (Blood is Blood, 2018, etc.) know that nothing is straightforward where the gruff Barker is concerned. And now that young Llewelyn has been made a partner, he too can question the motives behind the request. After all, it’s 1892, and spies and political plots are rife across Europe. And if the contents of the satchel are indeed priceless religious manuscripts meant for the Vatican, the agents know others will want them, too. Using everything from ties to the Knights Templar to a savvy gang of street urchins, the duo will have to outguess and outmaneuver every other player. The author is so talented that the novel works both as an enjoyable romp and as a comment on Victorian issues both societal and political. He weaves in history—London especially comes alive—without it seeming like clumps of a school lesson and gives just enough background so that new readers aren’t lost in arcane references to past events. Even the most observant reader will be surprised at the final twists and turns and hope for another case soon. 50
|
1 september 2019
|
fiction
|
kirkus.com
|
A fascinating exploration of how power corrupts and drives a person toward self-betrayal. queen of the conquered
QUEEN OF THE CONQUERED
LAUGHTER AT THE ACADEMY
McGuire, Seanan Subterranean Press (376 pp.) $40.00 | Oct. 31, 2019 978-1-59606-928-2
Callender, Kacen Orbit (480 pp.) $15.99 paper | Nov. 12, 2019 978-0-316-45493-3 In a grimly plausible political fantasy– turned–murder mystery, a young woman faces the bloody consequences of her choices. Centuries ago, the pale-skinned Fjern conquered a group of Caribbean-like islands and enslaved its dark-skinned inhabitants. The islander Sigourney Rose was the sole survivor of the slaughter of her family by Fjern conspirators resentful that her mother, Mirjam, a freed slave married to a wealthy landowner, was invited to join the king’s inner circle of advisers. Resolved to revenge herself and to seize the regency, Sigourney poisons her cousin for his political position and uses her “kraft,” magical psychic abilities, to manipulate the failing mind of an orchestrator of the conspiracy into making a match between her and the woman’s son so that she will be of sufficient consequence for the regent to choose her as his successor. But once Sigourney reaches the royal island of Hans Lollik Helle, where the king will make his choice, nothing is as it seems. Someone is murdering the other members of the kongelig, the Fjern ruling nobility, and the king may be nothing more than a ghost or illusion. Will Sigourney survive long enough to achieve her goals? Where other authors might make a woman in Sigourney’s position a freedom fighter, Callender’s adult debut depicts a self-involved woman bent on personal power, with no clear idea of what to do with it beyond gain revenge. For someone who can read minds, Sigourney doesn’t really understand people, or even herself, very well. She desperately wants the respect of the other Fjern even though she knows full well that their violent prejudice against her skin tone means she will never get it. She only ever expresses the most pinched and selfish forms of love yet wants the islanders to love her and understand that she’s acting for their own good even though she actually does nothing for them, issuing orders to her slaves while ignoring them as people, somewhat reluctantly abusing and executing them, and associating with their oppressors. She feels a certain amount of guilt for her actions but not enough to stop her from acting. And despite her resentment at never being treated like an intelligent equal, she continually underestimates her fellow islanders, to her cost. Despite their grotesqueness and near absurdity, her hypocrisy and blind spots are totally realistic. A fascinating exploration of how power corrupts and drives a person toward self-betrayal.
The author, who uses both the names McGuire (Middlegame, 2019) and Mira Grant, has written fantasy, sf, and horror novels. Her first collection of stories explores the same rich, multigenre territory. In these tales, scientists carry their brilliant innovations too far, fallen warriors decide their afterlife on a football field, sentient plants threaten the British Empire, dolls turn out to have more agency than one might wish them to, and we learn the real reason why American women must visit the bathroom in pairs. Some tales recall the work of Isaac Asimov; he used to write nice, tight stories of this kind, exploring all the nuances of an interesting idea to their fullest extent, heading to the seemingly inevitable resolution, and stopping. But Asimov’s characters were often wooden, puppets in the service of his speculation; in contrast, McGuire’s fully dimensional people are at least as, and often more than, important as the idea. She focuses on those who inhabit the fringes: the outcast, the bullied, the strange, the gifted, the lonely, and the lost. Many of these characters are seeking a quite understandable justice. Others have more obscure and dangerous goals. Her characters triumph, more often than not, sometimes when it might be better for the world or themselves if they didn’t. In McGuire’s multiverse, myth and a good story have the power to shape personality, destiny, and the entire world. Many of the tales collected here were requested for themed anthologies, and that circumstance plus McGuire’s own preoccupations mean that this book contains a certain amount of repetition as well as several riffs on fictional properties that many other authors have previously responded to, including Oz, Peter Pan (twice), Pinocchio, and the Lovecraft mythos. But if those properties and McGuire’s themes seem familiar, her explorations into them are exceptionally well crafted and imaginative. Full of chills, thrills, dark laughter, karmic justice, and the occasional spot of hope.
FORTUNA
Merbeth, Kristyn Orbit (560 pp.) $15.99 paper | Nov. 5, 2019 978-0-316-45399-8 Merbeth’s (Raid, 2017, etc.) latest— the first installment of an SF adventure trilogy—follows a family of smugglers as they unknowingly become entangled in a grand-scale conspiracy that could ignite an interstellar war and kill millions.
|
kirkus.com
|
science fiction & fantasy
|
1 september 2019
|
51
It’s been three years since Scorpia Kaiser’s older brother, Corvus, left the family business to enlist and fight in a bloody conflict on his war-torn home planet of Titan. But, with Corvus’ service officially ended, Scorpia—at the behest of her mother, the Kaiser matriarch—is piloting the family ship, Fortuna, to Titan to reunite her brother with the family. Picking up Corvus wasn’t the only mission, however. Her mother is completing a deal with government officials involving highly illegal alien biological weapons that could potentially end the war. As Corvus, Scorpia, and their siblings wait for their mother to return to the ship, they discover that a cataclysm is sweeping the planet, wiping out entire human populations. Forced to leave their mother behind, the siblings barely escape with their lives. Once safely in space, they realize that their mother has been used to wipe out the population of an entire planet—and that this may just be the beginning of a much larger, and deadlier, conflict. While the storyline is a bit predictable, the narrative is powered by a cast of deeply developed characters. Scorpia, in particular, is impressively multidimensional—a barely functioning alcoholic who has major issues involving her demanding mother. The stoic point of view of Corvus—who has witnessed horrors during the war—complements Scorpia’s more demonstrative narrative and gives the story a nice tonal balance. The nonstop action and varying levels of tension make this an unarguable page-turner, and the ending, while satisfying, is a perfect jumping-off point to another much larger adventure to come. A wild SF ride—alcohol and family dysfunction not included.
events, sapping the plot of momentum. The book ends up feeling mostly like a setup for a supernatural mystery Gabe and Remi look set to tackle in the next volume of this planned series. A meandering plot weakens what could have been a fun yarn about heaven-sent ghost hunters.
SALVAGED
Roux, Madeleine Ace/Berkley (368 pp.) $15.00 paper | Oct. 15, 2019 978-0-451-49183-1 Put Charlie Huston’s The Mystic Art of Erasing All Kinds of Death, Robert Heinlein’s The Puppet Masters, and the original Alien movie in a blender, water the mix down, and you’ll have this sci-fi thriller. After her personal and professional lives melt down, talented biochemist Rosalyn Devar leaves Earth for a less-thanglamorous career as a salvager; essentially a janitor cleaning up bodies after traumatic incidents. Her drinking and erratic behavior almost get her fired, but she manages to wangle one last assignment: cleaning up the research ship Brigantine, the latest vessel to mysteriously experience the deaths of all its crew. Or so she thinks until she gets there and discovers that most of the crew is alive but infected by Foxfire, a sentient and weirdly maternal blue fungus that wants Rosalyn to join its hive mind and help “her” take over the rest of humanity. Rosalyn must fight off the ship’s brutal and crazed security detail, Piero, and biochemist, Rayan, both of whom have succumbed to Foxfire, while wondering if she can trust the engineer, Misato, and the charming captain, Edison, who are desperately attempting to resist Foxfire’s influence. Can Rosalyn avoid becoming invaded, get help without endangering anyone else, and find the link between Foxfire and a potential multicorporation conspiracy that might include her own family’s company? The answers aren’t much in doubt, and the conspiracy proves to be not too terribly complicated; either the author (Tomb of Ancients, 2019) trusts readers to fill in the details or just couldn’t be bothered to take on the job herself. And it’s odd that Rosalyn, a former biochemist with a specialty in xenobiology, offers no real scientific speculations about Foxfire, leaving that to other characters; she does eventually come up with a way of combating the thing, but there’s no explanation of how she developed it, suggesting that the author didn’t do much mushroom research of her own, either. Rosalyn is much more interesting as a troubled janitor than she is as a thriller heroine, and the tenuous attraction between her and Edison seems contrived. A story about her cleanup work could’ve been interesting, but the book heads toward the formulaic territory of alien threats and corrupt corporate shenanigans far too quickly. Moderately entertaining at best.
LIFE AND LIMB
Roberson, Jennifer Daw Books (352 pp.) $26.00 | Nov. 5, 2019 978-0-7564-1539-6 Two sort-of angels reluctantly join the fight against the forces of hell. Gabriel and Remi were raised separately with the same purpose in mind. Their Grandaddy, who wasn’t really their grandfather by blood, promised them both they’d grow to become soldiers with “the fate of the world” on their shoulders. Still, when grown-up biker Gabe meets Remi for the first time and hears he’s going to partner up with a cowboy, he’s skeptical. And when Grandaddy tells the two of them they were “born of heavenly matter” and they’ve got to start killing demons disguised as werewolves, black dogs, and other mythical creatures, he’s downright incredulous. All while learning to trust a man he doesn’t know—a man who likes country music. To be fair, it is a lot to take on board, but Gabe takes a tediously long time to accept his new destiny. Gabe is a likable enough protagonist, and the world Roberson (SwordBound, 2013, etc.) has created is rich with colorful characters and exciting beasties. But Gabe and his partner have no clear goal of their own aside from the demon-killing charge they’ve reluctantly accepted, so they spend all their time reacting to 52
|
1 september 2019
|
fiction
|
kirkus.com
|
Two go-getters find their career and relationship goals at odds in a humorous and heartfelt take on dating. not the girl you marry
r om a n c e
NOT THE GIRL YOU MARRY
Christopher, Andie J. Berkley (336 pp.) $15.00 paper | Nov. 12, 2019 978-1-9848-0268-2
LONDON’S LATE NIGHT SCANDAL
A genderbent How To Lose a Guy in Ten Days for the millennial set. Sparks fly when struggling Chicago professionals Jack and Hannah meet in a Wicker Park speak-easy. He’s a goodlooking Catholic boy who makes howto videos for a digital media company but longs for a chance to do serious journalism. She’s a no-nonsense, successful event planner whose dating history has soured her on finding true love. Jack’s editor offers him a political assignment in return for a story on how to lose a girl at the same time that Hannah wants her boss to think she’s in relationship so she’ll be allowed to branch out to planning weddings. Neither Hannah nor Jack knows the other’s motivation; this has Hannah deftly thwarting Jack’s attempts to be a terrible boyfriend, making for a very funny read. Christopher (All Hours, 2019, etc.) explores the identity issues Hannah faces as a single biracial woman in an era of hookups and dating apps: “Most guys think I’m just a sex vending machine.” Unfortunately, the poignant racial issues Hannah identifies seem to vanish when she’s with Jack, who’s white. Jack’s image as a man with “good manners and the choirboy smiles” belies a neediness and insecurity stemming from childhood family dynamics. As Jack and Hannah get to know one another in bed and out, their charade becomes harder to maintain yet lasts longer than some readers will have patience for. Two go-getters find their career and relationship goals at odds in a humorous and heartfelt take on dating.
Bryant, Annabelle Zebra/Kensington (320 pp.) $7.99 paper | Sep. 24, 2019 978-1-4201-4647-9 A scholarly woman with secrets and a wounded earl bond over their love of scientific pursuits in this historical romance with holiday flair. Lord Matthew Strathmore, Earl of Whittingham, must get down to the bottom of some rather unfounded scientific claims made recently by reclusive Lord Talbot in a well-known journal. After months of being ignored by Talbot’s estate, he’s surprised to receive a welcoming invitation. Through an oncoming storm, he makes the journey just in time to be snowed in with Talbot and his prickly granddaughter, Theodosia Leighton. Theodosia isn’t pleased at Matthew’s arrival, especially after having kept his letters a secret from her grandfather. The truth is, Theodosia has been publishing her own botanical discoveries under her grandfather’s name for quite some time, and the hypotheses Matthew has come to debate are her own. Now she’s snowbound with an earl who is too curious for his own good. Matthew suffers from chronic pain; his left leg was wounded a decade before. He’s given up hope of living the carefree life of a dashing gentleman. No dancing. No horseback riding. Instead, he’s chosen to dedicate his time to knowledge. The connection Matthew and Theodosia forge over their love of learning is adorable, though sometimes the minutiae of Theodosia’s herbalism experiments interrupt the flow of the carefully paced romance. The couple shines best when cooped up at the Leighton estate, where their shared interests continually bring them together. Once the setting breaks this boundary and suddenly changes to the bustle of London society, the snappy and frequent tête-à-têtes between the main characters falter. The holiday elements are subtle, providing more of a cozy winter wonderland feel than a twee romance that barrels like a freight train toward Christmas. Unevenly paced, but the smart characterization wins out.
WHEN THE MARQUESS WAS MINE
Linden, Caroline Avon/HarperCollins (400 pp.) $7.99 paper | Sep. 24, 2019 978-0-06-291359-3
An adventurous woman’s last-ditch attempt to save the life of a disreputable marquess leads to unforeseen complications. Georgiana Lucas is rusticating at her friend Kitty’s home when she learns that her host’s husband, Sir Charles Winston, has lost the Derbyshire residence to Robert Churchill-Gray, Marquess of Westmorland, in a game of cards. Kitty has been asked by Charles to barricade herself against the scheming marquess, lest he arrive to claim the property. Georgiana is sure that the high-and-mighty Lord Westmorland, who once passed snobbish remarks against her at a London ball, will not journey so far into the countryside to claim his prize. So when she witnesses a man being beaten by a |
kirkus.com
|
romance
|
1 september 2019
|
53
group of thugs, she rushes to his aid unthinkingly and arranges to bring him to Kitty’s home. But Georgiana is aghast when she recognizes him as the villainous Westmorland. Intent on saving a life and afraid of her fierce friend’s wrath, Georgiana claims that he is her fiance, Viscount Sterling. She hopes to knock sense into Lord Westmorland when he awakes and ensure that he returns the deed of the house to Kitty. But her plans are disrupted when it turns out that the marquess has lost his memory, and located his conscience. As Rob’s memory trickles back to him, he decides he’s found the woman of his dreams, but he must work hard and fast to ensure that his dreams become reality. Linden skillfully slides in a subtle political statement about the painful impact of patriarchal property laws in the everyday lives of women, but she alludes too hurriedly to the transAtlantic slave trade, a traumatic chapter in world history that isn’t given enough attention here to make it work. The narrative of the third installment in the Wagers of Sin series (An Earl Like You, 2018, etc.) is replete with tried-and-tested tropes but is witty and unusual enough to be interesting. Although Rob’s rather abrupt evolution strikes a few false notes, Georgiana’s change of heart consistently rings true as she exhibits a wide range of emotions. A familiar and charming story of loss, transformation, and rediscovery.
wisdom, which he comes to depend on as they work the case together. Sebastian wants Eliza, but she’s not an appropriate match since he’s not allowed to wed a commoner. London’s newest series launch is a charming read, but don’t come to it for the mystery, which feels hodgepodge and poorly motivated. Where it works is as a perfect showcase for the delightful Eliza, an anti-Cinderella who captures the prince not with her beauty but with her precious real self. A fun, touching “prince meets real girl” Victorian fairytale romance.
THE MERRY VISCOUNT
MacKenzie, Sally Zebra/Kensington (352 pp.) $7.99 paper | Sep. 24, 2019 978-1-4201-4672-1
A stagecoach crash forces a woman to seek shelter with her brother’s friend at Christmas. Caroline Anderson is a master beer maker traveling home after an unsuccessful attempt to sell barrels of her most popular ale, Widow’s Brew, to a London tavern. Caroline is 30 and has been living in Little Puddleton at the Benevolent Home for the Maintenance and Support of Spinsters, Widows, and Abandoned Women and their Unfortunate Children ever since a disastrous stint as a nursemaid at 17. After the stagecoach crashes, Caro and the other passengers—a woman and her children, a married couple, a pair of young bucks, a reverend, and a lecherous single man—seek refuge at a country house that turns out to belong to her brother’s childhood friend Nicholas St. John, Lord Oakland. Nick and his own group of motley friends are planning to spend the holidays in a drunken, debauched orgy. The disparate group are unlikely Christmas companions, but MacKenzie’s (What Ales the Earl, 2018, etc.) character work is impeccable, and the results make for a sweet, charming holiday fable. As in all snowbound romances, the real action is internal and about personal growth. Caro’s experiences and those of her friends at the Home have taught her to be wary and fearful of men; meanwhile Nick grapples with his own painful memories of the cruel uncle who raised him after his parents’ deaths. Being in close proximity forces Nick and Caro to each face their fears. They gradually learn to trust each other, first as friends and then as lovers. Although there are no actual ghosts, the echoes of A Christmas Carol are clear: Only by reckoning with the past and present can Caro and Nick have a future together. An emotionally satisfying holiday romance full of love and redemption.
THE PRINCESS PLAN
London, Julia Harlequin HQN (400 pp.) $7.99 paper | Nov. 19, 2019 978-1-335-04153-1
A retiring spinster inadvertently becomes embroiled in solving a mystery with the crown prince of Alucia, winning his trust and love—which is a problem since he’s expected to marry, but he can’t marry her. “At eight-and-twenty, Eliza was unmarried, a fact that had long baffled the judge.” The judge is The Right Honorable Justice William Tricklebank, Eliza’s father. The family is highly respectable but common. However, Eliza’s sister, Hollis, runs a ladies’ gazette, and their closest friend, Caro, is an aristocrat. Caro and Hollis routinely mingle in society events, but after a youthful indiscretion, Eliza is mostly content to live vicariously through them while helping her blind father navigate his physical and professional spaces with cheerful efficiency. Unusually, she decides to attend a masquerade ball arranged to help Prince Sebastian find an English bride. When a masked stranger cynically tries to seduce her, she’s amused, then tickled and surprised when she realizes it was the prince. After the dance, Sebastian’s personal secretary is murdered, and a note with a rumor hinting at the possible culprit is delivered to the Tricklebank family’s home. Hollis publishes the gossip, which leads to a rude visit from the prince. Eliza throws him out—a novel experience for Sebastian—but subsequent runins between the two highlight her honesty, intelligence, and 54
|
1 september 2019
|
fiction
|
kirkus.com
|
Sexy, witty, and fiercely entertaining. scandalous
SCANDALOUS
rather than gallivanting around in the field, but that changes with the newest Deep Ops case. Brigid’s boss informs her not only that her father was formerly a mob enforcer, but also that he is suspected of being back in the game and helping a young, up-and-coming Boston mobster traffic women and children. Despite being estranged from her father, Brigid is determined to prove his innocence. Unfortunately, that means she has to pretend to be engaged to her magnetically handsome bodyguard and handler, Raider Tanaka. Brigid and Raider are capable, confident, and well matched as partners in every way. Being thrown into close proximity makes it impossible for them to ignore their mutual attraction. As they go deeper into the case, they slowly learn to trust each other and their own emotions. Zanetti (Alpha’s Promise, 2019, etc.) successfully balances the romance with the escalating mystery of why a U.S. senator is mixed up with a young Irish mobster. The Deep Ops team is made up of people who have been cast off from the mainstream FBI, and each team member is showcased as they work to crack the case. Brigid and Raider’s love affair is the star of this carefully constructed and well-paced work of romantic suspense. The central romance is enhanced by a pleasingly tangled suspense plot.
Spencer, Minerva Zebra/Kensington (304 pp.) $7.99 paper | Sep. 24, 2019 978-1-4201-4720-9 When the orphaned daughter of English missionaries is swept up in a slavers’ raid on her African village, it puts her on a collision course with a formerly enslaved pirate captain who avails himself of every luxury but considers himself completely unworthy of her love. Sarah Fisher thought slavery was abominable before she landed in the cargo hold of a Dutch slave ship after refusing to abandon the African villagers she’s known her whole life. When they’re overtaken by a privateer, she prepares to fight him to let the captives go but discovers Capt. Martín Bouchard is an escaped slave himself and eager to set them free. Martín is asked by the British admiral in Freetown to bring Sarah back to England on his ship, and he’s disconcerted to find himself wildly attracted to the brave, headstrong woman who threatened him at gunpoint to save her friends. Then Sarah discovers he’s illiterate and is determined to teach him to read, the fulfillment of a lifelong dream for Martín that heightens their intimacy. The journey to England feels endless thanks to their volatile attraction, and Martín sabotages the relationship, certain he’s not good enough for her. Arriving in England, Sarah learns her uncles are wealthy bankers who embrace her immediately and encourage her to settle into a good marriage. Sarah is only interested in Martín, who clearly wants nothing to do with her, but when a deadly secret from his past threatens, Sarah takes matters into her own hands, fighting for their future with the steely determination of a pirate under siege. Spencer continues her outstanding Outcasts series with two characters from completely different backgrounds who share similar values and a sizzling passion. Along the way she explores love, freedom, friendship, and what it means to be a person of worth, especially by living on one’s own terms. Sexy, witty, and fiercely entertaining.
FALLEN
Zanetti, Rebecca Zebra/Kensington (368 pp.) $7.99 paper | Sep. 24, 2019 978-1-4201-4583-0 A hacker and a federal agent fall in love while investigating an Irish mobster and a crooked senator. After she accidentally hacks into a federal database while trying to bring down a child pornographer, Brigid Banaghan is forced by FBI agents to work for the Homeland Defense Department in order to escape imprisonment. She works on a computer in the office |
kirkus.com
|
romance
|
1 september 2019
|
55
nonfiction PROOF OF CONSPIRACY How Trump’s International Collusion Is Threatening American Democracy
These titles earned the Kirkus Star: THE COLLECTOR OF LEFTOVER SOULS by Eliane Brum; trans. by Diane Grosklaus Whitty.......................................................63
Abramson, Seth St. Martin’s (592 pp.) $29.99 | Sep. 3, 2019 978-1-250-25671-3
OPEN SEASON by Ben Crump........................................................... 66 STEALING GREEN MANGOES by Sunil Dutta................................ 68 ON THE SHOULDERS OF GIANTS by Umberto Eco; trans. by Alastair McEwen.................................................................. 68 HYMNS OF THE REPUBLIC by S.C. Gwynne....................................78 AGENTS OF INFLUENCE by Henry Hemming.................................. 80 DISTURBANCE by Philippe Lançon; trans. by Steven Rendall..........83 ANTISOCIAL by Andrew Marantz..................................................... 84 BLOOD by Allison Moorer....................................................................87 VOLUME CONTROL by David Owen................................................ 88 THE FIRST CELL by Azra Raza.......................................................... 92 THINGS WE DIDN’T TALK ABOUT WHEN I WAS A GIRL by Jeannie Vanasco..............................................................................102 THEY WILL HAVE TO DIE NOW by James Verini............................102 BOSS OF THE GRIPS by Eric K. Washington................................... 103 ONE DAY by Gene Weingarten........................................................... 103 INITIATED by Amanda Yates Garcia.................................................105 ONE DAY The Extraordinary Story of an Ordinary 24 Hours in America
Weingarten, Gene Blue Rider Press (384 pp.) $28.00 | Oct. 22, 2019 978-0-399-16666-2
56
|
1 september 2019
|
nonfiction
|
kirkus.com
One-time attorney Abramson extends the argument begun in Proof of Collusion: How Trump Betrayed America (2018) by widening the net of culprits. Donald Trump entered the field of presidential contenders without a discernible ideology save receiving money for nothing, a penchant that many actors were glad to serve. In this long, complex study, the author adds evidence concerning the principal actor, Russia, while layering on other parties: Saudi Arabia, Israel, Egypt, Bahrain, and the United Arab Emirates. Each has served Trump in various ways—Saudi Arabia, for example, by once bailing Trump out from bankruptcy—and each has been rewarded in turn, with Egypt removed from sanctions, given more military aid than it requested, and legitimated even as elected members of the Muslim Brotherhood were branded as terrorists. There are geopolitical issues surrounding this network of “Red Sea conspirators,” as Abramson dubs them: All are committed to the continued supremacy of the oil economy, all are positioned to contain Iran and Syria, and all are autocratic to one extent or another—and there’s not much Trump likes better than an autocratic leader. Russia remains the principal villain of the piece, but, as the author writes, “the Saudis and Emiratis marked…the additional slate of possibilities opened up by the Kremlin’s burgeoning interest in a political neophyte with malleable ethics.” By Abramson’s extensive account, malleability has shifted into full-blown corruption, as Trump and his associates accepted Israeli intelligence here, Russian offers of support there, and the like. The author’s deft tracing of the undeclared international shuttling back and forth between interested parties of former Trump aide Michael Flynn will make readers wonder why he’s not locked inside a maximum security prison. Abramson closes by connecting the dots in current newspaper headlines: Netanyahu wins reelection in Israel, Saudi Arabia declares war on dissidents and neighboring nations alike, Trump pledges an additional 10,000 American troops for deployment in the Middle East, a prelude to war in Iran…. A richly documented indictment of power and corruption that bears urgent discussion in the coming electoral cycle.
|
An easy-to-digest compendium of bioethical issues that provides plenty of food for thought. who says you ’re dead?
I WILL NEVER SEE THE WORLD AGAIN The Memoir of an Imprisoned Writer
WHO SAYS YOU’RE DEAD? Medical & Ethical Dilemmas for the Curious & Concerned
Appel, Jacob M. Algonquin (352 pp.) $23.95 | Oct. 8, 2019 978-1-61620-922-3
Altan, Ahmet Trans. by Congar, Yasemin Other Press (224 pp.) $15.99 paper | Oct. 1, 2019 978-1-59051-992-9
Stark, compact essays about a writer’s imprisonment in an increasingly
|
kirkus.com
y o u n g a d u lt
authoritarian Turkey. In early 2018, Altan (Like a Sword Wound, 2018, etc.), an acclaimed novelist and essayist, was sentenced to life in prison for treason based on televised comments regarding a failed 2016 coup against Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. As Philippe Sands recalls in his foreword, “[Altan] spoke with passion and courage, intelligence and humor on the writer’s place in a decent society.” This recollection aptly reflects this slim compendium of essays, produced by Altan while imprisoned. He sketches the arc of his descent into a demeaning carceral nightmare, beginning with charges of broadcasting “subliminal messages” in support of the coup. Later, this was changed to “putschism,” for which he was convicted; one judge cynically told him, “our prosecutors like using words the meanings of which they don’t know.” Altan was jailed alongside many intellectuals and military officers, and the first essays reflect their initial responses to incarceration. “In a matter of hours,” he writes, “I had travelled across five centuries to arrive at the dungeons of the Inquisition.” The author acknowledges the harrowing nature of his ordeal, and he positions himself in the tradition of imprisoned writers who respond to their plight by acknowledging its surreal qualities. “I had seen the monstrous face of reality,” he writes. “From now on I would live like a man clinging to a single branch.” While horrified by his eventual life sentence, he became determined to use the writer’s tools and identity to fight both inner despair and his government’s persecution: “I must confess that even from within a dark cell, the idea of fighting filled me with such exuberance that I was saying ‘To the end,’ with excitement.” This spirit infuses the book and lends rhythmic urgency to Altan’s voice as he reflects on the intensity of life in a cell, the plights of fellow prisoners, and how to recall loved ones without succumbing to despair. An inspiring account of the writing life and a chilling glimpse of authoritarianism’s slippery slope.
How would you act when presented with medical cases that raise serious bioethical concerns? That is the question Appel (Surren dering Appomattox, 2019, etc.) poses in a series of 79 short takes drawn from news headlines, medical literature, and his own background as a psychiatrist, professor of bioethics, and director of Ethics Education in Psychiatry at Mount Sinai. The author presents each scenario in a succinct paragraph, often using an amusing name for the fictitious doctor—Jekyll, Dolittle, Hawkeye Pierce—followed by a discussion that includes current laws, regulations, or policies, which, he is quick to point out, may be
|
nonfiction
|
1 september 2019
|
57
9/11 in perspective Photo courtesy Leah Overstreet
A few weeks ago, I was talking to my son’s babysitter, who was born in 2002. Somehow, we landed on the topic of 9/11, and it took about 10 seconds before I was hit with the realization that she wasn’t even born when the catastrophe took place. As she told me how many of her friends could not fully comprehend the magnitude of one of our country’s deadliest tragedies, my thoughts turned to two books I read recently that will stand as landmark contributions to any future conversation or study of 9/11: Garrett Graff ’s The Only Plane in the Sky: An Oral History of 9/11 (Avid Reader, Sept. 10) and Mitchell Zuckoff ’s Fall and Rise: The Story of 9/11 (Harper, April 30). While each is noteworthy on its own, taken together, they provide as well-rounded, comprehensive, and compassionate a portrait of the day as we will find for many years to come. Graff ’s book, which earned a Kirkus star, is a master class in oral biography, as the former POLITICO and Washing tonian editor collects hundreds of firsthand accounts, gathered over three years of meticulous research, that recount the before, during, and after from every possible angle—and in powerful, often terrifying detail. In addition to capturing the memories of such well-known figures as George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, and Katie Couric, the author more importantly—and rightly—puts the spotlight on the everyday heroes of 9/11, many of whom lost their lives. Furthermore, writes our reviewer, “Graff also does an admirable job of maintaining focus on the personal stories and does not drift off into political commentary—or engage in placing blame—or arrange the material so that some of his interviewees look good and some bad.” Though essential, this is not a book to be taken lightly, and the immediate, heart-wrenching nature of the material will force some readers to set it aside and come back later. Thankfully, Graff ’s concise58
|
1 september 2019
|
nonfiction
|
ly informative narrative transitions between sections, ensuring that no reader will get lost in the fray. As our reviewer points out, “readers who emerge dry-eyed from the text should check their pulses: Something is wrong with their hearts.” Mitchell Zuckoff ’s Fall and Rise, which also received a star, is equally potent, what our reviewer calls “a meticulously delineated, detailed, graphic history of the events of 9/11 in New York City, at the Pentagon, and in Pennsylvania.” The author, who deconstructed the Benghazi attacks in his previous book, 13 Hours, is up to the task in this narrative account, built from a series of stories from survivors, first responders, and others that he published in the Boston Globe in the years following 9/11. But this is no throwntogether assemblage; Zuckoff creates a seamless, pageturning text that brings readers directly into the hearts and minds of those involved. “In each of the three sections,” writes our reviewer, “Zuckoff offers a cross-section of widely representative individuals and then builds the relentlessly compelling narrative around those real-life protagonists. Despite the story’s sprawling cast, which could have sabotaged a book by a less-skilled author, Zuckoff ably handles all of the complexities….The author did not set out to write a feel-good book, and the subject matter is unquestionably depressing at times. Nonetheless, as contemporary history, Fall and Rise is a clear and moving success.” Each of these books is an unquestionable success, and for anyone seeking to refresh their memories of that horrific event—or those who, like my babysitter, were not alive to witness it—I couldn’t think of two better books to recommend. As we approach the 20th anniversary of 9/11, expect more accounts to emerge, but The Only Plane in the Sky and Fall and Rise are unlikely to fade from view. —E.L. Eric Liebetrau is the nonfiction and managing editor.
kirkus.com
|
nonexistent or vary from state to state. Then it’s up to readers to ponder what to do. Do you tell the daughter of the father who needs a kidney transplant that not only is she not a match, but that she is not his biological daughter? Do you report to your professional society that your current patient says she slept with her former therapist? What about the corporate executive who has a brain tumor but who tells the world he is in top form when a merger is in the making? Appel notes that bioethical issues have only gotten more complex as technology accelerates—e.g., what to do with the frozen embryos of divorcing couples? End-of-life issues have gotten more complicated, as well. If nothing else, they are a reminder of the importance of establishing advance directives or living wills. Without that guidance, there can be a clash between relatives valuing the sanctity of life over those arguing for the quality of life. The result may be a quadriplegic patient permanently tied to a ventilator. Throughout, Appel’s scenario approach works well, as readers are challenged to weigh the morality of decisions in our increasingly complex medical world. An easy-to-digest compendium of bioethical issues that provides plenty of food for thought.
Asphaug, Erik Custom House/Morrow (368 pp.) $28.99 | Oct. 29, 2019 978-0-06-265792-3
The sun and every body in its vicinity formed from the same primordial dust, yet every planet, moon, comet, and asteroid is different. This accomplished overview of planetary science describes the details. The first photograph from another planet was the rocky surface of Venus, transmitted from a Russian lander in 1975. More Soviet Venus probes followed, and while NASA has been responsible for most of the rest, other nations are getting into the act. The result, featuring contributions from high-tech telescopes and computer simulations, is an explosion of information about
kirkus.com
|
nonfiction
|
1 september 2019
|
y o u n g a d u lt
|
WHEN THE EARTH HAD TWO MOONS Cannibal Planets, Icy Giants, Dirty Comets, Dreadful Orbits, and the Origins of the Night Sky
59
Of interest to criminal justice reformers, community workers, and policymakers. citizen outlaw
our solar system and, more recently, solar systems throughout our galaxy. An enthusiast as well as a fine writer, Asphaug (Planetary Science/Univ. of Arizona) lays it out from the beginning. Despite their flawed theories, when the ancients observed and calculated, they proved that Earth was a sphere and measured its diameter and the distance to the moon and predicted eclipses. Geniuses from Copernicus to Einstein improved the big picture, but it was well into the 20th century before interesting details became clear. That meteor strikes formed the moon’s craters remained controversial until the Apollo landings proved it. After a nod to the Big Bang and formation of the sun, Asphaug concentrates on the history and current knowledge of the planets, familiar and unfamiliar moons, and unattached bodies in between. As an earthling, he favors earthlike features, and readers will share his pleasure as he discusses them. Rivers, lakes, oceans, and rain? Saturn’s moon, Titan, has them; Mars and perhaps Venus once enjoyed the same. Life began in water, so scientists are thrilled when they find it elsewhere. Ice doesn’t qualify, but there is evidence for liquid water oceans under the icy surface of Jupiter’s Ganymede and Europa, Saturn’s Enceladus, perhaps Mars, and even some asteroids and comets. An expert, entertaining review of what’s known about the solar system. (b/w images throughout; first printing of 50,000)
CITIZEN OUTLAW One Man’s Journey From Gangleader to Peacekeeper
Barber, Charles Ecco/HarperCollins (304 pp.) $27.99 | Oct. 15, 2019 978-0-06-269284-9
Inspirational story of a criminal whose self-reform has brought peace both to him and his city. This is the tale of William Juneboy Outlaw III, who long ago began a life of crime on the streets of New Haven, Connecticut—located, Barber (Writer-inResidence/Wesleyan Univ.) notes, “in the wealthiest state in the country” but whose declining population is marked by plenty of poverty and ethnic division. Had he been born under different circumstances, notes one of the state’s crime analysts, Outlaw might have been the CEO of a Fortune 500 company. “As it was,” that observer continues, “he took mediocre talent and created a first-class gang that ran half of the city of New Haven. What he accomplished was the equivalent of the Afghan warlords putting together scrubs and taking on the U.S. Army.” He was also something of a Robin Hood figure in the poorer sections of town, buying needed supplies and groceries for neighbors and even shoveling sidewalks in winter. Still, Outlaw lived up to his name, controlling the trade in drugs, weapons, and stolen goods. The police caught up with him after he murdered a member of a rival gang, and he was sentenced to an 85-year prison term. He might have turned into a behind-bars crime lord, pulling that long stretch in Lewisburg Federal Penitentiary, “where Whitey Bulger, Al Capone, and John Gotti had served time.” After a 60
|
1 september 2019
|
nonfiction
|
rocky start, though, Outlaw turned himself around and earned early release. Since returning to New Haven, as Barber closely documents, Outlaw has become a mentor to young people who might otherwise be on the path to prison. He tells one parolee group, in blunt language, that his goal is “to reduce recidivism and keep you guys out of the fucking penitentiary.” It seems to have worked: Violent crime has fallen by 70 percent, much of which local authorities attribute to Outlaw’s interventions among at-risk people. Of interest to criminal justice reformers, community workers, and policymakers.
MALAYA Essays on Freedom
Barnes, Cinelle Little A (200 pp.) $24.95 | Oct. 29, 2019 978-1-5420-9330-9
A collection of essays extends and expands on the themes introduced in the author’s highly regarded memoir, Monsoon Mansion (2018). Barnes’ first book introduced a gifted writer with a compelling story about her life in the Philippines. After her father left the family, her mother became unstable. The author was adopted by an American family, but the law said she was too old for the necessary paperwork, so she remained an undocumented teenager, working jobs that paid her in cash—e.g., cleaning houses, taking care of children, working at a laundry and at a cafe. Her schoolwork promised a pathway out, and she did well, particularly after switching to a journalism major and finding her voice and the stories that only she could tell. Barnes married a fellow graduate student, a white man raised in the South, who was the first in his family to marry a woman of color. Then the couple had a baby girl, a mixed-race child in the South, and questions of belonging and assimilation became exponentially more complicated. “He’s well aware of the sadness of this place,” the author writes of her husband, “how lonely it must be for me—an outsider who married someone who also feels like an outsider.” He says that it kills him to know that here, I talk, but without the freedom to speak about topics that interest me.” Though childbirth brought emotional trauma and postpartum depression, it also opened the creative floodgates. “My body had given birth to a human, but my body also wanted to expel something more,” writes Barnes. “It wanted to flush out the accumulation of hurt and sorrow and fear, three things all immigrants pack with them….My memories let out onto paper and bled onto the page as words, phrases, sentences, paragraphs.” Those paragraphs became essays, and those collected here have enough cohesion and continuity that they could almost pass as a second volume of memoir. A sturdy transitional volume that finds Barnes reflecting on her first and anticipating her next.
kirkus.com
|
THE HIDDEN WORLD OF THE FOX
Brand, Adele Morrow/HarperCollins (240 pp.) $24.99 | Oct. 22, 2019 978-0-06-296610-0 A British ecologist explores human encroachment on the world of the fox. Though there’s a close connection between dogs and foxes, there is also a world of difference. Dogs and humans have evolved together for 36,000 years, and the household pets are “practically symbiotic with human beings.” Foxes remain wild animals, but what was once wilderness has often become a golf course, bringing the animal into contact with humans, which often fear the fox and occasionally try to domesticate it, benefitting neither species. Brand clearly loves foxes and has devoted much of her life to studying them: “They make the world a more mysterious and interesting place.” The author
casts them in a realistic perspective, as natural creatures, showing that much of what we fear about them—and some of what we find attractive—is the result of misunderstandings. “The fox is not an intruder into our world,” she writes. “We have simply laid our modern ambitions over the landscape it already knew.” So the fox may attack the bird we have caged, though wild foxes pose little threat to birds in the wild, and they occasionally bite the hand that feeds them when humans mistakenly assume that feeding them might somehow build a relationship. Brand’s philosophy comes down to live and let live; we should keep our impact and influence on the fox as light as possible, and the fox in turn will likely have negligible impact on us. “I wish to know them as individuals,” she writes, “to learn the stories of their lives as an honest biographer—and to be a mediator, hoping to keep the peace between human and fox.” Among the revelations here are that foxes typically weigh less than an average house cat, that they navigate by way of the Earth’s magnetic field, and that vixen are only fertile three days per year. A pleasant nature book that provides everything you ever wanted to know about the fox.
y o u n g a d u lt
|
kirkus.com
|
nonfiction
|
1 september 2019
|
61
A lively, well-written survey full of novel observations on a region shrouded in legend. dreams of el dorado
DREAMS OF EL DORADO A History of the American West
THE BERLIN MISSION The American Who Resisted Nazi Germany From Within
Brands, H.W. Basic (544 pp.) $32.00 | Oct. 22, 2019 978-1-5416-7252-9
The prolific American historian turns his attention to the conquest of the West. As Brands (Chair, History/Univ. of Texas; Heirs of the Founders: The Epic Rivalry of Henry Clay, John Calhoun and Daniel Webster, the Second Generation of American Giants, 2018, etc.) notes in opening, the American West was, in ancient times, the Asian East and the Beringian South. By the time Thomas Jefferson signed off on the Louisiana Purchase, it was definitively part of North America, contested by European powers but almost inevitably a part of the United States. The author identifies three commanding themes in Western history: the capacity of the region for “the evoking and shattering of dreams,” a pattern of constant violence, and unparalleled irony “in the form of paradox, contradiction and unintended consequence.” Emblematic of the first was Theodore Roosevelt’s dream of ranching in the Dakota Territory, a failed enterprise that nonetheless cast New York City native Roosevelt as “that damned cowboy,” as politician Mark Hanna called him. The second figures throughout the author’s lucid, fluent narrative at places like the Alamo and Wounded Knee. (One of the recurrent characters is the Sioux leader Black Elk, who lived a long life after many key battles.) Brands locates irony in the fact that the West gave us the iconic figures of the lone gunfighter and stalwart settler while the conquest of the region was emphatically an exercise in collective power on the part of the federal government. Another irony, especially given current events in the region, is the fact that “by scores, then by hundreds and thousands, illegal immigrants poured into Texas” in the 1820s—illegal immigrants from, that is, the U.S., creating the conditions that led to war with Mexico. The author turns up little-known historical facts: two subsequent invasions of Texas, after the collapse of Mexican rule under Santa Anna, by Mexican armies; the admission of California as a state in which slavery was illegal—but where blacks were almost forbidden to enter; and many more, lending depth to his narrative. A lively, well-written survey full of novel observations on a region shrouded in legend. (24 b/w images; 2 maps)
62
|
1 september 2019
|
nonfiction
|
Breitman, Richard PublicAffairs (336 pp.) $28.00 | Oct. 29, 2019 978-1-5417-4216-1
The story of Raymond Geist (18851955), United States consul in Berlin from 1929 to 1939. Breitman (Emeritus, History/American Univ.; co-author: FDR and the Jews, 2013, etc.) maintains convincingly that Geist was the most competent American diplomatic figure in Germany, especially after the Nazis took power in 1933. A professional actor and scholar (Harvard doctorate), he was overqualified in 1921 when he joined the Consular Service, at the time separate and inferior to the Diplomatic Service, concerned mostly with visa matters and problems of American citizens. During Geist’s assignment in Berlin, these duties became a matter of life and death. Few colleagues knew how to deal with the Nazis, and the ambassadors were callow political appointees. Far more educated, fluent in German, and a natural schmoozer, Geist became so valuable that superiors kept him in Berlin for a decade even though consuls usually rotated after a few years. Most scholars agree on the value of Geist’s reports to U.S. officials, in which he emphasized the Nazi regime’s brutality, predicted Hitler’s intention to go to war, and described the vicious persecution of Jews, warning that it would end in mass murder. He worked hard and often creatively to process the avalanche of requests for U.S. visas, but, a loyal civil servant, he obeyed America’s restrictive immigration laws. The sad truth is that most Americans, including members of Congress, overwhelmingly opposed admitting refugees, and many high officials in the State Department were anti-Semitic. Although sympathetic, Franklin Roosevelt refused to twist arms. “In the fiscal year from July 1, 1933, to June 30, 1934, 891 people got US immigration visas in Berlin,” writes Breitman. “This means that somewhere around twelve thousand people were either formally rejected or, more commonly, placed on the informal and inactive waiting list.” The author deplores this heartless policy, but he mostly praises Geist’s efforts, which were admirable but never heroic. A vivid chronicle of 1930s Germany conveyed through the life of a lesser-known historical figure.
kirkus.com
|
THE COLLECTOR OF LEFTOVER SOULS Field Notes on Brazil’s Everyday Insurrections
HOW CHARTS LIE Getting Smarter About Visual Information
Cairo, Alberto Norton (256 pp.) $25.95 | Oct. 15, 2019 978-1-324-00156-0
Brum, Eliane Trans. by Whitty, Diane Grosklaus Graywolf (232 pp.) $16.00 paper | Oct. 15, 2019 978-1-64445-005-5
|
kirkus.com
y o u n g a d u lt
A selection of journalistic pieces from 1999 to 2007 by an accomplished Brazilian journalist, novelist, and documentary filmmaker spotlights “a country that exists only in the plural…the Brazils.” A rigorous investigative journalist who attempts to inhabit the lives of her subjects while suppressing her own “biases, judgments, [and] worldviews,” El País columnist Brum (One Two, 2014, etc.) adheres to a method of listening carefully and letting her subjects unravel the story themselves. In the first piece, “Forest of Midwives,” the author chronicles the vivid tale of midwives in the riverlands of far northern Brazil, whose ancient skills at “baby-catching” are passed from generation to generation. Although the women don’t get paid or have a lot to eat, children are their riches: “Out here in these backwaters of death,” says one elder midwife, “either we fill the world with children or we vanish.” Brum writes eloquently of people mired in the doomed cycle of poverty, most of whom can’t get a leg up because there is no support. In “Burial of the Poor,” the author writes about Antonio, “feller of trees,” who walked to the hospital to retrieve his stillborn baby, just one of the numberless poor who “begin to be buried in life.” In the most heart-wrenching longer piece, “The Noise,” Brum tells the story of T., a longtime worker in an asbestos plant in São Paulo who was dying of mesothelioma (the “noise” was the hideous sound of his gasping for breath). Poisoned by the plant owners who knew the health danger and tried to get him to sign away indemnity (he refused), he told Blum, “I am made of asbestos.” Among many other poignant stories, the author describes the teeming underbelly of the favelas in Brasilândia, the desperately poor gold prospectors in Eldorado do Juma, a defiant elderly community in Rio de Janeiro, and a threatened clan of Indigenous people deep in the heart of the Amazon. Ordinary lives rendered extraordinary by a master journalist who captures all their perplexity and quiet rebellion.
As this entertaining addition demonstrates, the “how to lie with statistics” genre is alive and well. Cairo (Chair, Visual Journalism/Univ. of Miami; The Truthful Art: Data, Charts, and Maps for Communi cation, 2016, etc.) points out that “charts may lie…because they display either the wrong information or too little information. However, a chart can show the right type of information and lie anyway due to poor design or labeling.” In a cheerful introductory chapter, the author explains that, while writing was invented about 5,000 years ago and charts weren’t used until the late 1700s, both are encoded forms of communication with
|
nonfiction
|
1 september 2019
|
63
A newsworthy book in an electoral cycle that promises to see plenty of foreign interference— and little resistance from Republicans. crossfire hurricane
a structure and vocabulary. Readers receive well-researched information about the makeup of a chart along with the warning that this knowledge, like rules of grammar, is necessary but not sufficient. It’s essential to pay attention. Cairo begins with a U.S. map, almost entirely red, that many claim shows the overwhelming popularity of Donald Trump in 2016. But how could that be if he received only 46 percent of the vote? The trick is that the map label shows not voters but counties with Trump majorities. Since large counties (rural) mostly voted for him and small counties (urban) didn’t, such a map is overwhelmingly red. The map, although real, is used to lie. In the generously illustrated chapters that follow, the author delivers a painless, if often uncomfortable education. On a trivial level, one must know what a chart is measuring. A chart of homeless schoolchildren in Florida reveals counties with more than 20 percent. The streets are not full of sleeping students because “homeless” is not defined as “no home” but rather as “lacking a fixed, regular nighttime residence.” There are plenty of no-brainers, sadly widely ignored, such as, “correlation is not causation.” The graph showing that cigarette smoking increases in nations with a greater life expectancy does not prove that smoking is healthy. An ingenious tool for detecting flaws in charts, which nowadays seem mostly deliberate. (175 illustrations)
CROSSFIRE HURRICANE Inside Donald Trump’s War on the FBI
Campbell, Josh Algonquin (288 pp.) $28.95 | Sep. 17, 2019 978-1-61620-950-6
“Never did I imagine a day when the greatest threats to our institutions would come from within our own government”: A former special agent details just what it is that Donald Trump doesn’t like about the FBI. Now a CNN analyst, Campbell served as assistant to former FBI director James Comey, among other assignments over a 12-year career. It was in that role that he participated in the operation of his title, its name taken from the Rolling Stones song “Jumping Jack Flash.” It was early on in the 2016 presidential campaign that the Steele report emerged from a British intelligence agent “that contained unverified but explosive charges against then candidate Trump.” In those green times, even a couple of Republican senators worried that the report was worth pursuing, one of them, not coincidentally, John McCain. Comey’s unpleasant task was to report to Trump that the FBI had the information and that he was indeed under investigation for illegal ties to Russia, something Trump has vehemently denied. In the end, he fired Comey and effectively declared war on the FBI for supposedly being against him politically even though, Campbell notes, the agency is apolitical— and, he adds, “one key aspect of law enforcement in this nation that separates us from authoritarian regimes has been the norm that politicians do not interfere in the work of the FBI.” That 64
|
1 september 2019
|
nonfiction
|
norm has been destroyed, and even though the Mueller Report, by the author’s account, strongly suggests illegal activity, he writes that Attorney General William Barr, “describing lawfully predicated surveillance as ‘spying,’ ” and Trump’s personal attorney, Rudolph Giuliani, are actively blocking for the White House. Campbell notes that he left the agency voluntarily and has no ax to grind, though his principal person of interest is the current occupant of the White House: “I simply hope to illuminate for US citizens the current and lasting consequences of Trump’s attacks on law enforcement.” That he does. A newsworthy book in an electoral cycle that promises to see plenty of foreign interference—and little resistance from Republicans.
LIFE ISN’T EVERYTHING Mike Nichols as Remembered by 103 of His Closest Friends
Carter, Ash & Kashner, Sam Henry Holt (352 pp.) $30.00 | Nov. 12, 2019 978-1-250-11287-3
Actors, writers, directors, critics, and producers remember a beloved friend. Esquire editor Carter and Vanity Fair contributing editor Kashner (When I Was Cool: My Life at the Jack Kerouac School, 2004, etc.) bring together reminiscences about filmmaker, director, and comedian Mike Nichols (1931-2014), gleaned from interview transcripts and conversations with more than 100 of his famous friends, including Meryl Streep, Robert Redford, Bob Newhart, Jules Feiffer, Cynthia Nixon, and Tom Hanks. Their remarks and anecdotes, organized to chronicle Nichols’ life and career, cohere into a candid, intimate portrayal of a man they loved and admired. “I was always in awe of Mike,” Woody Allen admitted, for both his talent and charm. Many echoed Anjelica Huston in remarking on his “incredible capacity for friendship that makes you think you’re absolutely unique.” Candice Bergen, who found him intimidating at first, praised him for trying to make everyone feel comfortable: “He paid attention to you, which people of success and achievement and intellect rarely do.” Nichols long struggled with feeling like an outsider. Born Igor Mikhail Peschkowsky, he left Germany with his family in 1939, knowing no English. When he was 5, probably in response to illness, he lost all his hair, an affliction that deeply embarrassed him; as an adult, he wore specially made hair and eyebrow pieces. His career began as an entertainer; friends recall his synergy with Elaine May, who “liberated Mike’s unconscious” to inform their “side-splitting and irresistible” comedy improvisations. “God, they’re amazing,” Robin Williams once remarked. Nichols fell into depression after their split, until he was lured into directing, teaming with Neil Simon for Barefoot in the Park and The Odd Couple. “Mike had a fabulous gift for staging, an instinct for what would work on Broadway,” Allen recalled, and a sure eye for choosing scripts and casts: Elizabeth Taylor in Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf, for example, and Dustin Hoffman in The Graduate. Nichols’ attitudes
kirkus.com
|
A HUMAN ALGORITHM How Artificial Intelligence Is Redefining Who We Are
about money, fame, art, and marriage all emerge from the contributors’ wide-ranging recollections. A warmhearted, revelatory composite portrait.
Coleman, Flynn Counterpoint (336 pp.) $26.00 | Oct. 1, 2019 978-1-64009-236-5
SAVING AMERICA’S CITIES Ed Logue and the Struggle to Renew Urban America in the Suburban Age
A writer, human rights attorney, and public speaker explores how our relationship with intelligent technologies will help us reimagine what it means to
Cohen, Lizabeth Farrar, Straus and Giroux (560 pp.) $35.00 | Oct. 1, 2019 978-0-374-25408-7
|
kirkus.com
y o u n g a d u lt
A biography of urban planner Ed Logue (1921-2000). In fashion across the United States after World War II, “urban renewal” often meant razing lowincome neighborhoods to build new highways and upscale housing, displacing people of color without providing adequate relocation services. Logue, a sometimes acerbic, supremely confident planner and academic, earned a reputation as a public administrator sensitive to the needs of the poor as well as the wealthy. Starting in New Haven, Logue—in tandem with the mayor, legislators, and private-sector developers—won national and then international acclaim for improving city life for a significant percentage of residents. While those being displaced sometimes complained that Logue failed to listen to their wishes and needs, Cohen (American Studies/Harvard Univ.; A Consumers’ Republic: The Politics of Mass Consumption in Postwar America, 2003, etc.) demonstrates that Logue did sincerely consider the relocation of low-income residents, even while appearing condescending at times. Convinced he had accomplished all he could in New Haven, he accepted the challenge of urban renewal in Boston, a city with more serious problems, both in terms of financing and regarding white residents who were pushing back against mixed-race neighborhoods. While working through the Boston obstacles, Logue received an offer from New York Gov. Nelson Rockefeller to implement urban renewal throughout New York state. In this deeply researched work, Cohen skillfully chronicles Logue’s rise and fall during his New York tenure, which ended in the mid-1980s. “As opportunities allowed it, [he] enjoyed being what I have described as a rebel in the belly of the establishment beast, using his powerful position to pursue his goals and, if necessary, impose his own standards and values on projects and people,” writes the author. “But over time Logue learned that this role did not always serve him well.” Though Logue’s life stands on its own, it’s inevitable that readers will compare this book to Robert Caro’s lauded Robert Moses biography, The Power Broker. While it’s not that, Cohen’s portrait is well rounded and useful for public officials and students of city planning and public works. A robust, richly documented biography. (32 pages of b/w illustrations; 3 maps)
be human. In this earnest, meaty investigation of the ideal future of how we work with intelligent technologies, Coleman posits that we are at the end of the last cycle of technological development led entirely by humans. Artificial intelligence will be a partner in defining the next era of our technological future. Right now, she writes, “we are alarmingly unready for the reality of powerful AI that reaches conclusions and decisions independent
|
nonfiction
|
1 september 2019
|
65
There is much more to inequality and discrimination than we know, and Crump will open your eyes. Pay attention. open season
from human intervention.” We are training machines to teach themselves with AI algorithms that allow computers to learn on their own rather than be incrementally programmed. It is vital, Coleman implores, that we incorporate core human beliefs into AI values. This will open up an encompassing reappraisal of not just the human place in the cosmos; we will need to address the nature of consciousness as it relates to AI and ourselves. Currently, we haven’t locked in “a complete definition of synthetic intelligence, much less shape[d] the regulations, rules, codes, values, and laws needed to guide it.” The author examines a host of relevant concerns—the role of curiosity, what rights will be afforded AI machinery, and the question of whether a self-aware robot has a soul (whatever that is)—and she emphasizes the importance of transparency, inclusive thinking, and the building of compassion, quality of life, and fairness into the machines to construct a moral imagination. Coleman necessarily operates in the realm of conjecture because she grapples with age-old questions and the unframed future. However, AI’s rapidly expanding capacity for autonomy suggests that these are the very questions that must be addressed now. How we choose to develop synthetic intelligence will tell us how we will protect and expand our rights and freedoms in the future. An energetic, holistic consideration of AI’s potentialities to impact our lives in profound ways.
NO STOPPING US NOW A History of Older Women in America Collins, Gail Little, Brown (432 pp.) $30.00 | Oct. 15, 2019 978-0-316-28654-1
“This is the story about women and age in America,” writes New York Times op-ed columnist Collins (As Texas Goes…. How the Lone Star State Hijacked the American Agenda, 2012, etc.) in a jaunty survey of women’s lives from Colonial days to the 21st century, focusing on the ever changing designation of what counts as old age. Colonial society valued usefulness, no matter what a woman’s age, and in the 1920s, any woman older than 19 was considered past her prime. Dispatching the 18th and 19th centuries in a handful of chapters, Collins looks at the 20th century decade by decade, enlivening her history with portraits of a wide variety of significant women—for example, the legendary African American stagecoach driver Mary Fields, who was “past fifty when she moved to a Catholic mission in Montana, where she helped out by hauling supplies”; Frances Willard, who wrote a bestseller about learning how to ride a bicycle at 53; and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, who published an article about divorce reform two weeks before she died at 86. Some women Collins profiles in her abundantly populated history faced growing older with equanimity; others saw aging as “a problem to be solved through personal effort” that included diet, exercise, cosmetic surgery, and hair dye. In the early 1900s, actress Lillian 66
|
1 september 2019
|
nonfiction
|
Russell “announced she was getting in shape through a regimen of rolling over 250 times every morning.” Some women—like activist Jane Addams and Labor Secretary Frances Perkins— defied social expectations by entering business and politics; others believed that women’s place was in the home. During periods of economic stress, especially the Depression, women who worked were condemned for taking jobs away from men. In the 1960s, however, when fewer workers were available because of the low birth rate of the 1930s, more opportunities opened up for older women. As Collins sees it, there was never a time when women’s aging wasn’t controversial and, for some, troubling. But, she adds, “we’re teaching ourselves how to get old in the best way possible.” A lively celebration of women’s potential.
OPEN SEASON Legalized Genocide of Colored People
Crump, Ben Amistad/HarperCollins (256 pp.) $26.99 | Oct. 15, 2019 978-0-06-237509-4 An accomplished civil rights attorney and former president of the National Bar Association exposes subtle, systemic genocide in America. Crump assails the criminal justice system in the United States as one designed for white, wealthy men: All others are on their own. “This book,” he writes, “featuring many of the cases I have worked on, reveals the systematic legalization of discrimination in the United States, and particularly how it can lead to genocide—the intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a people. This book particularly addresses genocide as it relates to colored people.” It’s vital, writes the author, to understanding the terms involved as well as how those terms have been manipulated over time. First, the concept of race does not have a biological or genetic basis. It began in the 15th century as Europe sought to justify enslaving, murdering, and stealing the lands of Indigenous people. When left unchecked, racism, the assertion of superiority in order to discriminate, is a tool of genocide. There are also institutional racism and environmental racism, demonstrated in the plight of citizens enduring poisonous water in Flint, Michigan, as well as legal slavery in our prisons, people innocently killed in police custody or on the street under “stand your ground” laws. Crump consistently condemns the courts’ failures, demonstrating how policing is unequal and disproportionate; as he notes, people of color are far more likely to go to jail for misdemeanors than white people. The Supreme Court has a long pattern of intellectual justification of discrimination and has relied on the concept of states’ rights to throw out cases. Though Jim Crow laws were overturned in the 1960s, new laws quickly replaced them, laws that may be less obvious but still result in voter suppression. Crump rightly warns readers to ignore talk of voter fraud; it’s a myth used to justify restrictive laws. Many readers will be justifiably
kirkus.com
|
ORDINARY GIRLS A Memoir
infuriated by the author’s well-documented findings; hopefully, they will also choose to follow his 12 “personal action steps” to combat systemic racism. There is much more to inequality and discrimination than we know, and Crump will open your eyes. Pay attention.
ESSAYS ONE
Davis, Lydia Farrar, Straus and Giroux (528 pp.) $30.00 | Nov. 12, 2019 978-0-374-14885-0
|
An “ordinary girl” rebels against her unstable life in Puerto Rico and Miami Beach until military service helps her gain a life-altering self-confidence. Growing up in housing projects in Puerto Rico, Díaz (editor: 15 Views of Miami, 2014) tossed aside the blonde-haired Barbie dolls her elders gave her. “They always made me feel ugly, the brown kid who would never look like her white mother,” she writes in her inventive debut memoir. It didn’t help that her philandering father sold drugs, her mother showed alarming signs of her soon-to-be-diagnosed schizophrenia, and only her loving grandmother provided a stable presence in her life and those of her two siblings. Hoping for better,
kirkus.com
y o u n g a d u lt
The first of a proposed two-volume collection of essays from one of America’s most ingenious short story writers. The goal of these essays, writes Davis (Can’t and Won’t: Stories, 2014, etc.), is to “reflect, to some extent, two of the main occupations of my life—writing and translating.” Included here are pieces that range from an appreciation of authors such as Samuel Beckett, Grace Paley, and Franz Kafka, whose works inspired the extremely short stories for which Davis is most celebrated, to essays that reflect her thoughts on the work of translation. Among the latter are essays on John Ashbery’s translation of Rimbaud’s Illuminations, in which she praises Ashbery’s approach “to stay close to the original, following the line of the sentence, retaining the order of ideas and images, reproducing even eccentric or inconsistent punctuation”—not surprising, given that she, too, has been praised (and criticized) for the same approach to translation. Many of the authors Davis explores are French, from famous names such as Proust and Stendahl to comparatively obscure writers such as Maurice Blanchot and Michel Leiris, author of the multivolume “autobiographical essay” The Rules of the Game. Essays on visual artists such as Joan Mitchell and Joseph Cornell are less insightful than the pieces on literature, and some essays rely so heavily on excerpts from other writers’ works that it feels like Davis is showcasing their opinions rather than putting forth her own. However, at her best, she’s an astute critic, as when, in analyzing early works by Thomas Pynchon, she notes his tendency to go “beyond eloquence to a kind of hyper-eloquence that becomes a display of power over language itself that perhaps borders on control by coercion,” or when she writes of poet Rae Armantrout, “under the lens she turns on everything, the refractive lens, a bland world loses its blandness….I see more clearly because of the way she sees.” Lively essays bound to stimulate debate among readers of global literature. (21 full-color illustrations)
Díaz, Jaquira Algonquin (336 pp.) $26.95 | Oct. 29, 2019 978-1-61620-913-1
|
nonfiction
|
1 september 2019
|
67
A powerful memoir of deep loss driven by the author’s desire to get at harrowing answers to difficult questions. stealing green mangoes
her father moved the family to Miami Beach when Díaz was in elementary school. But the money ran out, and the family was evicted repeatedly from shabby apartments. As “a closeted queer girl in a homophobic place,” the author couldn’t adjust, kept getting arrested, and ended up in Narcotics Anonymous and a juvenile detention center. Depressed and desperate to end the free fall, she dropped out of high school at 16, married at 17, and made a life-changing move at 18, enlisting in the U.S. Navy. As she aced military tests, her faith in herself grew and led eventually to a graduate degree and a literary career that has earned her two Pushcart Prizes. Using flashbacks, shifts in tense, and other novelistic devices, Díaz weaves impressionistic vignettes about Puerto Rican history and culture into her story, which begins when she watches an activist’s funeral procession in Puerto Rico in 1985 and ends after a recent visit to the island in the wake of Hurricane María. Along the way, she withholds key dates and other facts that would have made it easier to put some events in context. However, the literary bells and whistles give her story a broader interest than many memoirs that are more solipsistic. This book isn’t just about the author’s quest for self-determination; it’s also about Puerto Rico’s. An unusually creative memoir of a bicultural life.
STEALING GREEN MANGOES Two Brothers, Two Fates, One Indian Childhood
Dutta, Sunil Anthony Bourdain/Ecco (256 pp.) $26.99 | Oct. 1, 2019 978-0-06-279585-4
The poignant memoir of two brothers raised under the dark shadow of Indian Partition who forged wildly dif-
ferent paths in life. Dutta (Bloodlines: The Imperial Roots of Terrorism in South Asia, 2015, etc.) and his older brother, Kaushal (“Raju”), were born in the late 1960s to poor Hindu refugees in Jaipur. Their Indian father, a government clerk, had arrived in 1959, forced by the violence after the Partition to flee his homeland. From enjoying the status of Brahmin to living in a near-destitute condition, the family spiraled over the decades into “bitter shame” and familial squabbles, a toxic atmosphere in which Dutta and Raju were raised. While Raju was by nature precocious, charming, and daring, the author, in contrast, grew inward, becoming idealistic and shy. In moving, honest prose, Dutta follows the disparate trajectories of their lives. Raju became entangled in a relationship with a rich, older gay man, which propelled him into posh jet-setting and eventually a criminal life abroad. Meanwhile, the author fell in love with an American woman and followed her to America in 1986. Dutta went to school, became a research biologist and then, in an odd but determined turn, a police officer in Los Angeles and a professor of homeland security and issuesinvolved terrorism. Meanwhile, Raju descended into the life of a con man and, later, terrorist. Both were cancer survivors. The 68
|
1 september 2019
|
nonfiction
|
memoir opens with a shattering call from France, where Raju had married and was living, to notify the author that his brother had been incarcerated for murder. Throughout, Dutta captures the enormous sense of humiliation wrought by this crisis; in Indian society, he writes, “the responsibility for a crime lies not with the perpetrator, but with the entire family.” A powerful memoir of deep loss driven by the author’s desire to get at harrowing answers to difficult questions.
ON THE SHOULDERS OF GIANTS
Eco, Umberto Trans. by McEwen, Alastair Belknap/Harvard Univ. (288 pp.) $27.95 | Oct. 22, 2019 978-0-674-24089-6 Like a collection of TED talks on philosophy and literary history, these 12 dazzling texts explore grand themes of intellectual curiosity such as beauty, secrecy, the invisible, and the sacred. Each essay was originally presented as a lecture at the Milanesiana Festival in Milan, where Eco (Chronicles of a Liquid Soci ety, 2017, etc.) spoke yearly from 2001 to 2015. They represent “a rough and ready semiotics,” but they maintain a sense of familiarity and oral tradition that aligns the book with works like Plato’s Symposium and other ancient philosophical texts. Eco explores big ideas, some of which were prompted by the festival’s organizers, and with a staggering bibliography of sources, he playfully meanders from the writings of Thomas Aquinas to Alexandre Dumas to Dan Brown. In a 2004 lecture on the sublime, he explores the medieval understanding of beauty in terms of proportion, luminosity, and integrity, all while invoking the golden ratio and the splendor of Caspar David Friedrich’s paintings. The following year, Eco delivered a lecture on ugliness that drew on The Tempest’s Caliban, Cyrano de Bergerac, and even a bevy of grotesque Bond villains from Ian Fleming’s novels. It’s a thrill to connect ideas between lectures: Eco’s thoughts on ugliness, beauty, and kitsch return in a 2012 talk on imperfections in art and literature, where he explains, “what we look for in a work of art (at least these days) is not a correspondence to a canon of taste, but to an internal norm, where economy and formal consistency regulate the text in all its parts.” In other words, context is key. But how to contextualize this book, with its heightened erudition and limited accessibility? With philosophical citations that span pages at a time and Eco’s penchant for using the original Latin whenever he can, this book’s “internal norm” is situated in the college-level classroom or the special collections wing of a university library. A rigorous exploration for able academics.
kirkus.com
|
NO SURRENDER A Father, a Son, and an Extraordinary Act of Heroism That Continues To Live on Today
HEIRS OF AN HONORED NAME The Decline of the Adams Family and the Rise of Modern America
Edmonds, Chris & Century, Douglas HarperOne (336 pp.) $29.99 | Oct. 8, 2019 978-0-06-290501-7
|
A study of the devolution of America’s first dynasty as it reflected the nation’s increasingly democratic and unruly dynamic. American history scholar Egerton (History/Le Moyne Coll.; Thunder at the Gates: The Black Civil War Regiments That Redeemed America, 2016, etc.) delves deeply into the third, fourth, and fifth generations of the Adams, finding them more “cripple[ed]” than entitled by the legacy of the great Revolutionary hero and second president, John Adams, and even that of his illustrious son, John Quincy Adams, who served both as president
kirkus.com
y o u n g a d u lt
After discovering that his late father was a war hero, a son takes a deep dive into World War II and the terrors of the Nazi regime. Along with Century (co-author: Hunting El Chapo, 2018, etc.), Tennessee-based pastor and first-time author Edmonds relates a fascinating war story. When the author’s daughter announced that she wanted to write a school paper on her paternal grandfather, Roddie, it startled him into realizing how little he actually knew about him. He knew from reading his father’s journals that the Nazis had captured him during battle and forced him to spend several months in brutal POW camps. Other than that, Edmonds knew very little. “His descriptions were terse,” writes the author. “Bare facts. Sometimes just fragmented sentences. Mental notes. Personal shorthand. Words clearly scribbled in haste.” Roddie had never spoken of his experiences, and Edmonds had never asked. Now, though, startled by his daughter’s plan, finding out all he could about his father became an obsession. He tracked down everyone he could find whose names were in the journals, and what they told him startled him even more: On more than one occasion, his father had saved the lives of hundreds of fellow POWs by refusing to follow Nazi officers’ orders, despite their threats to kill him if he did not. Ostensibly, the narrative—essentially a love letter from a son to his late father that is occasionally cloying—is about those two episodes, although Edmonds only devotes roughly 10 pages to them. In the bulk of the book, the author describes in chilling, horrifying detail how Nazi soldiers overran an American front line, captured thousands of GIs, forced them to march on frozen and frostbitten feet for days without food or water, and then tortured and starved them in POW camps, often leading to death. A you-are-there portrait of the horrors of war and the incredible effect one selfless person can have on hundreds.
Egerton, Douglas R. Basic (480 pp.) $35.00 | Oct. 29, 2019 978-0-465-09388-5
|
nonfiction
|
1 september 2019
|
69
INTERVIEWS & PROFILES
James Poniewozik
IN AUDIENCE OF ONE, THE TV CRITIC EXPLORES HOW THE CHARACTER DONALD TRUMP PLAYED ON TV AND IN THE TABLOIDS BECAME A REAL PRESIDENT By Donald Liebenson Photo courtesy Mark Roussel
U.S. President Donald J. Trump was born on June 14, 1946. But he is not the subject of New York Times television critic James Poniewozik’s essential cultural history, Audience of One: Donald Trump, Tele vision and the Fracturing of America (Liveright, Sept. 10). Poniewozik’s focus is on “Donald J. Trump,” a multimedia character that Trump, the author writes, “has relentlessly honed and performed for decades, in the New York newspapers, on Oprah, in The Art of the Deal, in sitcoms and movies, on The Apprentice, in Fox News studios, on the internet, in the WWE wrestling ring, in campaign rallies and in the White House.” 70
|
1 september 2019
|
nonfiction
|
That character was born on Aug. 21, 1980, when Trump, then 33, was interviewed on Today by a fawning Tom Brokaw. This Trump, Poniewozik writes, “is the most influential character in the history of TV. He deserves a careful review.” Over the 20 years he has been a TV critic, Poniewozik did not take this Trump seriously. “I take it a lot more seriously now,” he said in a recent interview. “He has been able to accumulate cultural capital because he ran through different forms of media—tabloids, reality TV, talk shows—where he was regarded as a running joke. There wasn’t a great deal of fact checking. As a result, in these low-stakes environments, he created all kinds of myths about himself. He got the New York tabloids to say he was a billionaire when he wasn’t. That’s the kernel of the whole Donald Trump story; it was a joke that turned terribly serious.” Poniewozik’s book, his first, is an insightful and revelatory chronicle of Donald Trump as a cultural phenomenon that is inextricably tied to the evolution of television. This approach, he said, avoids the problems tied to writing contemporary books about the current administration. “How do you write something that is not expired by the time it hits the shelf?” he posed. “The news today is like drinking from a fire hose. There are developments and outrages you forget about the next day because other huge mind-boggling things have happened.” The story of Trump and television has not been adequately analyzed, Poniewozik contended. “Before reality TV, he was famous for being famous. His talent was for branding and symbolism. He understood from the standpoint of media and celebrity
kirkus.com
|
Donald Liebenson is a Chicago-based writer for the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, VanityFair.com, and Vulture.com.
and anti-slavery congressman. As the author discovered while wading through vast amounts of research material—the dense narrative, packed with layered family detail, will lose some readers—the problem was that the Adams “progeny grew up aware of the perfectionist standards demanded of them, but equally mindful of their failures to reach those goals.” Alcoholism plagued several of the promising youth—e.g., John Quincy’s two brothers, Charles and Thomas—as well as those of the next generation, including two of John Quincy’s sons—George and John II—who both died as young men. The one son of John Quincy to carry on valiantly into Victorian responsibility was Charles Francis (Sr.), who was elected to Congress yet never captured the presidency; he also served on the court of St. James in London during the Civil War. His sons were a motley assortment: Charles Francis Jr. enlisted on the Northern side of the war out of familial obligation, but he expressed dismaying racist views. John Quincy II was the first to abandon the Republican Party for the Democratic Party “because of his disaffection for Reconstruction reforms.” Henry, rather more versatile, served as his father’s secretary in London and became a notable journalist and historian. As for the women of the family, many were gifted, yet most were thwarted. Thankfully, Egerton provides a family tree, which readers will want to keep handy. A deeply researched, recondite, occasionally mindscrambling maze of familial relations and historical detail. (24 halftones)
y o u n g a d u lt
that it’s more important to look like the most successful, richest businessman than it is to be the most successful, richest businessman. It’s not acting; it’s being an amplified version of yourself that gets the biggest reaction and provokes the most intense response. Reality TV is a genre in which you take broad symbols—the big gleaming tower with your name on it in golden letters; Liberace multiplied by Versailles—that look more like people’s mental conception of success than the actual reality.” As befitting a reality TV president who speaks in the lingo of the genre (“Stay tuned”), Poniewozik tells this story in 10 “episodes” and a finale. He hopes readers will get a better understanding of “how we got from Point A to Point B, where being the host of a reality show has become being the ‘governor of a state’ in terms of qualifications for running for president. Popular culture gives you a language you can use to reach people on a level that is nonliteral and therefore more powerful and more gut-level than a platform of policy positions. Television is a powerful storytelling medium and if one doesn’t learn how to use the culture to tell better stories, someone will use it to tell worse ones.”
CRUCIBLE The Long End of the Great War and the Birth of a New World, 1917-1924 Emmerson, Charles PublicAffairs (688 pp.) $35.00 | Oct. 15, 2019 978-1-61039-782-7
An intimate survey of a critical transition point in modern history. Emmerson (1913: The Year Before the Great War, 2013, etc.) builds his history around a number of key personalities who shaped the era between 1917 and 1924, a time of betrayed idealism, social turmoil, and revolutions. Chief among them are Lenin, Trotsky, Mussolini, and Hitler, all of whom took their nations in directions that would eventually result in World War II. There are also plenty of interesting supporting players, including Kaiser Wilhelm, Woodrow Wilson, Winston Churchill, Irish revolutionary Éamon de Valera, and Turkish liberator Kemal Ataturk; black nationalist Marcus Garvey and his rival W.E.B. Du Bois; scientists Sigmund Freud and Albert Einstein; writers André Breton and Ernest Hemingway; singer and dancer Josephine Baker; and a host of others. The author tells the story by giving each of his characters a few paragraphs, then moving on to another, with the overall chronological narrative organized by the seasons of the year. This approach is especially valuable in giving readers a sense of the career arcs of significant historical figures along with a solid |
kirkus.com
|
nonfiction
|
1 september 2019
|
71
Relentlessly honest, untamed, and often revelatory. acid for the children
feel for the landscape of Europe 100 years ago. The focus is on Europe, although the United States is by no means neglected, especially in terms of racial tensions and the anti-Semitic writings of Henry Ford, whom Hitler admired and at one point hoped to win support from. Throughout this comprehensive history, there are few missteps. Emmerson does gloss over the sinking of the Lusitania, a key driver of American entry in the war, and he also uses nicknames for several major players— Lenin is “the impatient revolutionary,” Hitler “the mangy fieldrunner”—which he repeats constantly. Nonetheless, the author provides an illuminating picture of how the world moved from a “war to end all wars” to an era of dictators and toxic nationalism. A fascinating slice of history told through the daily lives of some of its iconic figures.
THE EIGHT MASTER LESSONS OF NATURE What Nature Teaches Us About Living Well in the World Ferguson, Gary Dutton (272 pp.) $27.00 | Oct. 22, 2019 978-1-5247-4338-3
Eight lessons about getting back in touch with nature and “befriending the powerful emotions that nature often ignites in us.” In his latest, longtime nature writer Ferguson (The Carry Home: Lessons From the American Wilderness, 2014, etc.) explores how “the natural world remains a ready source of essential lessons, each one helping us better understand what life really needs in order to thrive.” The author focuses his tranquil narrative on eight useful lessons that we learn from nature that teach us how to live in harmony and balance with the world around us. It’s important to embrace the boundless mystery and wonder of what we know—and what we don’t—and we must also appreciate the vast dynamic webs of connection in nature, collaborative networks that permit the system as a whole to thrive. He then sings the praises of biodiversity. “The more players there are in a natural system, the more vibrant those players will be, he writes. “And also, the more resilient the system will be in the face of change…. This beautifully rich and robust planet is in all seasons nothing if not a constantly unfolding testament to the essential power of diversity.” Ferguson goes on to plumb the ancient wisdom of the matriarch and the imbalance and unsustainability that come from moving through the world with only masculine energy as a guide. Despite the fact that he is often communing with the mystical, Ferguson cuts with a sharp knife on such topics as the commonality we share with animals, keeping what’s most essential from perishing, the wisdom that flows from mature adults to the less experienced, nature’s love of efficiency, and the beauty of nature itself, “a gentle nudge to get us happily out of our selfcenteredness and into the wonder of being in and of it all.” A mellow, meditative book for nature lovers and those who want to reconnect with the world around them. 72
|
1 september 2019
|
nonfiction
|
ACID FOR THE CHILDREN A Memoir
Flea Grand Central Publishing (400 pp.) $29.00 | Nov. 5, 2019 978-1-4555-3053-3
A wild ride through the coming-ofage wilderness of the famed rock bassist. Though this volume barely touches on the career of the Red Hot Chili Peppers, the band whose fans will likely constitute its most ardent readership, Flea’s spirit permeates the narrative, which is scattered, reflective, hedonistic, funny, scary, and occasionally redemptive. By the time it finishes, the author has just turned 20, and the band has just begun its launch. Even early on, he writes, “I knew it was all there [with the band]. I could see its path stretched out before me, but like Dorothy and Toto, I had no idea of what walking it could mean.” Flea was born Michael Peter Balzary in Melbourne, Australia, on Oct. 16, 1962, preceded by an older sister, to a mother and father who would split during his early childhood. His father continued to live in Australia, where his sister would return, while his mother moved with her son to the United States. In New York City, they lived with Walter, a tempestuous jazz musician who became Flea’s stepfather. Despite his erratic behavior, Walter showed the author how to “utilize the pathos of his life to create thrilling art. The anger and loneliness, the pain from feeling hurt and neglected could be fuel for the greatest gifts.” For years, Flea was an outsider, and his weirdness only intensified once the family moved from New York to Los Angeles in order to further what never quite became a musical career for Walter. As a “street kid” (“not a homeless kid, not an uneducated kid, but a street kid”) in LA, the author discovered a host of colorful characters and drugs, played trumpet and loved jazz, and read Vonnegut. Few of the chapters, which unfold in bursts of jazzy, sometimes irregular prose (and little attention to grammar), extend for more than a page or two, and some of them are just a paragraph. Flea was still a street kid when he bonded with future band mates Anthony Kiedis, Hillel Slovek, and Jack Irons. Relentlessly honest, untamed, and often revelatory. Perhaps a second volume is in the works?
THE SURVIVORS A Story of War, Inheritance, and Healing Frankel, Adam P. Harper/HarperCollins (288 pp.) $27.99 | Oct. 29, 2019 978-0-06-225858-8
A debut memoir about “the ways the trauma of the Holocaust has reverberated through the generations of [the author’s] family.” Frankel, a former speechwriter for Barack Obama, focuses first on his maternal grandparents, who not only managed to
kirkus.com
|
CHASING THE SUN How the Science of Sunlight Shapes Our Bodies and Minds
Geddes, Linda Pegasus (256 pp.) $27.95 | Oct. 1, 2019 978-1-64313-217-4
An exploration of the effects of the sun on our physical and mental health. Light plays a critical part in the daily and seasonal rhythms of our lives. It touches on all manner of bodily function—particularly hormonal and enzyme release— and synchronizes the body’s cellular clock. As science journalist Geddes (Bumpology: The Myth-Busting Pregnancy Book for Curious Parents-To-Be, 2014) writes in this bright and curiosity-stoking introduction to chronobiology, these processes are closely linked to circadian rhythms. As a species, we haven’t shuffled to the circadian beat for centuries, and we have paid a price for not paying attention to the natural cycles of light and dark. Interrupt the master clock, and the first thing to go is intricate thinking. The brain uses sleep time to replenish energy molecules expended during waking hours. Without adequate sleep, alertness suffers, speed and reaction time diminish, and depression lurks. Even the moderately sleep-deprived human has their |
hormones disrupted and will experience muscle degeneration, an increase in fat tissue, and general sickness. “Sleep deprivation,” writes the author, “winds its tentacles around pretty much every physiological process going….Chronic inadequate sleep precedes the onset of Alzheimer’s disease, cancer and various psychiatric illnesses; it is also associated with heart disease, obesity and diabetes.” Geddes investigates a variety of topics related to light and sleep, including artificial lighting, vitamin D supplements, seasonal affective disorder, light therapy, and the cardiovascular system’s circadian variations. The author is a sure hand when it comes to explaining the various biological interactions and a steady voice in calling for lifestyles more in sync with our master clocks and less hidebound by work or tradition. “It doesn’t matter when you start work, so long as you get the job done. It’s about internal time, not what the clock on the wall says.” A sparkling story about how we can forge a healthier relationship with light.
WHAT GOD IS HONORED HERE? Writings on Miscarriage and Infant Loss by and for Native Women and Women of Color
y o u n g a d u lt
survive the Nazi death camps, but also thrived, on the surface at least, after their arrival in the United States a few years after the end of World War II. They settled in New Haven, Connecticut, where they ran a jewelry store specializing in watch repair. As the author learned incremental details about their experiences, his respect and adoration for his grandparents only grew. The dominant character in the family chronicle, however, is Frankel’s mother, Ellen, a functional career woman but emotionally unstable individual. Ellen grew up understandably marked by the survival saga of her parents, and Frankel speculates about how being the devoted daughter of Holocaust survivors affected Ellen. “All of the drama, the volatility, hardly seemed Mom’s fault,” he writes. “She was, I knew, at the mercy of her emotions, subject to their fickle swings.” The author also looks inward to determine what his family’s experiences mean for him as a Jew growing up in a less perilous environment. For students of American politics and history, Frankel’s apprenticeship with John F. Kennedy confidant Ted Sorensen and later work for Obama provide welcome relief from the otherwise relentless emotional roller coaster. Frankel’s marriage and fatherhood add further poignancy to the narrative, and his well-delineated portraits of his cousins, aunts, uncles, and their extended families provide helpful context to the dramatic family saga. It’s a unique addition to the literature of personal accounts that keep the memory of the Holocaust alive at a time when it is “getting harder to teach young people about [it] because the most compelling instructors—survivors—are all passing away.” An emotionally powerful multigenerational memoir. (b/w photos)
Ed. by Gibney, Shannon & Yang, Kao Kalia Univ. of Minnesota (256 pp.) $19.95 paper | Oct. 15, 2019 978-1-5179-0793-8
A profound collection reflecting the contributors’ “claim on [their] lives as indigenous women and women of color who have experienced infant and fetal loss, in its many forms.” Though each piece of this collection—edited by Gibney (See No Color, 2015) and Yang (The Song Poet: A Memoir of My Father, 2016, etc.)—shares the common theme of infant mortality, each woman’s story grips readers with its individuality and its gutwrenching pain and sorrow. These tales of loss—from miscarriage, stillbirth, misdiagnosis, ectopic pregnancies, and sudden infant death—all carry the weight of the woman’s heartbreak. They also show abundant love and the honor they felt to be pregnant, regardless of the outcome. Some tales are straightforward and read like a medical history while others ponder the spirituality of life and death. Some women still sense the movement of their child inside them, even after having other children. “According to the Center for Disease Control, in the general population of the United States, 15 to 20 percent of pregnant women will experience a miscarriage in their lifetime,” write the editors in the introduction. The numbers grow disproportionately higher for women of color, which means that many women will readily empathize with the thoughts and feelings of these talented writers and poets who effectively transform their significant internal pain into inspiring art. The narratives are complex and can produce feelings of tension and anxiety, but that only speaks to the quality of the writing. Their trauma will affect each reader differently, but it’s guaranteed that no one will walk away unmoved.
kirkus.com
|
nonfiction
|
1 september 2019
|
73
STARSTRUCK IN THE PROMISED LAND How the Arts Shaped American Passions About Israel
“Grief and total desperation joined me to so many women,” writes Sarah Agaton Howes, and continues, “they surround me with their stories, their hands, their laughter, their bitterness, and their sheer determination to not die. I came from this legacy of sadness. But I also came from their legacy of survival.” A difficult yet important read.
HOMEWRECKERS How a Gang of Wall Street Kingpins, Hedge Fund Magnates, Crooked Banks, and Vulture Capitalists Suckered Millions Out of Their Homes and Demolished the American Dream Glantz, Aaron Custom House/Morrow (432 pp.) $27.99 | Oct. 15, 2019 978-0-06-286953-1
A tale of greed and corruption involving “corporate landlords” who “drove a generational transfer of wealth from hundreds of thousands of individual homeowners to a handful of well-heeled bankers and titans of private equity.” Many previous books have painted searing portraits of massive financial fraud in the mortgage and investment banking world, including David Dayen’s Chain of Title: How Three Ordinary Americans Uncovered Wall Street’s Great Foreclosure Fraud (2016). While Dayen told his tale mostly from the ground up, Glantz (The War Comes Home: Washington’s Battle Against America’s Veterans, 2009, etc.), a Peabody Award–winning investigative reporter, relates the saga mostly from the top down. The author spotlights a variety of contemporary robber barons, including Donald Trump before he was president; Trump’s father, Fred; Wilbur L. Ross Jr. before he was the Secretary of Commerce; and Steven T. Mnuchin before he became Secretary of the Treasury. Glantz’s impressive research leads him to portray each of the tycoons as morally bankrupt and utterly without compassion for homeowners who lost their property. Occasionally, the author shifts the narrative to Sandy Jolley, a cheated homeowner who gathered copious amounts of information, found a lawyer willing to present her damning case to the federal government, and stood to gain substantial damages from the bankers under a law meant to reward whistleblowers. As Glantz relentlessly builds the indictment against the bankers, he wonders why law enforcement agencies failed to take any meaningful action. “It’s hard to imagine [deals] so perfectly designed to lazily allow the government to undercut working-class Americans on behalf of a small group of billionaires,” he writes, “but that is exactly what happened again and again.” In addition to the Trumps, Ross, and Mnuchin, Glantz also levels warranted attacks against John Paulson, Jamie Dimon, Jared Kushner, and Sean Hannity. The similarities of the moguls’ many predations may tire some readers, but the insertion of Jolley into the narrative bolsters the storyline. A solid, useful exploration of a system that “needs substantial, systemic change.” (16-page b/w photo insert)
74
|
1 september 2019
|
nonfiction
|
Goldman, Shalom Univ. of North Carolina (256 pp.) $28.00 | Oct. 7, 2019 978-1-4696-5241-2
The considerable effects of literature, music (popular and classical), and other arts on Americans’ attitudes about Israel. Goldman (Religion/Middlebury Coll.; Jewish-Christian Difference and Modern Jewish Identity: Seven Twentieth-Century Converts, 2015, etc.) delivers a studied and sturdy look at what the subtitle promises. He also inserts elements of memoir, describing his youthful experiences in Israel, his time in the military there, and some negative reactions to his writing and talks about Israel’s rightward turn. (He is deeply concerned about the rise of the right and American evangelicals’ unquestioning support for it.) Although artists and their works are his principal focus, Goldman does not assume that readers know the history of the Middle East from the early 19th century. Consequently, in each chapter, he includes historical background of each period he discusses across the chronological narrative. We revisit the Ottoman Empire, the founding of the country after World War II, the Six-Day War, Camp David, the various Israeli political leaders throughout the decades— and much more. As a result, his discussions of the artists sometimes slip into the swelling undergrowth. He tells stories about Herman Melville—who visited the Middle East after the publication of Moby-Dick; the result of that journey was Clarel, his “book-length poem based on his Holy Land experiences”—and Mark Twain, whose travels, chronicled in The Innocents Abroad, 1869, began his rocket ride into international celebrity. Throughout, Goldman explores the works of a variety of luminaries, including Leonard Bernstein, Frank Sinatra, John Steinbeck, Leon Uris, Saul Bellow, James Baldwin, W.H. Auden, Johnny Cash, Madonna, and numerous others. But he also informs us about lesser-known events and people—e.g., the Adams Colony (1866), the building of the YMCA in Jerusalem (1933), and the life of Rabbi Judah Leon Magnes. Near the end, he has some critical words for Donald Trump. Textually dense at times but effectively highlights the left-right division that is splitting much of the world. (9 illustrations; map)
kirkus.com
|
A psychologically provocative study on the gravity of charm, charisma, and outward impressions. the turn- on
THE TURN-ON How the Powerful Make Us Like Them—From Washington to Wall Street to Hollywood
DOCTOR DOGS How Our Best Friends Are Becoming Our Best Medicine
Goodavage, Maria Dutton (368 pp.) $28.00 | Oct. 1, 2019 978-1-5247-4304-8
Goldstein, Steven Harper Business (368 pp.) $29.99 | Oct. 22, 2019 978-0-06-291169-8
|
kirkus.com
|
nonfiction
|
1 september 2019
|
y o u n g a d u lt
An examination of likability in media, politics, and business. In his debut book, Goldstein draws from his multifaceted careers as a TV producer, congressional attorney, political consultant, and LGBTQ civil rights leader to probe the dynamics of widespread appeal in the public eye. He opens his insightful analysis with a real-life example of reputation preservation when he was contacted by Osama bin Laden’s half brother seeking assistance in saving the family name. Goldstein defines likability as a collection of the qualities that “welcome us into a satisfying emotional relationship” with another. As he notes, all of us can use these traits to encourage an appealing reaction from others. He calls the recognition of these key features “likeability literacy” and lucidly describes how outward appeal can enchant and captivate, much akin to falling in love, but it can also be important for companies to embrace it to ensure profitability and customer loyalty. In terms of public personalities, Goldstein points out specific characteristics shared by figures like Benjamin Franklin, who instinctually engaged his constituents through uplifting stories; Ellen DeGeneres, a relatable celebrity who captured a nation’s attention with a live Oscar telecast selfie, America’s sweetheart Betty White; and social justice advocate Malala Yousafzai. These and many others, Goldstein acknowledges, have garnered positive attention and greatly enthralled followers while a noted lack of these likable traits can cause popularity quotients (and stocks) to sink and elections to be lost. Goldstein’s expertise shines most in his delineations of eight classic likability traits and how each factors into and cultivates our impressions, opinions, and takeaways of others, particularly public figures like CEOs, world leaders, and celebrities. He breaks down each trait and pinpoints their individual strengths and durability within the arena of today’s hypercritical, impressionable culture, stressing the conclusive perception that “likeability is leverage.” An oddly tempting self-assessment analysis encourages readers to measure their own overall appeal. A psychologically provocative study on the gravity of charm, charisma, and outward impressions. (first printing of 40,000)
Dogs as doctors? Yes—psychiatrists, diagnosticians, even healers, as journalist Goodavage (Secret Service Dogs: The Heroes Who Protect the President of the United States, 2016, etc.) writes in her latest canine tribute. It’s long been observed that a dog is a human’s best friend, helpful in all sorts of situations, from sniffing out skiers buried in avalanches to interdicting illegal shipments of drugs and explosives. In this anecdotally driven book of reportage, the author allows that other animals have better senses of smell than dogs, but few have the discipline to combine their olfactory talents with the patience and alertness that allow them to perform tasks intimately connected to human health. In recent years, dogs have been trained to detect when a person suffering from diabetes might be headed for a blood-sugar crash or when someone with postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome might be about to faint. As Goodavage writes in the latter instance, one woman’s wheelchair “collects dust most weeks because [her dog] can give her warning a few minutes ahead of her syncope, allowing her enough time to get into a safe spot.” Other dogs have been trained to detect the presence of cancers, the onset of Parkinson’s and other motor disorders, and a host of other ailments. Goodavage imagines a time when technology will allow dogs to “speak” with voice alerts announcing that their charges are in need of attention, as the dog then “leads you to someone who’s having a severe allergic reaction, a seizure, or other medical emergency.” The book is overlong, with too many episodes adding up to the same conclusion—namely, that dogs can do wondrous things to improve our lives and health. Still, if Queen Elizabeth II, attending a demonstration of medical detection dogs, was moved to wonder whether dogs might be stationed at airports to find malaria victims, the author’s narrative might inspire thoughts of other applications. Fans of Elizabeth Marshall Thomas’ Hidden Lives of Dogs and similar books will want to have a look. A somewhat padded text that will nonetheless find plenty of readers.
75
INTERVIEWS & PROFILES
Dina Nayeri
THE IRANIAN AMERICAN NOVELIST REFLECTS ON THE REFUGEE EXPERIENCE—HERS AND OTHERS’—IN A NEW MEMOIR By Richard Z. Santos Photo courtesy Anna Leader
If Dina Nayeri’s mother had not converted to Christianity in the mid-1980s, her life and work would today be unrecognizable. Her mother became an activist in her hometown of Isfahan, Iran, spreading the word of Christianity under the watchful eyes of the Islamic Republic’s moral police. Eventually, the death threats and the isolation pushed Dina’s mother to flee Iran with 8-year-old Dina and her younger brother, Daniel. They reached the United Arab Emirates, then an Italian refugee camp in an abandoned hotel, and, eventually, Oklahoma. From the time she landed in the United States, young Dina was told how lucky she was to find “a better life.” The condescending phrase didn’t reflect her sense of dislocation or the grim surroundings. “Life was a big 76
|
1 september 2019
|
nonfiction
|
gray parking lot with cigarette butts baking in oil puddles, slick children idling in the beating sun, teachers who couldn’t do math. I dedicated my youth and every ounce of my magic to get out of there. A better life? The words lodged in my ear like grit,” she writes. This attitude is exactly why Nayeri, author of the novels A Teaspoon of Earth and Sea and Refuge, wrote her first memoir, The Ungrateful Refugee: What Immigrants Never Tell You (Catapult, Sept. 3). Nayeri’s book blends her own history with an illuminating and often infuriating exploration of the asylum process. Nayeri visits with refugees in Greece, spends time with a good-hearted but overwhelmed asylum lawyer in Amsterdam, and tells the divergent stories of Kaweh and Kambiz—two Iranian refugees whose lives run on parallel tracks to very different destinations. To Nayeri, these other stories aren’t sideshows to her own. Instead, they’re absolutely essential. “I kept coming back to this realization that there are secret, shameful calculations that the displaced make that the native born are never privy to,” Nayeri says. “But here I am, 30 years past my asylum, and I could finally confess these collective secrets to the native born.” These “secrets” come down to basic human needs for respect, companionship, and purpose. Nayeri explores how refugee camps and the asylum process fail to meet each of these needs. From camps where occupants aren’t allowed to work to charity organizations that expect every person to be grateful for a box of pre-selected food to immigration officers who demand a moving story of oppression and escape, the process reduces people in need to cogs in a machine. The Ungrateful Refugee doesn’t explore life in America’s growing migrant detention centers along the U.S.–Mexico border, but Nayeri is “starting the process” of writing about the camps through other, potential projects. “What’s happening at the border is incredible mismanagement of resources and a misunderstanding of what asylum means by the government,” Nayeri says. “Such chaos.” None of which is to say that Nayeri has given up hope. Her own story is one of finding herself through
kirkus.com
|
hard work and a cleareyed focus on her next steps. In the memoir, Nayeri explains how, as a 12-year old, she resolved to get into an Ivy League school and took up taekwondo because it would be “easy” to win a national championship. Now, she’s looking past herself. “I had a couple decades of just focusing on myself, my feelings. I had a divorce, a child, I became a writer. I’m fixed as much as a person can be,” Nayeri says. “Now it’s time to focus on what my purpose in this world is. How can I make it better? What’s my skill? Awaking to that purpose is what this book is about.” Too often, descriptions of the refugee “crisis” reduce asylum seekers to a wave of desperate people at best and at worst, a “horde” or “swarm” of criminals. “That’s why the response to refugees has to be grassroots,” Nayeri says. “No one is going to be moved away from their fear with statistics. It’s only with the realization that here are human beings and the only thing that is keeping them from experiencing better treatment is an accident of birth.” Personal, powerful, and impassioned, The Ungrate ful Refugee has the potential to open eyes. “That’s what gives me hope,” Nayeri says. “It’s easier than you think on the local level. It’s about storytelling and belief. It’s about the human connection.”
|
Grazer, Brian Simon & Schuster (208 pp.) $25.00 | Sep. 17, 2019 978-1-5011-4772-2 The award-winning Hollywood producer recounts how his skill in effectively making human connections has directly contributed to his successful career and
home life. In this upbeat though somewhat redundant follow-up to his previous book, A Curious Mind (2015), Grazer takes readers on a loose anecdotal journey through his life and career highlights, sparked by many memorable personal encounters. As a young boy struggling with the limitations and awkwardness of undiagnosed dyslexia, Grazer came to realize that books and classroom study weren’t going to provide his ideal path for learning. Instead, acquiring the ability to form meaningful human connections, starting with direct eye contact, would ultimately provide the results he desired. “To this day, connecting with people is still how I learn best,” writes the author. “More than that, it has become a central practice in every aspect of my life….It is my secret to getting things done, reaching my goals, and feeling energized and empowered. It’s how I thrive, how I grow, how I feel fulfilled, and how I feel purpose. Without doubt, I would not have the life I have today if I didn’t make the effort to genuinely connect with others.” Grazer goes on to describe the particulars of these many encounters, including the inspiring lessons he learned from master communicators such as Oprah Winfrey; his efforts building trust with temperamental artistic talents like Eddie Murphy, Spike Lee, and Eminem; and his methods for overcoming his anxiety about public speaking. Grazer is an amiable storyteller, and his reasoning can be persuasive. However, his examples too often cast a light on his achievements as a Hollywood insider rather than being relatable. As an influential film and TV producer, the odds are stacked in his favor that most individuals would want to interact with him. Here, he rarely summons up more common obstacle examples that would affect an average Joe. A retread of themes and content explored in his previous book, mainly of interest to fans of Grazer’s work.
kirkus.com
|
nonfiction
|
1 september 2019
|
y o u n g a d u lt
Richard Z. Santos is a writer and teacher living in Austin. The Ungrateful Refugee received a starred review in the June 15, 2019, issue.
FACE TO FACE The Art of Human Connection
77
A riveting Civil War history giving politics and combat equal attention. hymns of the republic
MARKET MOVER Lessons From a Decade of Change at Nasdaq
HYMNS OF THE REPUBLIC The Story of the Final Year of the American Civil War
Greifeld, Robert Grand Central Publishing (304 pp.) $28.00 | Oct. 8, 2019 978-1-5387-4513-7
Tales of financial wonder from the former CEO of Nasdaq. Founded in 1971, Nasdaq was meant to bring “order and fairness” to the chaotic over-the-counter stock trading system, posting information regularly so traders didn’t have to make separate phone calls to keep buy-sell price quotes current but instead could call in only to make an actual trade. Where the New York Stock Exchange reigned supreme, Nasdaq came to specialize in technology— ”the public-market parent to hundreds of promising children” that were too young to qualify for listing on the larger market. As Greifeld notes, representing technology also meant leveraging it, developing systems that sometimes lent themselves to gaming (think Michael Lewis’ Flash Boys). Those systems in turn were built by people in “jeans and sandals, not coats and ties,” who didn’t quite fit into the tidy corporate culture that the financial world represented. After wrestling with this violation of his rule of “cultural consistency,” Greifeld concluded that it was best to let the nerds have their way. The emphasis on consistency is well placed: As the author notes, Nasdaq, being highly regulated and central to the equity market generally, had to be at once innovative and reliable. The “disruptive innovation” that came with instances such as Facebook’s IPO proved a great test, as did the financial collapse that led to the great recession a decade ago, a scarifying event. “We all stared into the collective abyss in 2008,” writes Greifeld.” Anyone who took a good look into that dark and deep chasm, and came back from the brink, has not forgotten the view.” Most of the book is more upbeat than all that, peppered with “leadership lessons” along the lines of, “If you’ve been doing your job as a leader, you should be developing most of the talent you need in-house” and, “As long as you’re headed in the right direction, it’s less important how fast you are going.” Good reading for fiscal wonks, especially those with an interest in financial technology and information systems.
78
|
1 september 2019
|
nonfiction
|
Gwynne, S.C. Scribner (400 pp.) $32.00 | Oct. 29, 2019 978-1-5011-1622-3
An engrossing history of the final gasps of the Civil War, a year in which “Americans mourned their fathers and brothers and sons but also the way their lives used to be, the people they used to be, the innocence they had lost.” Journalist and historian Gwynne (The Perfect Pass: Ameri can Genius and the Reinvention of Football, 2016, etc.) begins in May 1864 with the Confederacy shrunken and impoverished but with no intention of surrendering. Aware that their armies were outmatched, Southern leaders kept their spirits up with a fantasy. If they could hold out until the November election, they believed, Lincoln would lose, and a Democratic administration would end the war, leaving the Confederacy intact. This was not entirely unreasonable. The July 1863 triumphs at Gettysburg and Vicksburg were ancient history. War weariness was common; Lincoln himself believed he would lose the election, and Northern media poured out invective. Everyone had high hopes when Ulysses Grant took command in March. Gwynne emphasizes that his strategy—unrelenting attacks on all fronts—was a war winner, but initial results were discouraging. Sherman stalled in front of Atlanta, and Grant couldn’t defeat Lee, although, unlike previous generals, he kept trying. As the author writes, by “the summer of 1864 the North was bitterly divided, heartily sick of the war, and headed into an election that would give full voice to all of that smoldering dissent.” Then, as fall approached, matters improved. Atlanta fell, Philip Sheridan eliminated the persistent threat to Washington in the Shenandoah Valley, rival candidates self-destructed, and Lincoln won reelection in a landslide. Five months of war remained, but the Union won all the battles. A consummate researcher, Gwynne has done his homework and is not shy with opinions. He especially admires Sherman, a mediocre general but an insightful thinker who taught that war had no positive value; it was misery pure and simple. He also punctures persistent myths, especially that of the great Appomattox reconciliation. Lee, Grant, and a few generals shook hands, but Union forces celebrated wildly, and Confederates fumed and stormed off. A riveting Civil War history giving politics and combat equal attention.
kirkus.com
|
THIS IS MY BODY A Memoir of Religious and Romantic Obsession
ESCAPE FROM PARIS A True Story of Love and Resistance in Wartime France
Hammon, Cameron Dezen Lookout Books (224 pp.) $17.95 paper | Oct. 22, 2019 978-1-940596-32-7
|
A poignant World War II saga of the relationship between an American gunner shot down over France and the French family who helped him. In his latest, Military History editor-in-chief Harding (Dawn of Infamy: A Sunken Ship, a Vanished Crew, and the Final Mystery of Pearl Harbor, 2016, etc.) tells the story of Joe Cornwall, who was part of the joint American and British group targeting Le Bourget airport near Paris on Bastille Day 1943. A horrendous collision sent Cornwall and some other survivors parachuting into the French countryside to spend months evading capture by the Germans. By a remarkable stroke of luck—and the help of kindly French people—Cornwall and a few of his buddies were directed to the shelter of the concierges of the famed Hôtel des Invalides in Paris, the home of invaluable works of art as well as famous tombs such as that of Napoleon. In the vast subterranean maze of the hotel, Georges Morin, a disabled veteran of World War I with a hatred for the Germans—along with his wife, Denise, and adult daughter, Yvette—sheltered several of the Allied soldiers. Harding gradually builds the suspense regarding the blossoming love between Cornwall and Yvette with nicely specific details of life in the Army and in occupied Paris. Eventually, the urgency of making the “home run” back to base in England required most of the survivors of the group to take the perilous route through Spain and the Pyrenees to Gibraltar. Ultimately, Cornwall did make the route home, somewhat later than his comrades, having secured an engagement with Yvette. Little did he know the perils that the Morins would face when they fell into the hands of the Gestapo. An engaging human story of the complicated and fraught relationship between the French and their American allies.
kirkus.com
|
nonfiction
|
1 september 2019
|
y o u n g a d u lt
A former megachurch worship leader comes to terms with her ailing marriage and a religious system that simultaneously elevated and marginalized her. As a teen, Hammon, the writer-in-residence for Writers in the Schools in Houston, was a vocal major at the prestigious Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School of Music & Art and Performing Arts in Manhattan. She was well on her way to carving out a career as a songwriter and performer when she became an Evangelical Christian in her mid-20s. It wasn’t exactly the path she’d originally imagined, but her newfound faith and her musical gifts seemingly aligned when she moved to Houston and eventually married her on-again, off-again boyfriend, Matt. The two often led congregations in worship as a team, though they also sometimes took jobs at separate churches. Whether she was fronting the duo or working solo, Hammon began to realize that her scope of influence was limited in the church because she was a woman. In this debut memoir, she chronicles her journey toward a “spiritual midlife,” where she dares to face questions and inconsistencies that are often at odds with conservative Evangelical doctrine. With a rare combination of candor and grace, the author exposes some of Evangelicalism’s frailties without disparaging or dismissing those who are still believers, making her narrative accessible to a wide audience. Hammon wisely focuses on storytelling and lets readers take away what they will. She also details her romantic obsession with another man; though she takes full responsibility for it, she illustrates how patriarchal religious systems and/or disengaged husbands can, among other things, leave women feeling abandoned and secretly longing for extramarital intimacy. Hammon’s story will resonate strongly with anyone who’s become disillusioned with conservative Christianity, especially women who are “trying to find a way to survive their unhappiness without dismantling their lives.” A generous and unflinchingly brave memoir about faith, feminism, and freedom.
Harding, Stephen Da Capo (288 pp.) $28.00 | Oct. 8, 2019 978-0-306-92216-9
79
An argument that, though seemingly from the fringe, bears consideration as the next election cycle heats up. the cult of trump
THE CULT OF TRUMP A Leading Cult Expert Explains How the President Uses Mind Control
AGENTS OF INFLUENCE A British Campaign, a Canadian Spy, and the Secret Plot to Bring America Into World War II
Hassan, Steven Free Press (320 pp.) $27.00 | Oct. 15, 2019 978-1-982127-33-6
A psychological portrait of the sitting president, whom the author considers a master of mind control. Having been a longtime member of Sun Myung Moon’s Unification Church and now an apostate, Hassan (Freedom of Mind: Helping Loved Ones Leave Controlling People, Cults, and Beliefs, 2012, etc.), the director of the Freedom of Mind Resource Center, is an authority on breaking away from cults. That there is a “cult of Trump” is something he takes as given; were there not, Evangelical Christians would not be allying with a man twice divorced and, by his own admission, many times adulterous, among other sins of the flesh and spirit. “Trump’s over 500 rallies are far more choreographed and stage-managed than Moon’s assemblies ever were,” writes the author, going on to examine the techniques of gaslighting and outright lying that Trump has employed from the very beginning, “influence techniques with a need for attention and control over others.” Even if one does not accept that Trump is a cult leader as such—all politicians, after all, have their core of true believers—Hassan makes it clear that he is a master of certain rhetorical devices that do not require much intelligence but speak to much practice: the repetition of words and phrases (e.g., “I’m a very stable genius, very smart”) that, through “a primarily unconscious and memory-based process,” lead the listener to think that they must be coming from more than one source and are therefore true, “crowding out analytical thinking and causing the mind to retreat into a kind of trance.” Hassan also counsels that challenging a cult member about the veracity of his or her object of veneration is bound to produce only a defensive reaction; in its place, he offers a diet that includes a good dose of healthy skepticism about what we read and hear. The author’s dark likening of Trump’s followers to those who drank poison at Jonestown is, let us hope, hyperbolic. An argument that, though seemingly from the fringe, bears consideration as the next election cycle heats up.
80
|
1 september 2019
|
nonfiction
|
Hemming, Henry PublicAffairs (384 pp.) $28.00 | Oct. 8, 2019 978-1-5417-4214-7
Hemming (Agent M: The Lives and Spies of MI5’s Maxwell Knight, 2017, etc.) tells the story of MI6 operative Bill Stephenson (the model for 007) and how crucial he was to America’s entry into World War II. Stephenson was sent to New York in June 1940, to convince U.S. officials to support England in her desperate fight against the Germans. Later that summer, President Franklin Roosevelt sent Bill Donovan on an unofficial visit to London to discern if England could survive. Stephenson knew of the visit and had MI6 take charge, wooing Donovan with royal visits and access to high-security operations. When Donovan returned to America, Stephenson convinced him the U.S. needed a stronger spy service. Donovan’s job was to get Roosevelt onboard. He was already leaning in that direction, ready to help in any way he could—everything that is, short of declaring war. Helping these interventionists was an East Coast group with strong influence called the Century Group. American isolationists, led by Charles Lindbergh, were their fiercest opponents. Lindbergh, who addressed huge crowds at anti-war rallies and justified Nazi aggression due to economic imbalance, received information from Hans Thomsen, the senior diplomat at the German Embassy in charge of keeping the U.S. out of the war. Thomsen developed the congressional “franking privilege” scheme whereby pro-German material could be mailed to sympathizers by sitting members of Congress for free. He also bribed newspapers to publish his false material. Stephenson and Donovan built the most diverse and extensive yet subtle propaganda drive ever directed by one sovereign state at another. In this page-turning spy thriller, Hemming shows how they mastered the art of starting rumors, infiltrating groups, and manipulating opinion polls. They also used forgeries, organized protests, and wiretaps and hacked into private communications. Their only rule: No rules. Fluid, sharp writing, deep research, and a spy network with unparalleled ingenuity provide a snappy read and lots of shockers.
kirkus.com
|
AMERICAN RADICALS How Nineteenth-Century Protest Shaped the Nation
MOVING FORWARD A Story of Hope, Hard Work, and the Promise of America
Jackson, Holly Crown (400 pp.) $28.00 | Oct. 8, 2019 978-0-525-57309-8
Jean-Pierre, Karine Hanover Square Press (352 pp.) $26.99 | Nov. 5, 2019 978-1-335-91783-6
|
Political analyst Jean-Pierre’s enthusiastic first book documents her life in politics and offers advice and encouragement to those thinking of taking a
similar path. Born in Martinique, the author was raised by working-class Haitian immigrant parents in New York. Realizing that she wasn’t going to fulfill her parents’ dream that she become a doctor, she was drawn to politics after getting a master’s degree in public administration from Columbia University. She was a regional director for the John Edwards campaign in 2004, served as Barack Obama’s regional political director in the Office of Political Affairs, and is now the chief public affairs officer for MoveOn.org and a political analyst for MSNBC. Along the way, she documents some of the pressures of entering the political scene as a young, black, immigrant, lesbian woman. However, she doesn’t dwell on these pressures, mentioning only in passing her experience of childhood sexual abuse and a suicide attempt. Instead, she focuses on the lessons of hard work and determination that she learned from her family. A committed Democrat, she believes unequivocally that Donald Trump is “unfit to be president.” Throughout the narrative, the author leaps from topic to topic, following a vaguely chronological arc without lingering long or delving deep into any subject or period of her life for more than a few pages. The book will be most useful as a source of advice and encouragement for those who think they might be interested in political action but don’t know where to start. Jean-Pierre offers strategies for networking, which she sees as the primary way to get ahead in the world of politics, and counsels pragmatism, patience, and frequent expression of gratitude. She also advocates for the role of local politics rather than “pulling up your roots, loading the van, and driving to Washington, to your state capital, or even to your county seat.” Inspiring for those who think politics is only for the rich and well connected.
kirkus.com
|
nonfiction
|
1 september 2019
|
y o u n g a d u lt
Sturdy historical account of the contributions of 19th-century radical thinkers to the present. That most Americans, at least on paper, work an eight-hour day is a product of American labor activists who took on the cause as an extension of abolitionism. That women have the right to vote was an outgrowth of the feminism that similarly grew from abolitionism, while it was largely the labors of the son of socialist reformer Robert Owen “that made no-fault divorce accessible nationwide.” So writes Jackson (History/Univ. of Massachusetts, Boston; American Blood: The Ends of the Family in American Literature, 18501900, 2013) in this overview of labor, political, and social activism throughout the 19th century. At the center of her story is Owen Sr., a wealthy British industrialist who saw in early America and its people “free and easy manners, the ‘extreme equality’ across classes, and their universal, near-fanatical engagement in politics as a form of social engineering.” The author writes that the figures who populate her narrative, among them William Lloyd Garrison and Susan B. Anthony, “worked across three entwined fields: slavery and race; sex and gender; property and labor.” Some of them would have been easily confused with the hippies of the 1960s while others were straitlaced in affect but fiery in effect. The great firebrand John Brown was neither, and while his raid at Harpers Ferry failed to incite a Nat Turner–like slave rebellion across the South—on that note, writes Jackson, Turner was the subject of gruesome remembrance, his “severed head…passed around for decades”—it did result in a hastening of Southern secession and with it the Union victory that led to abolition. The author’s account moves swiftly and interestingly, though the argument is not entirely novel; Manisha Sinha gets at many of the same points in The Slave’s Cause (2016). Still, Jackson’s book merits attention as a study in what she calls “slowrelease radicalism,” with seeming failures that eventually turned into successes. A useful survey of American activism and its lasting repercussions.
81
Terrific detective work revealing a man determined to forge his own destiny when his country said he couldn’t. all blood runs red
ALL BLOOD RUNS RED The Legendary Life of Eugene Bullard―Boxer, Pilot, Soldier, Spy Keith, Phil with Clavin, Tom Hanover Square Press (352 pp.) $27.99 | Nov. 5, 2019 978-1-335-00556-4
The picaresque adventures of a former slave’s son who achieved glory in both world wars and was nearly forgotten by his own country. Two intrepid authors and researchers—military historian and former Navy aviator Keith (America and the Great War: A 100th Anniversary Commemorative of America in World War I, 2019, etc.), a Purple Heart recipient, and Clavin (Wild Bill: The True Story of the American Frontier’s First Gunfighter, 2019, etc.)—team up in this dogged effort to excavate the facts of the amazing life of Eugene Bullard (1895-1961). In 1959, France recognized the achievements of the American pilot and soldier with its highest honor, the Legion of Honor, which subsequently gained Bullard, then an elevator operator at Rockefeller Center, his 15 minutes of fame on The Today Show. However, there was much that was never revealed in Bullard’s remarkable trajectory from indigent runaway to Jazz Age impresario and many details he fudged or perhaps forgot in an era of turbulent race relations when he later wrote his autobiography. Two traumatic events in his childhood propelled him to strike out on his own at age 11: the death of his Creek Indian mother when he was 6 and a white mob’s threatening to lynch his Haitian-born laborer father after a violent altercation with his foreman. Bullard managed never to look back, and the “French connection” from his roots propelled him to “a land where racial prejudice did not exist”—or so he imagined. The authors diligently pursue his story: learning to box in Scotland and then arriving in France just as World War I broke out; getting wounded at Verdun before embarking on a legendary, if short-lived position as a fighter pilot, probably the first black American to do so; and forging a career as a nightclub and athletic club owner in Paris before his next soldierly stint in World War II. Keith and Clavin constantly keep readers guessing about Bullard’s next move. Terrific detective work revealing a man determined to forge his own destiny when his country said he couldn’t.
82
|
1 september 2019
|
nonfiction
|
CLASSIC KRAKAUER Essays on Wilderness and Risk
Krakauer, Jon Anchor (192 pp.) $15.00 paper | Oct. 29, 2019 978-1-984897-69-5
An investigative journalist’s early work portrays his enduring fascination with human daring. Krakauer (Missoula: Rape and the Jus tice System in a College Town, 2015) gathers essays that were published in magazines such as Smithsonian and Outside from the mid-1980s through the 1990s along with two from 2014. The majority feature awe-inspiring locales that are enlivened by the author’s naturalist eye, and robust action and suspenseful pacing enhance careful explorations of power and innovation. A handful highlight larger-than-life people, including Californian surfer Mark Foo, who drowned at Mavericks (California), “one of the world’s heaviest waves,” and mountaineer Fred Beckey (1923-2017), “the original climbing bum.” Three pieces examine death in the context of industries that include surfing, rock climbing, and wilderness therapy camps. Among the strongest essays is “Loving Them to Death,” an exposé on abuse and teen deaths that happened under the neglectful watch of a camp leader. A solid mix of conversations, background, and travel adds up to cleareyed reportage that still shocks. In the reverent, often beautiful “Gates of the Arctic,” memory splices with reflections on the Alaskan Brooks Range and the damaging footprint left by locals and visitors. In two essays, Krakauer considers the future from different angles. In one, the author writes about Mount Rainier and the danger of inevitable mudflows. In the other, Krakauer chronicles his journey with scientists who study microbial life in the hope that it will spark longterm research on Mars. The author effectively balances natural drama with thoughtful reflection and fascinating facts. When the writing is cautionary, it plucks at emotional chords. When it travels wild vistas and tense excursions, it shows Krakauer at his best. A few pieces remain outliers, such as the closing essay, which was delivered as a speech and shuttles toward a reluctant conclusion. A profile of Christopher Alexander, an “iconoclastic architect of international repute,” is less hard-hitting and only mildly interesting. For fans, a nostalgic stop in a celebrated oeuvre. For newcomers, a welcome introduction to a veteran of the form.
kirkus.com
|
DISTURBANCE Surviving Charlie Hebdo
THEY DON’T REPRESENT US Reclaiming Our Democracy
Lessig, Lawrence Dey Street/HarperCollins (352 pp.) $26.99 | Nov. 5, 2019 978-0-06-294571-6
Lançon, Philippe Trans. by Rendall, Steven Europa Editions (448 pp.) $28.00 | Nov. 12, 2019 978-1-60945-556-9
|
kirkus.com
|
nonfiction
|
1 september 2019
|
y o u n g a d u lt
A survivor of the 2015 massacre in Paris recalls the brutality of the attack and narrates the seemingly endless series of his consequent surgeries and other treatments. Lançon, who worked (and still works) as a cultural critic for Charlie Hebdo, the satirical weekly, was severely wounded during the attack—shot in the face and left for dead on an office floor that, as he relates, was soaked in blood. Throughout the narrative, the author remains surprisingly calm, describing in an intelligent and deeply informed voice the assault and its grim aftermath. His account is also full of memories of Charlie Hebdo before the assault, of the author’s family and other emotional relationships, and of quotidian habits that became more precious as he could no longer control his life. For months, Lançon was hospitalized, endured countless surgeries to repair his face—one involved the removal of his fibula so surgeons could reconstruct his jawbone. He formed a close relationship with his principal surgeon and spent more months under armed surveillance by police bodyguards. But he was also a celebrity and even had a visit from the French president. Slowly, he began to reemerge into everyday life, and he commenced physical therapy, traveled, and moved back into his apartment. Although calm prevails in the text, Lançon also evinces many worries— including, near the end, mild anxiety about standing near Arabs on a public bus. Evident throughout is the author’s considerable literary knowledge. He read relentlessly in the hospital, and names of significant literary figures populate the narrative: Shakespeare, Proust, Hemingway, Orwell, Henry Miller, Koestler, Edith Wharton. “My new bookshelves gave a second life to the thousands of books that twenty years of shambles had devoured and whose existence had been forgotten,” writes Lançon. “They reappeared like old friends…without alarming me. They were silent, patient. What I had experienced could only nourish the lives they offered me.” A frank, relentless, gripping memoir that illustrates both man’s inhumanity to man and how quiet resolution can reclaim and restore.
In our endangered democracy, the nation’s citizens deserve to be heard. In his latest critique of American democracy, Lessig (Law and Leadership/ Harvard Law School; Fidelity and Con straint: How the Supreme Court Has Read the American Constitution, 2019, etc.), host of the podcast Another Way and co-founder of Creative Commons, focuses on a crisis that he sees as “much more fundamental” than the current president: “unrepresentativeness.” This lack of representation has several causes: the structure of the Senate, with two representatives from every state, no matter the population; the winner-take-all system in the Electoral College, which negates the choice of many voters and impels candidates to focus on swing states; campaign funding that gives wealthy contributors hefty influence; gerrymandering, which usually benefits extremists of both parties; and voters who lack a shared reality and “are divided and ignorant (at least about the other side) and driven to even more division and ignorance” by media that seek to make profits rather than to inform. “The consequence together is thus not a democracy that always bends to the rich,” Lessig argues persuasively. “It is a democracy that cannot bend, or function.” The author’s many proposals to improve representation are less convincing than his analysis of problems. His suggestions range from giving every citizen “speech credits” or “democracy coupons” to fund political campaigns to paying voters to watch long, “wonderful and hilarious” political ads. Lessig deems the Senate “the hardest circle to square,” admitting that some of his ideas—reforming the filibuster and allocating votes for leadership based on population—are unlikely to happen. As far as the Electoral College, the author advocates that states’ electors should reflect the national popular vote; or, if not, then Congress should allow electors to cast fractional votes. To engage the electorate, Lessig proposes “a congressional jury” made up of randomly chosen citizens to examine both sides of a public issue and make recommendations that, he asserts, a congressman would be morally bound to consider. An impassioned call to all Americans to fight for equal representation.
83
Invaluable political reportage in a time of crisis—and with little comfort in sight. antisocial
ANTISOCIAL Online Extremists, Techno-Utopians, and the Hijacking of the American Conversation
THE HOLLYWOOD KID The Violent Life and Violent Death of an MS-13 Hitman
Martínez, Óscar & Martínez, Juan José Trans. by Washington, John B. & Ugaz, Daniela Verso (320 pp.) $24.95 | Oct. 1, 2019 978-1-78663-493-1
Marantz, Andrew Viking (400 pp.) $28.00 | Oct. 8, 2019 978-0-525-52226-3
A searching study of the right-wing gate-crashers who have overwhelmed social media in the Trump era. New Yorker staff writer Marantz is fond of Martin Luther King’s arc of history/arc of justice trope, though he allows that King himself wasn’t quite as optimistic as his famed aphorism might suggest: We bend the arc of history, he notes, and it’s pretty twisted at the moment. More to the point is political philosopher Richard Rorty’s 20-year-old warning that the decline of progressivism meant that the only political figures “channeling the mounting rage of the newly dispossessed” would be populists on the right. Bingo, and with them, Rorty added, would come the rollback of civil rights gains, to say nothing of heightened misogyny and socially acceptable sadism. Marantz’s travels into the camps of those right-wingers at the gates proves Rorty correct, and the author clearly documents their use of social media to advance right-wing causes, leveraging such vehicles as Facebook, whose owner, Mark Zuckerberg, pleaded innocence by insisting “that Facebook was a platform, not a publisher.” Some of the figures that Marantz covers are selfserving disrupters who threw verbal grenades into the crowd just to see what would happen. Others are true believers, notably the alt-right figure Richard Spencer, who turns up at odd moments. Some are even more or less reputable journalists who weren’t upset to see the “smug little cartel” of the establishment press taken down a few notches by the Trump administration. TV news, “dominated by horse-race politics and missing planes and viral outrage,” may be bad, writes Marantz, but what if what comes along next is worse? He makes his own case, wading into the throngs of rightist influencers with some trepidation but no effort to disguise his establishment credentials. It’s not a happy picture, but Marantz does offer some hope in the evident splintering of the right as the provocateurs discover that “all memes eventually outlast their utility.” Invaluable political reportage in a time of crisis—and with little comfort in sight.
84
|
1 september 2019
|
nonfiction
|
An MS-13 hit man–turned-informer provides extraordinary access to the coauthors before meeting his fate. “This is a book about scraps,” write journalist Óscar Martínez (A History of Violence: Living and Dying in Central America, 2016, etc.) and his ethnographer brother, Juan José Martínez. By “scraps,” they don’t mean the colloquial fights, though their narrative is filled with those, many of them lethal. They mean discards, “leftovers that the enormous machinery of the United States chucks across its borders.” In a vicious cycle, the violence bred in Los Angeles, where gang warfare pits ethnicities against each other, returns home through deportation and spreads and increases through international networks to become a threat to governments in both countries. Though Miguel Ángel Tobar never left his native El Salvador or came close to the Hollywood that earned him his nickname, he was a murderer before his teens, ultimately responsible for so much of the bloodshed that would make his homeland “the most murderous country in the world.” Yet this story is as much about the international forces that shaped the killer who operated below the international radar as the violence spread by U.S. policies that support the repressive regimes in the countries where gang members can recruit acolytes to form larger and deadlier gangs. Caught in this cycle, Tobar turned informer for the police, testifying at trials behind a mask, his voice doctored, though his identity apparently wasn’t much in doubt. Between police corruption that spread to prisons that were controlled by the gangs and the brutal justice that gang loyalty demanded, the fate of the informer was never in doubt, either—it wasn’t a matter of if, but when. The immediate narrative both begins and ends with Tobar’s death, but in between, he shares his story of a life that offered few choices, none of them good. An account that makes it difficult for American readers to ignore their country’s role in violence south of the border.
kirkus.com
|
MORE FROM LESS The Surprising Story of How We Learned to Prosper Using Fewer Resources—and What Happens Next
THE RISE OF WOLF 8 Witnessing the Triumph of Yellowstone’s Underdog McIntyre, Rick Greystone Books (304 pp.) $26.95 | Oct. 15, 2019 978-1-77164-521-8
McAfee, Andrew Scribner (352 pp.) $28.00 | Oct. 8, 2019 978-1-982103-57-6
y o u n g a d u lt
The future may not be so bleak after all. MIT digital researcher McAfee (co-author: Machine, Plat form, Crowd: Harnessing Our Digital Future, 2017, etc.) ventures that four other horsemen are riding, and perhaps outpacing the familiar apocalyptic ones—namely, “capitalism, technological progress, public awareness, and responsive government.” By his lights, the Club of Rome Limits to Growth report of half a century past was overly Malthusian, and its authors “clearly underestimated both dematerialization and the endless search for new reserves.” The former, the shift to a cyber-based service economy, is easy enough to understand; as McAfee notes, all you have to do is think of the many tools that a modern smartphone replaces, and certainly, fewer resources are required. Still, there are plenty of mountainsides that have gone into that phone, and as for that endless search, McAfee’s enthusiasm for the mineral wealth brought by fracking seems to overlook a few unpleasant externalities. He counters that those externalities, costs that are not immediately evident on a balance sheet, have been allowed for in such market innovations as the buying and selling of rights to pollute, the so-called “cap and trade” program that initially met with great enthusiasm but that, McAfee admits, “aren’t enough,” particularly in an economic environment that no longer penalizes bad behavior. Even so, assuming his numbers are correct, the author offers hopeful news with the thought that greenhouse gas emissions are falling and that many developed-world economies are using smaller quantities of metals, chemicals, and the like. Given that a fundamental tenet of economics is that scarcity governs the availability and distribution of resources, McAfee’s certainty that the planet is “big enough to contain” all the resources we’ll need “for as long as we’ll need them” might seem to some readers counterintuitive, as he allows. A cogent argument, though climate scientists may find McAfee’s assumptions and faith in market solutions too rosy.
From a dedicated wolf observer and naturalist comes an admiring and detailed portrait of Wolf 8, a nervy runt who was bullied by his bigger brothers but who grew up to become the alpha male of his pack. While the return of wolves to Yellowstone National Park has been widely reported in the media and written about in numerous books, McIntyre (A Society of Wolves, 1993, etc.) gives the story a special twist. In addition to chronicling his close tracking of the wolf packs in Yellowstone and noting their movements, he comments on their personalities, telling readers about their behaviors, thoughts, and feelings. The author had become a student of wolves before any were released into Yellowstone, and for 15 years, he awoke daily to watch them, recognizing them by sight and referring to dozens of individuals by the numbers assigned to them (at the beginning of the book, he includes a list of the “principal wolves”). In fact, as noted in an afterword, “from June 2000 to August 2015, [McIntyre] went out for 6,175 consecutive days.” The courageous behavior of one young gray wolf facing up to a grizzly bear caught his attention early on; in most chapters, the exploits of Wolf 8 are at the center of the narrative. He identifies strongly with this particular animal, drawing on his own memories of roughhousing play with a remote father and as a boy facing bullies. McIntyre exults in Wolf 8’s befriending of two young pups, which made him the mate of their mother, the alpha female of her pack. Refreshingly, the author does not anthropomorphize. As he notes, the wolves are still wild creatures, driven to breed and to kill, and he provides a relatively sentiment-free depiction of the inevitable decline and death of Wolf 8. Robert Redford provides the foreword. A comprehensive account permeated by love for and understanding of wolves. (8-page color insert; map)
AMERICAN EPIDEMIC Reporting From the Front Lines of the Opioid Crisis
Ed. by McMillian, John New Press (304 pp.) $17.99 paper | Oct. 22, 2019 978-1-62097-519-0
Diverse perspectives on an American tragedy. “No Family Is Safe From This Epidemic,” the title of a U.S. Navy admiral’s essay on his son’s fatal overdose, suggests the tone of this eclectic collection of nonfiction about the opioid epidemic. The |
kirkus.com
|
nonfiction
|
1 september 2019
|
85
book focuses on the aftermath of the disaster set in motion in 1996 when Purdue Pharma released the painkiller OxyContin and misled doctors, patients, and regulators about its addictive potential, ultimately driving users to cheaper street heroin. But rather than rehash the sins of drug companies, McMillian (American History/Georgia State Univ.; Beatles vs. Stones, 2014, etc.) gathers essays, reporting, and book excerpts that show the effects of the crisis on users, families, doctors, and law enforcement. Tom Mashberg and Rebecca Davis O’Brien expose a heroin mill on a quiet cul-de-sac in suburban New Jersey, and Margaret Talbot chronicles her meeting with a paramedic who saw a heartbreaking scene at a West Virginia home: a 7-yearold and a 5-year-old following a 911 operator’s instructions for performing CPR on their overdosed parents. In some of the most provocative pieces, contributors or their sources disagree on the value of options like 12-step programs or the synthetic opioids methadone or Suboxone or give surprising answers to thorny moral questions. A skeptical Sarah Resnick visited Vancouver’s controversial Insite, the first legal supervised druginjection site in North America and left convinced that such initiatives save lives. Other contributors include Christopher Caldwell, Julia Lurie, Beth Macy, Gabor Maté, Sam Quinones, Andrew Sullivan, Johan Hari, and Leslie Jamison, who provides a foreword. If Sullivan’s views are more conservative than most in the book, they are hardly more optimistic: “If Marx posited that religion is the opiate of the people, then we have reached a new, more clarifying moment in the history of the West: Opiates are now the religion of the people.” A kaleidoscopic introduction to the devastation wrought by—and possible remedies for—the opioid crisis.
ORGANIZED MONEY Progressives Can Leverage the Financial System To Work for Them, Not Against Them Mestrich, Keith & Pinsky, Mark A. New Press (272 pp.) $26.99 | Oct. 8, 2019 978-1-62097-504-6
An exploration of how politically and socially progressive individuals can invest their money with financial institutions seeking to alleviate socio-economic inequities. Mestrich is the president of Amalgamated Bank, described as “the nation’s leading socially responsible bank,” and Pinsky is a former leader of what is known as the community development financial institution industry. The authors devote much of the book to educating their readers on the financial system. They understand that even the most politically progressive individuals tend to deposit their savings in nearby bank branches due to habit and/or convenience as well as buy insurance from massive corporations that feed elected officials tied to anti-egalitarian conservative politics. “Organized money holds immense power and influence, which we call money muscle,” write the authors. 86
|
1 september 2019
|
nonfiction
|
“The U.S. financial sector is the dominant economic, policy, political, social, and cultural force in the world. It largely determines who in the private and public sectors gets to do what with the extraordinary amount of money in play. And it is deeply and proudly conservative.” Mestrich and Pinsky are convinced that progressives control enough money—though not nearly as much as conservatives—to create their own financial institutions, which will then practice socially responsible investing. One example is Mestrich’s Amalgamated Bank, another is the credit union, an institution controlled by its members. The authors provide many other concrete examples of specific progressive enterprises that organize money so it can be leveraged in ways that would disdain most conservative politicians and financiers. The authors note that while the 2008 financial crash raised awareness of the importance of pulling money away from traditional banks, regulators failed to make any significant improvements or install effective safeguards. The authors do good service in laying out the foundational principles of a nascent but growing movement, but the density of the narrative may deter some readers. A thought-provoking primer sometimes weighed down by abstraction and repetition.
BURY MY HEART AT CHUCK E. CHEESE’S
Midge, Tiffany Bison/Univ. of Nebraska (216 pp.) $24.95 | Oct. 1, 2019 978-1-4962-1557-4 Standing Rock Sioux writer Midge (The Woman Who Married a Bear: Poems, 2016, etc.) delivers powerful, often funny observations on life as a Native American woman in a contentious time. As poet and novelist Geary Hobson observes in his foreword, Native people are too often thought of, at least by nonNatives, as humorless: “stolid, dour, ready to pounce on you (if you are white) and take away that unnecessary scalp.” Not so Midge, who loves a pun, a play on words, and a goofy recasting of pop-culture tropes: “Gag me with a coup stick” are the first words that appear in the book, followed shortly afterward by an exchange with her mother that includes the title’s play on another title, that of Dee Brown’s classic Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee, and works in Chief Joseph with the witticism, “I will fight no more about putting the toothpaste cap on, forever.” The laughter isn’t frivolous, Midge suggests, but rather a way of thumbing a nose at death and the dominant culture. There’s a lot to fight, of course. One of her essays imagines that before trying on African American culture, the one-time headline grabber Rachel Dolezal was a “pretendian,” one of those pretend Indians whose numbers, she reckons, run to about 54% of the population. In another, the author considers other kinds of ethnic border crossings on a trip to Thailand, where she realized that, at least in that context, she was as American as any other American: “big trucks, big talk, big bombs, big money….”
kirkus.com
|
Much different from most musicians’ memoirs and of much interest to all who wrestle to understand tragedies of their own. blood
She does not, however support Donald Trump, who doesn’t fare well in these pages, and she chides her fellow citizens for being ignorant of “racism, sexism, and living and supporting an authoritarian regime.” There are a few misses here and there, but mostly Midge hits, and hits hard. If you’re wondering why the presence of Andrew Jackson’s portrait in the Oval Office is offensive, this is your book.
THE CIGARETTE A Political History Milov, Sarah Harvard Univ. (400 pp.) $35.00 | Oct. 25, 2019 978-0-674-24121-3
|
Moorer, Allison Da Capo (320 pp.) $27.00 | Oct. 29, 2019 978-0-306-92268-8
Country music singer Moorer recounts a scarifying, life-defining event: the murder-suicide of her parents. “Someone can take himself out, fine, but they leave behind those who love them with a never-ending list of questions and a shadow hanging over everything, like a dark triptych in the middle of the room.” So writes Moorer, who, like her sister, fellow country singer Shelby Lynne, has been living for more than 30 years with the memory of the gunshots by which her father killed her mother and then turned the gun on himself. Moorer is her own Rashomon, exploring that terrible event from every possible side, examining the living, recalling the words of the dead, concluding that, given the abuse and alcohol that flowed through the relationship, the end seemed inevitable. The dark triptych of which she writes represents a hazy unknowability, the list of questions keys that can never be recovered since the answers can never come. Affecting in its cleareyed depiction of the lives that are shattered all around the immediate victims, including her then-14-year-old self, Moorer’s account examines the lingering effects—e.g., mistrust and a habit of leaving relationships before they’re over. “Let me store resentments like I’m canning vegetables for the winter” she writes, “so I’ll slowly develop a deep, smoldering hatred in return for my deep disappointment.” Yet she tried to think of herself in terms other than the daughter of a murderer, the daughter of a murder victim. There is much wisdom in her experience as well as in her reflections on what she has read and heard, as with her note that one great step forward is to “give up hope for a better past.” That her past is worse than most has posed countless challenges, it’s evident in these pages, but Moorer confronts it with an unblinking honesty that is sometimes long on self-doubt and short on comfort. Much different from most musicians’ memoirs and of much interest to all who wrestle to understand tragedies of their own.
y o u n g a d u lt
The cigarette in America, a history that “does not begin and end with Big Tobacco.” Milov (History/Univ. of Virginia) mixes big-picture academic theory with fascinating, specific details to illuminate the rise and fall of tobacco production—and cigarette sales—in the United States. In 1965, writes the author, “politicians, experts, and everyday Americans increasingly knew that cigarettes were deadly… yet 42 percent of Americans smoked.” The estimated number of smokers today is 15 percent. Milov shows how sales were boosted by the combined efforts of tobacco growers, wholesalers, retailers, industry lobbyists, public relations professionals from the private sector, labor unionists, and players within federal, state, and local governments. Then she explains how the increasingly well-documented health hazards from cigarettes led nonsmokers—including public-interest lawyers—to push local governments and employers to curtail smoking in public places and workplaces. At intervals within the mostly chronological narrative, the author discusses how tobacco farmers and cigarette manufacturers managed to sell their products in countries all over the world, with deadly consequences for consumers but positive economic consequences for foreign governments through the taxation of those consumers. Mostly, though, Milov focuses on American politics and the consumers affected by the policies surrounding cigarettes. At times, the author engages with philosophical questions: Is smoking a legal “right”? Do nonsmokers have a “right” to reside in a nonhazardous environment? Who should decide those rights when claims conflict? Throughout, Milov offers intriguing historical tidbits: For example, cigarette sales shot up during both world wars because U.S. military leaders decided the troops would feel appreciated if they received free cigarettes while deployed. In addition, the author shares compelling information about why labor union leaders wanted smoking allowed on the job even after the deadly nature of cigarettes became evident. The leading insight: Unions did not want to surrender control over what became mandatory smoking breaks. A fine history of “the political economy of tobacco.” (21 photos)
BLOOD A Memoir
SHADOW NETWORK Media, Money, and the Secret Hub of the Radical Right
Nelson, Anne Bloomsbury (384 pp.) $28.00 | Oct. 29, 2019 978-1-63557-319-0
The background machinations—digital, financial, religious, and otherwise— that have enabled the American far right to ascend and wield increasing political power that is disproportionate to their numbers.
kirkus.com
|
nonfiction
|
1 september 2019
|
87
Nelson (International and Public Affairs/Columbia Univ.; Suzanne’s Children: A Daring Rescue in Nazi Paris, 2017, etc.), a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, spent years researching this account of the 1981 formation and burgeoning influence of the Council for National Policy, an ultraconservative (and once-secretive) group that opposes abortion and gay marriage and that advances the cause of fundamentalist Christianity in all aspects of American life. The author’s approach is chronological, analytical, and admonitory, as she fears the effects on our democracy of the deep divisions in our electorate, especially in the digital age. Nelson highlights some key moments in our history: the arrival of the Puritans, the Democrats’ loss of the once-solid South (occasioned by their support of civil rights legislation), and the presidencies of Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, and their successors of both parties. She describes the enormous power on public opinion of cable news and of the pervasive digital platforms. Most of all, the author follows the money, from the Koch brothers to the DeVos family and others (she does not neglect the left-wing money from George Soros). Countless millions have flowed from those sources to political organizations, individuals, and campaigns. Nelson observes that even though Barack Obama won two presidential elections, the opposition to him and his policies (especially health care) swelled among the CNP and their affiliates. She also deals substantially with Donald Trump, the moral compromises evangelicals employed to justify their support of him, and the purges of moderate Republicans from positions of authority. She recognizes, as well, how the internal battles of Democrats have been self-defeating. Though partisan, the text nonetheless raises significant red flags that should alarm everyone who believes in democracy.
AMERICA IS IMMIGRANTS
Nović, Sara Illus. by Kolesar, Alison Random House (288 pp.) $20.00 | Oct. 15, 2019 978-1-984819-82-6
As the title suggests, this book shows how profound and pervasive the immigrant influence has been on American life. Scratch beneath the surface of nearly any facet of what is considered American culture, and you’ll likely find the imprint of someone who came to the country from somewhere else. Such is the lesson of this collaboration between novelist Nović (Girl at War, 2015), who was born and raised in America within an immigrant family, and illustrator Kolesar, who emigrated from Scotland. Here, they celebrate more than 200 individuals, with capsule biographies of no more than a page and full-color portraits that attest to the cultural diversity and vitality of the immigrant influence. “There are 193 member states in the United Nations; this book contains at least one person from each of them,” states the introduction. One two-page spread on “Classic American Products” pays 88
|
1 september 2019
|
nonfiction
|
tribute to those responsible for Levi’s, hamburgers, Nathan’s hot dogs, Carvel ice cream, and Chevrolet, all-American iconography that owes its genesis to Germany, Denmark, Poland, Greece, and Switzerland, respectively. The all-American Chef Boyardee was known in his native Italy as Ettore Boiardi. After the assassination attempt on President Ronald Reagan, when he “famously quipped to his doctors, ‘Please tell me you’re Republicans,’ ” three members of his medical team were from Malaysia, “Nicaragua/Mexico,” and “a refugee of Nazi Germany…raised in an American orphanage.” Lest anyone think this is a work of partisan ideology, among those celebrated is “the only naturalized citizen ever to become First Lady, Melania Trump,” balanced a couple of pages later by Hungarian refugee and billionaire human rights activist George Soros. As the narrative clearly shows, from music to fine arts, from the stage to the big screen, from scientific discoveries to athletic records, the history of American culture is impossible to record without significant immigrant representation. A book that makes its point over and over again without belaboring it.
VOLUME CONTROL Hearing in a Deafening World
Owen, David Riverhead (304 pp.) $28.00 | Oct. 29, 2019 978-0-525-53422-8
New Yorker staff writer Owen (Where the Water Goes: Life and Death Along the Colorado River, 2017, etc.) makes sense of hearing and its loss. An estimated 37 million Americans have lost some hearing, writes the author of this unusually informative and entertaining account. Fortunately, as one scientist told him, “there is no better time in all of human history to be a person with hearing loss.” In the 1700s, the hard of hearing used ear trumpets. Now there are many remedies for the two-thirds of Americans 70 or older who have lost some hearing. Hearing aids are improving, and inexpensive high-tech substitutes—including over-the-counter headphones—are available. Physicians may soon be able to reverse losses once considered hopeless. Himself a mid-60ish tinnitus sufferer, Owen discusses his talks with numerous experts and patients and describes revealing visits to Massachusetts Eye and Ear, Connecticut’s American School for the Deaf, Bose Corporation, Starkey Hearing Technologies, and other research centers and companies. His highly anecdotal narrative explores every aspect of hearing, including its “Rube Goldberg machine” complexity, why most people wait more than 10 years to do anything about hearing problems, and the terrible effects of the noise of battle—one-fifth of all hearing aids sold in the U.S. are bought by the Department of Veterans Affairs. In clear, appealing prose, Owen explains how loud sounds—machinery, live music, etc.—can leave people no longer noticing smoke alarms, sirens, gunshots, and backup signals. Hearing loss is so
kirkus.com
|
More somber than funny but an eye-opening look at a place that doesn’t figure on most travelers’ bucket lists. north korea journal
common that the author discovers many friends and colleagues have the problem. Through their stories, he makes earwax interesting, explores sudden and single-sided deafness, and identifies the restaurants (always a challenge for the hearingimpaired) that are quietest (Chinese, Indian, and Japanese) and loudest (Mexican) in New York City. The book brims with useful advice: “Deafness is expensive. Earplugs aren’t.” A bright, upbeat, sometimes funny dive into a serious subject that will spur many readers to get their ears tested.
NORTH KOREA JOURNAL
Palin, Michael Penguin Random House Canada (176 pp.) $24.50 | Nov. 5, 2019 978-0-7352-7982-7
|
Parks, Tim New York Review Books (320 pp.) $18.95 paper | Oct. 22, 2019 978-1-68137-397-3
What accounts for our experience of reality? British novelist and nonfiction writer Parks (In Extremis, 2017, etc.) turns his attention from Italy, the cherished landscape he has evoked in several previous books, to Heidelberg, Germany, where he journeys into the dazzling, mysterious landscape of the mind. The author went to Heidelberg to participate in an interdisciplinary project focused “on the business of being conscious,” and he was guided by an overarching question: “do the models, the explanations, whatever that we have of consciousness, the version of events that our various authorities sign up to, make sense?” Parks recounts with generous and eager openness his conversations with leading philosophers and neuroscientists from whom he gleaned three positions about consciousness, defined “simply as the feeling that accompanies our being alive, aware of perceptive experience.” The most prevalent view holds that consciousness is produced in the brain by physical and chemical processes; a minority view, known as “enactivist,” holds that consciousness emerges from interaction with the world, requiring “both subject and object to happen”; and a smaller minority puts forth the Spread Mind view, “in which experience is made possible by the meeting of perceptive system and the world” and “located at the object perceived.” Since the proponent of the Spread Mind view is the author’s friend and confidant, he tries mightily to give credence to a perspective that he finds intuitively difficult to accept. Parks is fascinated by the work of neuroscientists but frustrated by the notion “that all our experience is internal to the brain and everything that we are is essentially a matter of what goes on in those three pounds of grey jelly.” In brain studies, he adds, there is a “gap between facts and storyline,” between “the nitty gritty” of scientific findings and speculation about “what these findings mean.” In the end, the author advises readers to test scientific theories against their own lived experience. “When it comes to consciousness,” he asserts, “we are all repositories of quantities of evidence far richer than any available in the neuroscientist’s laboratory.” A lucid exploration of thinking, perceiving, and being human.
kirkus.com
|
nonfiction
|
1 september 2019
|
y o u n g a d u lt
The peripatetic Briton journeys behind the most unyielding of iron curtains. “The only advice which really saddens me is the one which seems to strike at the very essence of traveling,” writes Palin (Erebus: The Story of a Ship, 2018, etc.)—namely, the warning that a foreigner in North Korea shouldn’t try to mix with the ordinary people. That, of course, is the author’s stock in trade, and it surprised him and his crew to find that in many instances, their North Korean handlers, true believers though they may have been, accommodated them in such matters as taking meals in ordinary restaurants filled with working-class (and highly bibulous) citizens. Palin’s travelogue contains much that is expected, though with his lightly learned way of putting things, as when he writes of crossing the border from China over the Yalu River: “A socialist market economy slips away and a largely unreformed command economy starts to emerge between the flashing black beams of the bridge.” His travels included a brief visit to the sacred highest peak in the land, the vision of which was marred by a vast statue to an earlier dictator in the Kim lineage. Palin is not quite as funny here as he usually is, but that’s small wonder given that he is chronicling his travels to one of the grimmest places on the planet, if one with its own surrealisms—e.g., a statue that depicts, among other heroically revolutionary figures, “two women looking heavenwards, one of them carrying a chicken, the other a television.” Still, one has to smile at the thought of the author showing a video of the famed Monty Python sketch known as the Fish-Slapping Dance to a bewildered audience, a member of which was concerned with whether the large fish in question was alive. Palin also works in a nice sidelong reference to Life of Brian. More somber than funny but an eye-opening look at a place that doesn’t figure on most travelers’ bucket lists. (color photos throughout)
OUT OF MY HEAD On the Trail of Consciousness
89
RADICAL The Science, Culture, and History of Breast Cancer in America Pickert, Kate Little, Brown Spark (304 pp.) $28.00 | Oct. 1, 2019 978-0-316-47032-2
In-depth coverage of breast cancer from a health care journalist and survivor. “In addition to being the most public of all the cancers,” writes Pickert (Journalism/Loyola Marymount Univ.), “carcinoma of the breast may be the most thoroughly studied malignancy in human history.” In her first book, the author explores the history of the disease and its many variations, the progression of treatment regimes, and the cultural awareness that has developed thanks to individuals and big corporations participating in pink-ribbon campaigns. As a health care journalist, Pickert was interested in the subject, but it became even more important when she was diagnosed with an aggressive form of the cancer at the relatively young age of 35. She interweaves the story of her own treatment schedule with the historical, cultural, and scientific data she collected on this well-documented carcinoma. The narrative is informative and personable and thankfully never maudlin or melodramatic. One of the more controversial topics Pickert explores is mammograms: how early women should begin having them, how often, and whether there is a better way to identify cancer cells at an early stage so women can get the best treatment possible. Readers learn about the extremely radical surgeries performed in the late 1880s, which often left women deformed, as well as the latest studies, which provide treatment based on an individual’s genetic and family history. Pickert addresses the development of effective drugs, including both synthetics and those derived from plant and tree bark. “As I type this sentence,” she writes, “1,823 federally registered breast cancer clinical trials are actively recruiting patients.” She also includes information on men with breast cancer, an underdiscussed topic. Though not comprehensive, the book provides readers with a wide range of information to help those with breast cancer and their support groups make the most effective decisions for their own treatment. A useful text on a well-known cancer bolstered by the author’s personal perspective as a survivor.
THE BOOK OF EATING Adventures in Professional Gluttony Platt, Adam Ecco/HarperCollins (320 pp.) $27.99 | Nov. 12, 2019 978-0-06-229354-1
A memoir of a life in food that is as much a reminiscence of family and travel as a discursive account of 20 years of culinary trends and developments. In the summer of 2000, Platt succeeded Gael Greene as restaurant critic of New York magazine, well aware of the haughty, slightly absurd image the food critic held in the public imagination. The former travel writer was nonetheless a natural “gastronaut.” The son of a career diplomat, Platt and his brothers had grown up at various posts, chiefly in Asia, with stopovers in his native New York as well as Washington, D.C. The Platt family dove into each food world with the gusto of omnivorous feeders. Platt learned early on how to escape the expatriate cocoon and dive into a culture. Little has changed: “I’ve always equated the glamor of travel and living in far-off lands with the eternal joys of a good meal.” The author fell in love with the theatrical pageantry of restaurants, and he would come to see a critique as “part cultural essay, part personal diary, part service journalism, and part travel and cultural commentary.” A James Beard Award winner, Platt writes that the strange Kabuki world of the restaurant critic, a once-rarefied realm, has given way—for good and ill—to the democratizing influences of social media and internet culture, which he chronicles with some distaste (and grudging appreciation). The self-styled “Grumpy Adam” can be as admiring as he is dyspeptic, but his disquisitions on the art and practice of criticism sometimes slip into excessive self-deprecation. Still, his tone is comradely, offering not only an elegy for a vanished golden era of New York cuisine and the traditional expense-account food junket, but also a lament over the disappearance of so many gifted old-school critics, many of whom have been replaced by manic bloggers. A candid, entertaining look at an often bizarre new gustatory landscape.
BITTER RECKONING Israel Tries Holocaust Survivors as Nazi Collaborators
Porat, Dan Belknap/Harvard Univ. (272 pp.) $29.95 | Oct. 15, 2019 978-0-674-98814-9 An exploration of Holocaust survivors who collaborated with the Nazis, a history that shows “the spectrum of possible types of victims in the Holocaust.” These are stories of those who served on Jewish councils and police set up by the Nazis and the kapo, a prisoner who 90
|
1 september 2019
|
nonfiction
|
kirkus.com
|
An eye-opening, consistently fascinating, and engrossing profile of the modern spiritualist movement. the in-betweens
THE LIFE AND AFTERLIFE OF HARRY HOUDINI
Posnanski, Joe Avid Reader Press (336 pp.) $28.00 | Oct. 22, 2019 978-1-5011-3723-5
Unlocking the doors to the legendary performer’s world of magic. Noting that there are more than 500 books about Ehrich Weiss, aka Harry Houdini (1874-1926), MLB.com national columnist Posnanski (The Secret of Golf: The Story of Tom Watson and Jack Nicklaus, 2016, etc.) still delivers a jaunty and infectious biography of the famous magician and his impact on magic and popular culture. The author relates his discussions with magicians who have emulated or criticized Houdini’s magic as well as the “truest believer[s]” who have studied and written about him for years. As a young boy, writes Posnanski, “locks spoke to Houdini, and Houdini understood.” Though he said he was born in Appleton, Wisconsin, he was actually born in Budapest. This lie, discovered Posnanski, is a key to understanding how Houdini achieved his mythic status. “[Houdini] believed that magic was about the performer more than the performance,” writes the author, “and the bigger, gaudier, more dangerous, more thrilling, the better.” Posnanski’s Houdini is a consummate liar and a genius at self-promotion. He hired |
ghost writer H.P Lovecraft to “tell exaggerated tales about him or write short stories under the Houdini name” and planted self-aggrandizing stories about himself in the local newspapers of the towns where he performed. Posnanski is excellent at describing Houdini’s greatest escapes, from the famous Mirror Cuffs to straitjackets. The author chronicles his visit to David Copperfield’s private museum; the Houdini Museum in Scranton, Pennsylvania, where he viewed the rare Houdini film, The Grim Game; and the Academy of Magical Arts’ exclusive Magic Castle, where he finally got to meet Patrick Culliton, author of the rare and coveted Houdini: The Key. Houdini was good as a magician, Posnanski learns—he created the popular needles-inthe-mouth trick and made an elephant disappear—but he was, above all, a remarkable performer. Spoiler alert: The author does not reveal any Houdini secrets. Entertaining and brimming with wonder.
THE IN-BETWEENS The Spiritualists, Mediums, and Legends of Camp Etna Ptacin, Mira Liveright/Norton (288 pp.) $26.95 | Oct. 29, 2019 978-1-63149-381-2
y o u n g a d u lt
supervised other prisoners. Porat (Education/Hebrew Univ.; The Boy: A Holocaust Story, 2010) cites so many instances of the search for scapegoats and the gray zone between the perpetrators and the oppressed that one wonders why it took so long to uncover the full details of these “kapo trials.” The author shows how the trials went through phases, from an initial assessment of Jewish functionaries as equivalent to Nazis to a final perception of them as victims. To deal with accusations and disputes at the end of the war, displaced-persons camps set up honor courts. These courts had no law or statute to rely on and focused on morality and general principles of jurisprudence. Beginning in 1944, there was increasing violence across Palestine, with calls for a court. Police could arrest someone who was accused but were often forced to release them due to lack of a relevant law, and Israel couldn’t prosecute for crimes committed in another country. That situation continued until 1950, when the Knesset passed the Nazi and Nazi Collaborators Punishment Law, which served as the basis for the Eichmann trial. In addition to chronicling the history of the kapo trials and their aftermath, Porat deals with the concept of Israelis as eternal victims and victimhood being used to define their psyche. The author explains the philosophies and procedures involved in a way that encourages readers to see all sides. “As the cases of Jewish functionaries demonstrate,” writes Porat, “the camps contained not only victims and perpetrators but also those who lived in the gray zone.” A pragmatic scholarly study that fills in some gaps in the Holocaust literature. (14 photos)
A memoirist explores modern spiritualism through its centuries-old legacy and a hallowed summer camp. Ptacin (Poor Your Soul, 2016) examines Maine’s Camp Etna, a summer colony established in 1876 dedicated to communal gatherings where spiritualists assemble for mental and physical mediumship and to engage in paranormal fellowship. The Maine-based author immersed herself in the community, and her reportage reflects equal amounts of diligent journalism and wide-eyed fascination. As Ptacin writes, spiritualists staunchly believe in the afterlife and that each human embodies the capacity and wields the tools to channel and communicate with a host of otherworldly entities. Her tour of the camp activities, which is both thrilling and unsettling, began with a startling “table tipping” session with a medium. In appropriately affable and accessible prose, the author describes what separates spiritualists from more common American religious traditions: They are “willing to offer and provide scientific evidence to prove what many people may otherwise believe to be a bunch of bullshit.” Running alongside her probing examination of Camp Etna is an astute history of the rise and fall of American spiritualism, which began in 1888 with Kate and Margaret Fox, who exhibited supernatural abilities. During her months at Camp Etna as initially “just a journalist eager to see a ghost,” Ptacin’s neophyte education on spiritualism and her interactions with its practicing population blossomed from spiked curiosity to rapt participation in ghost hunts and dowsing sessions. As the author notes, the spiritualists she met form an extraordinarily convictive community “grasping for meaning in humanity beyond the basic biological facts,” yet the enigmatic profiles—past and present—collectively display a much
kirkus.com
|
nonfiction
|
1 september 2019
|
91
THE FIRST CELL And the Human Costs of Pursuing Cancer to the Last
more dynamic tapestry. Ptacin also brings aspects of faith and individual ability into view, as when she probed the difficulty of uncovering one’s own spirit guide and an Etna spiritualist confidently spoke: “We all can do it.” An eye-opening, consistently fascinating, and engrossing profile of the modern spiritualist movement. (18 b/w photos)
GENUINE FAKES How Phony Things Teach Us About Real Stuff Pyne, Lydia Bloomsbury Sigma (304 pp.) $28.00 | Oct. 29, 2019 978-1-4729-6182-2
An intriguing exploration of “frauds, forgeries, and fakes.” Because of recent “worries about ‘fake news’ and ‘alternative facts,’ the question of authenticity has taken on particular urgency,” writes historian Pyne (Seven Skeletons: The Evolution of the World’s Most Famous Human Fossils, 2016, etc.). She offers examples “where a ‘real’ object ends and where a ‘fake’ (or less than real) object begins,” drawing from a variety of disciplines including art, literature, mineralogy, natural history, archaeology, and wildlife documentaries. In the late 19th century, the “Spanish Forger” plied his—or her; the forger’s identity was never known—trade in the art world, becoming “one of the most skillful, and successful, and prolific forgers of all time.” Many museums had his Renaissance replicas—some 350 of them—until the ruse was uncovered years later. In the late 18th century, William Henry Ireland began forging all things Shakespeare—autographs, wills, even whole plays—using period ink and paper. The collectable fakes eventually became “more genuine for having been fake in the first place.” In the chapter titled “The Truth About the Lying Stones,” Pyne recounts how an expert was duped by three young men’s forged fossils. The scholar went to court in 1726 in hopes of “saving his honour.” Man’s creation of diamonds began in the late 18th century and reached its zenith in the 1950s when De Beers began making and selling synthetic diamonds. In the mid-20th century, companies actively created new, fake flavors as they drove “consumers’ expectations about what food ought to taste like.” Pyne ponders the “delicate tango of blending art and artifice into the world of storytelling in wildlife films.” Particularly fascinating is France’s costly replica of the famous Palaeolithic Chauvet Cave; the real one is closed to the public. Pyne also scrutinizes blue whale skeletons, a Mayan Codex, and artist Bansky’s paleo-inspired artifact, with “fake provenance and falsified index number,” surreptitiously installed in the British Museum, which went undiscovered for days. Genuine history smartly explored.
92
|
1 september 2019
|
nonfiction
|
Raza, Azra Basic (352 pp.) $28.00 | Oct. 15, 2019 978-1-5416-9952-6
A welcome argument that we are overdue for a change in the paradigm for treating cancer. Raza (Medicine/Columbia Univ.) decries the “protocol of surgery, chemotherapy, and radiation—the slash-poison-burn approach to treating cancer” that has remained unchanged for decades.” She points out the billions spent on research to find and target a single mutated gene or a faulty signaling pathway at a time when a seasoned tumor has evolved into a chaotic mass of malignant cells reproducing in multiple clones with varying genetic and cellular derangements. In this approach, researchers study human tumors as static entities in tissue culture or injected into mice whose immune systems and microenvironments are in no way comparable to the cancers seen in mostly elderly patients. Consequently, it’s not surprising that candidate cancer drugs fare dismally in human trials and that the few that offer some hope extend the life of patients by only weeks— and at great cost. The author does not ignore the recent success with immunotherapy, but she notes that the therapy remains limited and comes with its own risks and side effects. What she wants instead is research to address prevention and the initiation of the cancer process—find and eliminate the first faulty cells. Her approach may be inspired in part by her own research on a pre-cancer syndrome that can develop into acute myeloid leukemia. She describes her efforts in that area as well as new research aimed at finding blood or tissue biomarkers of those first cancer cells. Her explanation of the science and her brief history of cancer research would be enough to recommend this volume to general readers, but it is in the case histories of cancer patients she has treated, including her late husband’s, where Raza’s eloquence is on full display. With elegant literary references and a compassion that deeply personalizes her interactions with patients and families, she engages readers in a commitment to finding a better way. Intelligence, empathy, and optimism inform the argument for new research on cancer that could obviate the suffering prevalent today.
kirkus.com
|
The author offers a solid education in New York architecture that pays close attention to the personalities, politics, economics, and natural disasters that inevitably accompany it. a history of new york in 27 buildings
AMERICA’S GAME The NFL at 100
Rice, Jerry & Williams, Randy O. Dey Street/HarperCollins (544 pp.) $27.99 | Oct. 29, 2019 978-0-06-269290-0
WILD LIFE Dispatches From a Childhood of Baboons and Button-Downs
Roberts, Keena Grand Central Publishing (352 pp.) $28.00 | Nov. 12, 2019 978-1-5387-4515-1
Coming-of-age between a baboon research camp in Africa and a private school in Pennsylvania. The daughter of American professors and primatologists, Roberts spent her early years in Kenya in the Amboseli |
y o u n g a d u lt
Hall of Fame wide receiver Rice and sportswriter Williams (co-authors: 50 Years, 50 Moments: The Most Unforgettable Plays in Super Bowl History, 2015) turn in a lively history of the NFL. A century ago, George Halas, the legendary Bears coach, “arguably the most influential figure in the history of professional football,” caught a train to Ohio and created a league, the American Professional Football Association, made up of teams from Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, and New York. Most of those teams—the Muncie Flyers and Rochester Jeffersons, anyone?—no longer exist, but the league itself evolved, and with it football became increasingly popular not just in pro stadiums, but also in high school and college. Early football wasn’t pretty: It was a mud-spattered mess, made messier by the fact that the first players didn’t have helmets—and many grew their hair long in the belief that “a thick shock of hair would help absorb the shock of collisions.” The authors are comprehensive in their coverage, explaining the necessary partnership of quarterbacks and receivers—you can’t have greats of either unless you have greats of both—and the machinations of the draft, with a roster of the best of all time. Rice and Williams serve up a rogues’ gallery, taking in the great and the forgotten alike. The pace of the narrative is a little herky-jerky, switching from anecdote to stats and brief biographies that threaten to induce chronological whiplash; the book could benefit from both streamlining and a little more Ken Burns–like splashiness, given the occasion. But there are plenty of locker-room stories that are worth the price of admission—e.g., Detroit Lions QB Bobby Layne’s habit of sending rookies out to buy beer just ahead of curfew, which was sure to bring on a fine, since they “couldn’t refuse the best, most influential player on the team,” and Rice’s own habit, maddening to equipment managers, of trying on every pair of pants in the place before a game: “Everything had to be spanking new.” A treat for gridiron fans.
National Park, “close enough to the border with Tanzania to see Mount Kilimanjaro.” A brief spell in Philadelphia left her feeling that her new home was “too big inside and not enough outside.” When her parents moved the family back to a remote camp on a game reserve in Botswana, it signaled new adventure. The author’s meticulous child’s view stitches back-and-forth vignettes of a carefree girlhood among wildlife and a rougher existence at school in Pennsylvania. Refreshingly, Roberts avoids many common stereotypes of Africa; she clearly captures its many wonders as well as its perils, such as a mamba that she shot with an air rifle. Lush descriptions linger over flora and fauna, providing an immersive narrative that will have readers admiring the author’s mostly charming adventures, from piloting a boat at age 10 to joining her parents on their baboon watch. Roberts also shows us the everyday rigors of living in tents and enduring the oppressive heat, which often left them simply seeking shade from 9 to 5, when “it was too hot to function.” Recounting her time in the U.S., the author emphasizes her feelings of displacement and difficulties navigating many rite-of-passage moments. The chapters about high school turn more serious, and the pace slows as Roberts turns her attention to familiar adolescent pains. She weaves broader topics, such as the HIV crisis in Botswana, into a later chapter, and while she longs for the days at baboon camp, “American Keena has given me some important experiences as well.” The journey’s end is elegiac yet hopeful: “The wardrobe door may have closed on Narnia, but that doesn’t mean the story is over.” This episodic, warm exploration of identity and culture is both wide-eyed and surprisingly wise.
A HISTORY OF NEW YORK IN 27 BUILDINGS The 400-Year Untold Story of an American Metropolis Roberts, Sam Bloomsbury (336 pp.) $28.00 | Oct. 22, 2019 978-1-62040-980-0
A series of biographies of significant New York City buildings that “have been transcendent in some way.” Despite the title, this is the history of 27 structures, although a great deal of New York’s past makes an appearance. “Can collective conglomerations of bricks, glass, wood, steel, and mortar reveal the soul of a city?” Definitely, writes Roberts (Only in New York: An Exploration of the World’s Most Fascinating, Frus trating and Irrepressible City, 2018, etc.), the former urban affairs correspondent of the New York Times. The author offers a solid education in New York architecture that pays close attention to the personalities, politics, economics, and natural disasters that inevitably accompany it. Eschewing the commonplace, Roberts begins with the oldest house, which is in Queens. Built in 1661 when the city was Dutch, it was home to John Bowne, a Quaker preacher and source of a petition, signed by a group of neighbors, objecting to director-general Peter Stuyvesant’s order
kirkus.com
|
nonfiction
|
1 september 2019
|
93
banning Quakers. The author points out that this is a foundational document of American freedom written over a century before the Bill of Rights (also born in New York). Even educated readers will identify only a minority of Roberts’ choices, including St. Paul’s Chapel, City Hall, the Flatiron Building, Tweed Courthouse, Empire State Building, Grand Central Terminal, and the Apollo Theater. A laundromat was once a branch of Bank of the United States. Notwithstanding the name, it was a private institution whose collapse in 1931 launched the banking crisis which, perhaps more than the 1929 stock market crash, converted a normal recession into the Great Depression. New York’s poorest district, the South Bronx, hosted the huge American Bank Note Plant, which churned out currency, stamps, and stock securities for nations around the world. It moved away in the early 1980s; the building remains as a landmark, and the area is prospering. Though not a cohesive narrative, these isolated journalistic essays provide an entertaining picture of New York through the centuries. (b/w images)
MIGHTY JUSTICE My Life in Civil Rights
Roundtree, Dovey Johnson & McCabe, Katie Algonquin (288 pp.) $16.95 paper | Nov. 5, 2019 978-1-61620-955-1 A distinguished African American attorney’s account of how growing up in the Jim Crow South impacted her later struggle to overturn desegregation laws. Segregation was a hard fact of life for African Americans when North Carolina native Roundtree (1914-2018) was a child. Undaunted, her mother pushed her and her sisters to become “women of destiny” by pursuing their educations. The author excelled in school and was accepted to Spelman College in Atlanta. After a short stint teaching, she traveled to Washington, D.C., where she went to work for Dr. Mary McLeod Bethune, who recommended her for the newly formed Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps. Roundtree took her first stand against racism while in the military when she successfully spoke out against Army plans to segregate the WAAC. At the end of the war, she was offered a position with the Fair Employment Practices Committee in California. She had initially wanted to go to medical school, but she soon came to realize that a law degree would best serve her desire to “chang[e] the world in which I’d come of age.” Roundtree attended Howard University School of Law and then began the legal work that would lead to the eventual “shattering of Jim Crow.” In 1955, she won a major victory in the Sarah Keys v. Carolina Coach Company case, which helped bring about the end of the separate-but-equal practices that had been at the heart of segregation laws. Her law practice thrived, but a period of ill health and “nagging restlessness” caused her to turn to her religion for solace. Later, she enrolled in the Howard University Divinity School and became one of the first ordained female ministers in the African Methodist 94
|
1 september 2019
|
nonfiction
|
Episcopal Church and a leading light in “yet another war, a war for [abused] children.” Thoughtful and highly inspiring, this book, co-authored by McCabe, is not only a moving memoir; it is also an important contribution to the history of civil rights in America. Tayari Jones provides the foreword. An eloquently told story that should make an impact.
THE WAY I HEARD IT
Rowe, Mike Gallery Books/Simon & Schuster (224 pp.) $27.00 | Oct. 15, 2019 978-1-982130-85-5 Former Dirty Jobs star Rowe serves up a few dozen brief human-interest stories. Building on his popular podcast, the author “tells some true stories you probably don’t know, about some famous people you probably do.” Some of those stories, he allows, have been subject to correction, just as on his TV show he was “corrected on windmills and oil derricks, coal mines and construction sites, frack tanks, pig farms, slime lines, and lumber mills.” Still, it’s clear that he takes pains to get things right even if he’s not above a few tooobvious groaners, writing about erections (of skyscrapers, that is, and, less elegantly, of pigs) here and Joan Rivers (“the Bonnie Parker of comedy”) there, working the likes of Bob Dylan, William Randolph Hearst, and John Wayne into the discourse. The most charming pieces play on Rowe’s own foibles. In one, he writes of having taken a soft job as a “caretaker”—in quotes—of a country estate with few clear lines of responsibility save, as he reveals, humoring the resident ghost. As the author notes on his website, being a TV host gave him great skills in “talking for long periods without saying anything of substance,” and some of his stories are more filler than compelling narrative. In others, though, he digs deeper, as when he writes of Jason Everman, a rock guitarist who walked away from two spectacularly successful bands (Nirvana and Soundgarden) in order to serve as a special forces operative: “If you thought that Pete Best blew his chance with the Beatles, consider this: the first band Jason bungled sold 30 million records in a single year.” Speaking of rock stars, Rowe does a good job with the oft-repeated matter of Charlie Manson’s brief career as a songwriter: “No one can say if having his song stolen by the Beach Boys pushed Charlie over the edge,” writes the author, but it can’t have helped. Never especially challenging or provocative but pleasant enough light reading.
kirkus.com
|
Profound, elegantly written ruminations on the exquisite splendors of life enjoyed through a secular lens. for small creatures such as we
THE AMERICAN STORY Conversations With Master Historians
FOR SMALL CREATURES SUCH AS WE Rituals for Finding Meaning in Our Unlikely World
Rubenstein, David M. Simon & Schuster (416 pp.) $30.00 | Oct. 29, 2019 978-1-982120-25-2
|
The daughter of the prestigious “astronomer of the people” offers ethereal wisdom and worldly guidance based on the philosophy of her parents. Sagan’s debut, a lushly written amalgam of memoir and manual, traces her life as the daughter of Carl and writer/producer Ann Druyan and how she came to appreciate the wonder in the everyday. Raised in a secular household, the author was educated through straightforward scientific explanations, but her father’s death when she was just 14 left more questions than answers. More than two decades later, she carries on his guiding principles within her own family. In her first book, she ponders a variety of rapturous events, milestones, ancestral influences, and sage affirmations on life and death. The author offers commentary on her and her husband’s semi-sacred daily rituals, affording readers intimate glimpses into their coupling, wedding ceremony, joyful togetherness, misunderstandings, and sweet reconciliations. She shares fond memories of her family home, where world history frequently became an educational opportunity, and reveals the reverent methods she now employs to spiritually reconnect with the memory of her beloved father. Sagan’s narrative is heavily steeped in rituals: lighting candles, costuming, or meditating on and celebrating significant events and milestones in her life. Early in the book, the author remarks on the staunch secularity of her parents, an independent perspective and lifestyle passed down to her and her family. She open-mindedly explores the differences between those who have become ossified by religious protocol and those who rejoice in unfettered enjoyment of the natural world and the science underlying nature’s beauty. “Religion, at its best, facilitates empathy, gratitude, and awe,” she writes. “Science, at its best, reveals true grandeur beyond our wildest dreams. My hope is that I can merge these into some new thing…as we navigate— and celebrate—the mysterious beauty and terror of being alive in our universe.” Profound, elegantly written ruminations on the exquisite splendors of life enjoyed through a secular lens.
kirkus.com
|
nonfiction
|
1 september 2019
|
y o u n g a d u lt
Interviews with 15 major American historians and the current chief justice of the Supreme Court. Since 2013, financier and philanthropist Rubenstein, co-founder of the private equity firm the Carlyle Group, has corralled the heavy hitters of American history for conversations held in the Library of Congress, intended for the edification of our elected representatives. His admirable goal has been to provide “information about the great leaders and events of our country’s past, with the hope that…bringing the members together in a neutral, nonpartisan setting might modestly contribute toward reducing the seemingly increasing partisan rancor that has become so commonplace in Washington.” That aim has flopped, but the text, accompanied by a generous selection of archival images from the LOC, provides a smooth education in American history, with an emphasis on presidents. Eschewing controversy and avoiding penetrating insights, Rubenstein asks leading questions; his responders, all veterans of the lecture hall or book tour, lay out the facts and their expert interpretations. According to Jack D. Warren Jr., George Washington was America’s essential man. David McCullough joins the chorus supporting John Adams’ rising reputation. Though Thomas Jefferson’s continues its decline, Jon Meachem finds much to praise. Women are underrepresented, but Cokie Roberts has good things to say about Abigail Adams, Dolley Madison, and others. The longest biographies— Robert Caro’s five volumes on Lyndon Johnson and Taylor Branch’s three on Martin Luther King Jr.—are already classics only partly because of their literary brilliance. LBJ’s support of the Civil Rights Act was perhaps the most courageous political act of the century because he did it with full knowledge that it would inflict permanent damage on his party. MLK and his allies were certainly heroes of their time, but the villains he faced make a more vivid impression. Other contributors include H.W. Brands, Bob Woodward, and Doris Kearns Goodwin. Breaks no new ground but provides an excellent introduction to leading historians and the books every engaged American should read.
Sagan, Sasha Putnam (288 pp.) $26.00 | Oct. 22, 2019 978-0-7352-1877-2
95
SEPTEMBER 1, 1939 A Biography of a Poem
HERE WE ARE American Dreams, American Nightmares
Sansom, Ian Harper/HarperCollins (320 pp.) $27.99 | Oct. 1, 2019 978-0-06-298459-3 W.H. Auden’s famous poem receives an impressionistic, idiosyncratic examination from fellow poet, mystery writer, and jack-of-all–literary trades Sansom (English/Univ. of Warwick; December
Stories I, 2018, etc.). Don’t expect conventional literary criticism or an exegesis of the poem’s historical and autobiographical underpinnings in this rambling, fitfully stimulating work. Structured as a stanzaby-stanza exploration, the text is in fact extremely scattershot; Sansom takes 100 pages to get through Auden’s first stanza, leaving 200 breathless pages for the next eight. Indeed, the text generally has a breathless, tossed-off air, though the author tells us he has been trying to write about Auden for 25 years. The plethora of literary extracts scattered throughout, by Auden and others, might testify to Sansom’s deep knowledge of literature—or might just signal an author substituting quotation for inspiration. He certainly knows a lot about Auden, and there are flashes of genuine perceptiveness: “that weird combination in [Auden’s] work of mental toughness and piercing insights, and also a deep, sweet sentimentality.” (Sansom takes a more jaundiced tone about Auden’s sentimental tendencies when he gets to the poem’s most famous line, “We must love one another or die,” and dismisses it with a brisk, “No. Just, no.”) Sansom never conveys the sense of personal connection that presumably led him to grapple with Auden and his work. Instead, we get uninteresting personal trivia, such as the author’s feelings of inferiority to real Auden scholars like John Fuller and Edward Mendelson or the fact that he, like Auden, reads a lot of crime fiction. The latter remark is followed by the vague claim that “it’s hard not to imagine Auden as some sort of detective… one of those professional amateurs beloved of crime writers.” Whether a reader finds this sort of aperçu charming or not is a good forecast of what their overall reaction to the book will be. Knowledgeable and occasionally insightful but also undisciplined and self-indulgent.
96
|
1 september 2019
|
nonfiction
|
Shahani, Aarti Namdev Celadon Books (288 pp.) $26.99 | Oct. 1, 2019 978-1-250-20475-2
A distinguished NPR journalist’s account of how the concept of the American dream gave her the chance to succeed while simultaneously destroying
her immigrant family. Shahani’s parents met as Indian Partition refugees in Morocco. In 1981, they came to America and settled in a multiethnic Queens neighborhood, “one of the most diverse tracts of land on the planet.” There, her family’s “most aggressive war” was not with members of other cultural “tribes” but with vermin in their apartment. Optimistic that they would soon succeed, they experienced their first disappointment when the author’s father, a “big brain” man, had to settle for manual labor. He left the family to work with brothers in Dubai, returning only when Shahani’s mother became disabled after a freak accident. Their fortunes changed soon after her father collected money from relatives and opened an electronics store. His hard work allowed them to move into a house in New Jersey and live a comfortable middle-class life. In the meantime, Shahani became “Nerd Girl,” winning a scholarship to the prestigious Brearley School in Manhattan. Her connections eventually landed her a wellpaying summer job that, unlike those her father had taken when he first arrived in America, “came with a desk, a computer…a view,” and a good wage. Everything changed when the author was in 12th grade. Her father had been arrested and sent to prison for mistakenly selling merchandise to a drug cartel. As her father struggled, Shahani’s grades dropped. Though she found a place at the University of Chicago, her faith in both the American dream and the justice system was shattered. Becoming an active seeker of social justice, the author spent the next 15 years using her connections and journalistic savvy to help exonerate her father. Barely escaping deportation, he finally became an American citizen only to die shortly afterward. As it chronicles immigrant tragedy and triumph, this provocative book also reveals the dark underside of the American judicial system and the many pitfalls for people of color within a landscape of white privilege. A candid and moving memoir.
kirkus.com
|
A vivid demonstration of how corruption and greed have become the main organizing principles in the finance industry. the finance curse
THE FINANCE CURSE How Global Finance Is Making Us All Poorer
NARRATIVE ECONOMICS How Stories Go Viral and Drive Major Economic Events
Shaxson, Nicholas Grove (304 pp.) $27.00 | Nov. 5, 2019 978-0-8021-2847-8
Shiller, Robert J. Princeton Univ. (384 pp.) $27.95 | Oct. 1, 2019 978-0-691-18229-2
|
An engaging scholarly study of the stories we tell about economic events— stories that go viral, for better or worse. Bitcoin is the wave of the future, an anarchist challenge to national currencies meant to disguise the identity of those who hold stores of the “cryptocurrency.” It’s been valued at something around $300 billion. However, writes Nobel Prize–winning Yale economist Shiller (Finance and the Good Society, 2015, etc.), “Bitcoin has no value unless people think it has value, as its proponents readily admit.” It attains value because it’s surrounded by economic narratives, some erratic, some untrustworthy—of the sort that fuel classic bubbles: the mania of speculation that surrounded the South Sea Company, the mania for tulips, the fear-of-missingout mania for being part of the future rather than the past. By the author’s account, narratives are too often overlooked, so that “we need to incorporate the contagion of narratives into economic theory,” recognizing them to be a driver of economic change, for good or ill. “Contagion” is a word used advisedly, for Shiller draws some of his models from epidemiology; his work also combines with the growing acknowledgment that people are often not the rational actors of classic economic theory. Accounting for narrative epidemics does not necessarily mean trying to counter them, though economic forecasts— the currently building sentiment that a major recession is about to hit, for example—are best used not to frighten but to warn, so that self-fulfilling-prophecy disasters do not in fact happen. Shiller locates one pioneering forecaster in the economist John Maynard Keynes, who warned—unsuccessfully—that placing heavy penalties on a defeated Germany after World War I would yield an even bloodier disaster powered by the thirst for vengeance. That narrative proved correct even if Ronald Reagan’s anecdotal embrace of supply-side economics proved a sham even as his stories “touched off an intense public mandate for tax cutting.” Wonky but of immense value to economists and policymakers working on the behavioral side of the field.
kirkus.com
|
nonfiction
|
1 september 2019
|
y o u n g a d u lt
A sharp attack on global financiers who are destroying the livelihoods of the nonwealthy. In an apt follow-up to his 2012 book, Treasure Islands: Uncovering the Damage of Offshore Banking and Tax Havens, Germany-based reporter Shaxson uses a variety of economic theories to examine the many perils of wealth accumulation. The theories are often complex, but the author aids understanding by employing helpful analogies and metaphors. He skillfully bolsters the big-picture elements of the narrative with compelling examples of painful microeconomic consequences for the 99 percent of world citizens who struggle with financial issues. Shaxson’s indictees are mostly leaders of large banks, hedge funds, private equity firms, and government entities that enable predatory capitalism through wealth extraction. The author begins around 1900 with oil tycoon John D. Rockefeller, who, at the height of his power, “controlled over 90 percent of the oil refined in the United States, extracting vast wealth from consumers and generating fountains of profit, which were funneled beyond the core business into railroads, banking, steel, copper, and more.” As antidotes to the greed of Rockefeller and other robber barons, Shaxson offers the examples of muckraking journalist Ida Tarbell and renegade economist Thorstein Veblen, whose The Theory of the Leisure Class (1899) was “a vicious exposé of a world where productive workers toiled long hours and parasitic elites fed off the fruits of their labors.” Unfortunately, their work, revelatory as it was, did not bring about lasting economic justice. The author offers a host of instructive discussions of a variety of elements to bolster his argument, including corrupt financiers in London and New York City, geographically obscure tax havens, the bizarre realm of wealth managers in South Dakota, a ravaged newspaper in New Jersey, and a shattered farm economy in Iowa. “Financialization,” writes the author, “hasn’t just sucked money and power away from rural communities; it has extracted their dignity.” A vivid demonstration of how corruption and greed have become the main organizing principles in the finance industry.
97
ONE BLADE OF GRASS Finding the Old Road of the Heart, a Zen Memoir
Shukman, Henry Counterpoint (352 pp.) $16.95 paper | Oct. 15, 2019 978-1-64009-262-4
How Zen led one man to awareness of the miraculous. When he was 19, traveling in South America, award-winning poet, novelist, and travel writer Shukman (Archangel, 2013, etc.) had an experience so shattering that he could hardly put it into words. “I thought I wanted to go out and see the world,” he reflected soon after. “Instead it was the other way round: the world opened its arms and pulled me in. What did it all mean?” As he recounts in a graceful, insightful, and disarmingly candid memoir, he spent the rest of his life trying to answer that question. The son of academics headed for Cambridge and, he thought, a career in academia himself, Shukman was not given to spiritual or mystical speculation. However, he felt overwhelmed by the “numinous grace” that enveloped him on the beach, a feeling that freed him from his “ordinary self, with its cravings and complaints.” Among those complaints was severe and persistent eczema: “itch and pain in the dermis, frustration and misery in the psyche.” He sought relief from all manner of medical, psychological, and alternative treatments and finally tried meditation: first transcendental meditation and then Zen. At Zen centers, he felt “a sweetness, a sense of justified indolence, of coming closer to life, to a more authentic self.” He went on retreats, emerging with “a sense of having been cleansed, absolved even, and of returning to the world with new eyes.” He studied with several masters, one of whom was a traditional koan teacher. A koan, he learned, is a verbal formulation that the student thinks about while meditating and must give up trying to understand but instead “let it reveal itself ” to the heart and deepen one’s understanding of reality. Zen, Shukman writes, teaches not to withdraw but to accept life, pain, suffering, and beauty: “Unless a path leads us back into the world—reincarnates us, as it were— it’s not a complete path.” Shukman now leads his own Zen center in New Mexico. A vibrant chronicle of a profound spiritual journey.
HITLER A Global Biography Simms, Brendan Basic (688 pp.) $40.00 | Oct. 1, 2019 978-0-465-02237-3
A British academic builds on previous scholarship to make a bold thesis— that Hitler’s principal obsession was not communism but rather “Anglo-America” and global capitalism. 98
|
1 september 2019
|
nonfiction
|
Situating his argument alongside the vast research of others, which he carefully delineates in a pointed introduction, Simms (History/Univ. of Cambridge; The Longest Afternoon: The 400 Men Who Decided the Battle of Waterloo, 2015, etc.) stresses the global processes that motivated Hitler—e.g., the crash of 1929 and the Depression—and the galvanizing might of the Americans, which he believed was largely due to the German emigrant drain from the motherland. The author draws from sources he believes to be neglected as well as a deep reading of Mein Kampf, and he locates the origins of Hitler’s strategic approach to the enemy in the years during and following World War I, after which he emerged “as a rather lonely figure on the margins of German and world history.” Moving thematically—from “Humiliation” to “Fragmentation,” “Unification,” “Mobilization,” “Confrontation,” and “Annihilation”—Simms shows how Hitler’s early experience of “humiliation” (as an artist, soldier witnessing Germany’s defeat, and leader of the failed putsch) led into an obsession with the successful Anglo-Saxon model— i.e., the American dream, at least partly driven by German emigration. His plan for the vast expansion of the Reich “had less to do with hatred of Bolshevism and eastern European Jewry, and more to do with the need to prepare the Reich for a confrontation or equal coexistence with an Anglo-America whose dynamism mesmerized [him].” Thus, Simms asserts, Hitler’s motivation was less a hatred of communism (the classic argument) than obsession with the racial bolstering that Germany needed to take its rightful place in the global order. Moreover, Simms finds that in building his plan for an expanded empire, Hitler used the model of the British Empire’s colonialism and the American colonization of the West. A vigorous, original study that adds to the ongoing scholarship. (4 maps)
THE GOLDEN THREAD How Fabric Changed History
St. Clair, Kassia Liveright/Norton (320 pp.) $23.95 | Nov. 12, 2019 978-1-63149-480-2
Fabrics tell a story of human development from the prehistoric world to the space age. Journalist St. Clair (The Secret Lives of Color, 2017) focuses her spirited, illuminating cultural history on essential fibers that have been spun, knitted, and woven throughout time, from traces of thread discovered in Neolithic caves to the multilayered “one-person spaceships” worn by American astronauts. In each of the chapters the author presents an engaging narrative about plant- and animal-based textiles with particular significance to place and historical period. In ancient Egypt, for example, flax was harvested, beaten, and combed in a laborious process to produce fiber woven into linen, a fabric that became essential for trade, clothing, and mummification. Just as linen was associated with Egypt, silk, produced by worms feeding on mulberry trees,
kirkus.com
|
A book that amply demonstrates grave flaws in the criminal justice system. unwanted spy
INFORMATION WARS How We Lost the Global Battle Against Disinformation and What We Can Do About It
Stengel, Richard Atlantic Monthly (368 pp.) $28.00 | Oct. 8, 2019 978-0-8021-4798-1
Former Time editor Stengel (Mande la’s Way: Lessons on Life, Love, and Courage, 2010, etc.) offers a gloomy view of America’s efforts in the “battle of ideas” with Russia, the Islamic State group, and other entities. We “still don’t know how to fight” disinformation, writes the author, who served as Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs from 2013 to 2016. “The truth is, it’s impossible to stop people from creating falsehoods and other people from believing them.” In this refreshingly frank account, Stengel describes his stint in the byzantine State Department, where he focused on countering IS messaging and Russian disinformation in the last years of the Obama administration. With great clarity, he recounts the hurdles he encountered: bureaucratic procedures, acronyms and government-speak, endless vetting and turf battles, all of which slowed efforts to bring his print-oriented office into the era of social media. Foreign-service officers with no media experience insisted it was “easy” to create content. He was also greatly hampered by the very openness of American society, which infosavvy IS and Putin used to their advantage. Most of his book details the creation of a messaging coalition with Arab nations |
to thwart incessant “out-tweeting” by “digital jihadis” bent on undermining the U.S. with messages and videos on kidnappings and beheadings of Americans. “Not everyone can afford an F-35,” writes Stengel, “but anyone can launch a tweet.” Even so, few in government were tweeting. One exception, social media guru and Ambassador to Ukraine Geoff Pyatt, warned, “we are being out-messaged by the Russians….They don’t feel the need to be truthful.” Stengel relates the thinking of participants in the information war in ways that bring the dangers of this global messaging onslaught home. He notes how IS migrated to the dark web as a result of U.S. counterefforts, and he argues that artificial intelligence has great potential to detect and delete false information. A revealing look at America’s difficult struggle to combat false, misleading narratives.
UNWANTED SPY The Persecution of an American Whistleblower Sterling, Jeffrey Bold Type Books (272 pp.) $28.00 | Oct. 15, 2019 978-1-56858-557-4
y o u n g a d u lt
became a lucrative Chinese export. Fragments of the textile have been found in 8,500-year-old tombs and needles, looms, and shuttles unearthed from Neolithic sites. Some fabrics were pressed into surprising use: Although wool is heavy and porous, Viking seafarers depended on it for their sails. Sheep were abundant, and wool was woven to withstand fierce winds and rain. “By some estimates,” writes the author, “the sailcloth of the Norwegian Viking–era fleet would have required wool from up to two million sheep.” In the stratified society of medieval and Renaissance Europe, when “clothing defined who you were, what you did and your social status,” lace signified wealth and power. St. Clair stresses the importance of cotton to 19thcentury America’s economy as well as its connection to slavery. Besides economic importance, fabrics can mean the difference between life and death for humans confronting extreme environments. The push to create new fabrics has led to synthetics, beginning with nylon and followed by many other materials that proved hugely profitable for manufacturers. Chemicals involved in synthetic production, however, expose workers to serious health risks, spurring the need for environmentally friendly methods of producing biodegradable fibers. The most fascinating research St. Clair reports is the effort to manufacture spider silk, coveted for its incredible strength. Vibrant, entertaining, and brightly informative.
A CIA whistleblower tells his tale. Sterling, a lawyer who spent eight years in the CIA, relates his life story and the details of what he maintains was a phony conviction for espionage. “During the trial,” he writes, “the government did not present a shred of hard evidence to validate the charges against me. Even [the judge] summarized the case against me as being based on ‘very powerful circumstantial evidence’ rather than on hard proof.” Some readers—e.g., those who condemned Chelsea Manning and Edward Snowden—may conclude that the author should not have exposed certain sensitive CIA secrets. However, given his coherent account, backed by copious details (other than a few redactions), most readers will believe that his revelations were warranted. Rather than coming across as a bitter former CIA agent seeking retribution for his imprisonment, Sterling comes across as a reasonable man with a persuasive case that after the CIA hired him, his white supervisors held back promotions solely because he was black. When he sued the CIA for racial discrimination, government officials, including Barack Obama’s Attorney General Eric Holder, sought to discredit Sterling by alleging espionage. In the first 50 pages of the narrative, the author chronicles his upbringing in Cape Girardeau, Missouri. While some schoolmates and family members considered him too “white” to comfortably hang out with other black students, many whites displayed prejudice against him as a black boy. After noting how he was determined to find a path that suited him, Sterling discusses his undergraduate studies at Millikin University in Decatur, Illinois, and his law school years at Washington University in St. Louis. While working as a public defender, he jumped at the opportunity to join the CIA after reading a recruitment advertisement. Despite his initial enthusiasm while training
kirkus.com
|
nonfiction
|
1 september 2019
|
99
GOLIATH The 100-Year War Between Monopoly Power and Democracy
at CIA headquarters, Sterling soon saw not only the racial discrimination, but also the strict conservative leanings of most agents and the sometimes damaging incompetence infecting the agency hierarchy. A book that amply demonstrates grave flaws in the criminal justice system.
THE MAN WHO PLAYED WITH FIRE Stieg Larsson’s Lost Files and the Hunt for an Assassin
Stocklassa, Jan Trans. by Chace, Tara F. AmazonCrossing (510 pp.) $24.95 | Oct. 1, 2019 978-1-5420-9293-7
A dense examination of a notorious political assassination, as initially sleuthed by popular crime novelist Stieg Larsson. Swedish journalist Stocklassa’s meandering book has a convoluted backstory, beginning with the author’s access to the files of the Millennium trilogy author, who died in 2004. Prior to his literary career, Larsson was a prolific investigative journalist whose focus on the European extreme right led him to consider the unsolved 1986 assassination of Swedish Prime Minister Olof Palme. “After five years of research,” writes Stocklassa, “I found Stieg Larsson’s forgotten archives and stepped into a world of people and events that felt like they came right out of one of Stieg’s books.” Larsson’s correspondence and reportage, excerpted here, showed his distrust of official narratives, and he concluded that the chaotic initial investigation of Palme’s murder focused on either a lone, disturbed perpetrator or a Turkish insurgent group. This explanation elided the more likely scenario of a connection to Sweden’s far-right underground, in concert with South African security forces, who were irritated by Palme’s stance against the apartheid regime. Stocklassa initially imagines Larsson’s perspective on the increasingly opaque murder even as his literary career approached success right before his death: “A dream for many, but Stieg still wanted other things as well.” Stocklassa eagerly reanimated Larsson’s investigation, a pursuit that became “my obsession.” His efforts are credible and commendable, and he was able to speak to shady figures in South Africa and elsewhere, but the narrative wanders away from the initial sourcing in Larsson’s abandoned files. Stocklassa concludes with “a possible picture” of how the assassination occurred, “if, that is, Stieg’s theory was right.” However, he cannot fill in all the blanks, ruefully concluding, “like Stieg before me, I continue to tug on the strings that stick out from the ball of yarn that is the Palme assassination.” In making up for speculation, Stocklassa relies on an overly detailed, verbose, often digressive style. A mostly engrossing but florid historical conspiracy, of most interest to Larsson fans.
100
|
1 september 2019
|
nonfiction
|
Stoller, Matt Simon & Schuster (592 pp.) $29.99 | Oct. 15, 2019 978-1-5011-8308-9
A former Senate budget analyst writes of the long struggle between political democracy and economic monopoly. Concentrated economic power has a deleterious effect on liberty: Those who are rich do not like to give up the privileges of their wealth. These privileges include outsize influence on the politics of the day, which is why earlier generations of Americans took pains to contain that power. In the 20th century, this included the provisions of the New Deal, put in place after a decade in which, Stoller writes, there was literal class war between, say, striking coal miners in West Virginia and “police who wielded the power of the state but who were paid by private interests.” The New Deal “reorganized two fundamental economic units over which Americans had fought since the founding: farming and shopkeeping,” small-scale enterprises that encouraged broad distribution of property and discouraged large political formations. To the minds of the New Dealers, this reorganization invoked the Jeffersonian ideals of privileging “the yeomanry” and helped improve the availability of credit to farming, democratizing lending power. Later developments included the expansion of health care coverage. Though Harry Truman, Stoller observes, failed to create the universal coverage system that is still argued over today, he did greatly reduce the health insecurity of previous generations. This all changed, writes the author, during the Carter administration, when a devil’s-bargain decision was made to yield to the first expressions of supply-side economics, affording a great victory for the political right that the subsequent Reagan, Bush, and Trump regimes would exploit—and that even the Clinton and Obama White Houses would more or less go along with. “The real question,” Stoller writes in closing, “is not whether commerce is good or bad. It is how we are to do commerce, to serve concentrated power or to free ourselves from concentrated power.” An engaging call to arms at a time when corporate power is increasing and that of the middle class evaporating.
kirkus.com
THIS COULD BE OUR FUTURE A Manifesto for a More Generous World
Strickler, Yancey Viking (336 pp.) $25.00 | Oct. 29, 2019 978-0-525-56082-1
The co-founder and former CEO of Kickstarter offers some intriguing ideas on how to create a better world. |
ON NINETEEN EIGHTY-FOUR A Biography
Taylor, D.J. Abrams (208 pp.) $24.00 | Oct. 15, 2019 978-1-4197-3800-5
The life and times of a “glittering futurist extravaganza.” Biographer and novelist Taylor (Rock and Roll Is Life, 2018, etc.) describes George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four as “an exposé of the totalitarian mind,” perhaps the “first Cold War novel,” and “one of the key texts necessary for an understanding of the twenty-first century.” High praise for a book Orwell (1903-1950) laconically described to his publisher in 1947 as a “fantasy, but in the form of a naturalistic novel.” Taylor’s 2003 biography of Orwell won the Whitbread Book Award for Biography. Here, he zeroes in on Orwell’s final book. He delves deeply and brightly into the making of the novel, its inspiration, how Orwell wrote it, and how it was received critically, socially, and politically then and afterward. It took Orwell five years to write. He was quite ill and in hibernation on the rugged Isle of Jura, off Scotland’s coast, and died less than a year after it was |
published in 1949. “By writing about the terrors that obsessed him,” writes Taylor, “he had got them out of his system.” The novel is a “devastating analysis of the corruption of language,” a “dystopian horror world…and more.” Taylor also deftly shows how “many of its incidental fragments turn out to have been robbed wholesale from the life that ran along beside it.” He demonstrates how Orwell generated the narrative while also continuing to contribute to magazines, exploring the political and social landscape. The 1943 Allied leaders’ Tehran Conference gave “his consciousness a decisive kick, and he was able to clarify his vision for Nineteen Eighty-Four after he read Yevgeny Zamyatin’s We. Before Orwell died, he believed “something resembling [the fascist society depicted in Nineteen Eighty-Four] could arrive.” Taylor provides a good introduction to the work, but for more detail on the novel’s impact on popular culture, look to Dorian Lynskey’s The Ministry of Truth. A lively, engaging, concise biography of a novel.
LOVE UNKNOWN The Life and Worlds of Elizabeth Bishop
y o u n g a d u lt
What if, in 30 years, the world was more just and generous, with an emphasis not on making as much money as possible but on living with a sense of purpose and sustainability in a community that supported positive values? With Kickstarter, Strickler created a significant change in the way projects could be funded. In his first book, he argues that we need yet another change, away from the dominant idea of “financial maximization” toward something that encompasses “a broader definition of value.” Throughout the narrative, the author examines the many ways our value system has narrowed into a moneyobsessed condition. He studies a variety of trends, including the consolidation of radio stations and other media; the rise of strip malls; the demise of small, family-owned stores, replaced largely by big-box stores; the stagnation of wages for average workers as CEO salaries continue to rise; the proliferation of credit cards; and much more. All of these trends point toward the fact that a thriving economy is based primarily on making a lot of money for a few people at the top. In order to shift this paradigm, Strickler presents a method called Bentoism (based on the Japanese food box), a strategy that would help people decide which of four different choices they should pick in any given scenario. The choices include self-focus, the people around us, the person you want to be in the future, and the world in which your children will live. The methodology, he writes, can move readers away from a money-focused scenario toward a system based on security, pleasure, autonomy, knowledge, and purpose. For the most part, Strickler’s ideas are informative and accessible to all readers. A valid evaluation of the modern world and why it needs to shift from financial maximization to something more humane.
Travisano, Thomas Viking (400 pp.) $32.00 | Nov. 5, 2019 978-0-525-42881-7
How her life informed the beloved poetry of Elizabeth Bishop (1911-1979). Travisano (Emeritus, English/Hartwick Coll.; Midcentury Quartet: Bishop, Lowell, Jarrell, Berryman, and the Making of a Postmodern Aesthetic, 1999, etc.), founding president of the Elizabeth Bishop Society, draws judiciously on Bishop’s poems, prose, and letters— including those to her psychoanalyst, many lovers, and close friends—to create an authoritative and sensitive biography. Bishop carried lifelong scars from a difficult childhood: Her father died when she was an infant; her mother was sequestered in a mental institution from the time Elizabeth was 5. Passed among relatives in Nova Scotia and Massachusetts, Bishop was told nothing about her mother—and never saw her again. Besides abiding loneliness and feelings of abandonment, Bishop suffered from asthma and bouts of eczema. In adulthood, she also succumbed to autoimmune disorders; depression, made worse by cortisone prescribed for her asthma; and alcoholism. Travisano suggests that heredity may have played a part in Bishop’s alcohol abuse, which sometimes occurred for no apparent reason. Often, she became a binge drinker in response to emotional distress. Since she repeatedly attached herself to women who were possessive, headstrong, or mentally unstable, her love affairs could be volatile. Travisano finds sources of Bishop’s poetry in those difficult relationships and in enduring wounds as well as in various settings of her peripatetic life: among them, New York, where Marianne Moore became a mentor to whom, for several years, she would submit poems for approval; Key West, where Hemingway’s ex-wife Pauline Pfeiffer became a close friend; Brazil, where Bishop lived for nearly two decades
kirkus.com
|
nonfiction
|
1 september 2019
|
101
An extraordinarily brave work of self- and cultural reflection. things we didn’t talk about when i was a girl
THEY WILL HAVE TO DIE NOW Mosul and the Fall of the Caliphate
with the wealthy journalist and arts patron Lota de Macedo Soares; San Francisco; Seattle; Cambridge, Massachusetts; and Maine. Although not groundbreaking, Travisano’s sympathetic perspective, thorough research, and perceptive close readings lucidly portray the complexities of a writer noted for her “reserve, calm, meticulous accuracy, and humorous detachment.” A finely textured portrait of an acclaimed poet.
THINGS WE DIDN’T TALK ABOUT WHEN I WAS A GIRL A Memoir
Vanasco, Jeannie Tin House (360 pp.) $24.95 | Oct. 1, 2019 978-1-947793-45-3
After 14 years, a survivor of rape chronicles her interviews with the man who assaulted her, a former friend. Inside the swirling “zeitgeist” of the #MeToo movement, Vanasco (English/Towson Univ.; The Glass Eye, 2017) decided not only to write about the experience that still gives her nightmares, but also to include the perspective of the person who raped her. Over emails, phone calls, and in-person conversations, the author interviewed her former friend, Mark, and tried to make sense of his inexplicable betrayal as well as her own ambivalence toward him: “I doubt I’m the only woman sexually assaulted by a friend and confused about her feelings,” she writes. At every step of this harrowing process, from deciding how to approach Mark after years without contact to transcribing and interpreting their conversations, the author scrutinizes her own motivations, her compulsive caretaking of Mark’s discomfort during their discussions, and the lasting impact of the trauma that he caused her. Perspectives from Vanasco’s friends, her partner, and her therapist also figure heavily into the narrative, emphasizing how crucial it is for survivors to have wide networks of support. With deep self-consciousness, courage, and nuance, the author reveals the inner universe of her survivorship and interrogates the notion that rapists are two-dimensionally evil. A friend of Vanasco’s reflects, “how can someone who seems so harmless or acts so well or is so intelligent be capable of committing what is understandably kind of an evil act and how can it happen?” Though the author does not exactly answer these questions through her interviews with Mark, her engrossing, complex, incisive testament to the banality of violence is not a desolate narrative. Instead, Vanasco invites her readers to understand the complicated humanity involved in both causing and experiencing harm, leaving the limits and possibilities of accountability and healing as urgent, open questions. An extraordinarily brave work of self- and cultural reflection.
102
|
1 september 2019
|
nonfiction
|
Verini, James Norton (304 pp.) $27.95 | Oct. 21, 2019 978-0-393-65247-5
Moving reportage by an American journalist who embedded with the Iraqi Counter-Terrorism Service and with Kurdish peshmerga forces fighting the Islamic State group. Coming from Brooklyn, George Polk Award–winning journalist Verini—a National Geographic contributing writer and frequent contributor to the New Yorker and the New York Times Magazine—was determined to serve a kind of “penance” when he arrived in Baghdad in the summer of 2016 for the first time; he was ashamed that he had been “too scared” to go to Afghanistan fresh out of college after 9/11. This time, he traveled in the wake of the Iraqi army as it moved on IS, which had captured Mosul two years before and declared a triumphant caliphate led by insurgent Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. Throughout the taut narrative, Verini brings us vivid and often heartbreaking stories of everyday Iraqis, occupied and humiliated for eons, enduring yet another war “that nevertheless would not be happening, at least not in this way, if not for the American war that preceded it.” The invasion of Mosul was conducted by the Counter-Terrorism Service, which “had put the first real puncture in the [IS] defenses” in 2016, as well as multiple divisions of the Iraqi army, the Iraqi federal police, and international forces. The official end of combat, in Mosul, occurred in July 2017. Verini’s account is startlingly candid and informed, and the author has clearly benefited from some years of distance. He manages to effectively convey the complicated mess on all sides: American, Iraqi, IS. After the months of fighting, Mosul “looked as though a vindictive god had wiped his hand across the city.” In the battle, writes the author, “twelve hundred Iraqi soldiers were killed,” and while “no one will ever know how many civilians died, it was certainly in the thousands.” A deeply thoughtful boots-on-the-ground work about a topic that many of us have stopped thinking about.
kirkus.com
|
BOSS OF THE GRIPS The Life of James H. Williams and the Red Caps of Grand Central Terminal
ONE DAY The Extraordinary Story of an Ordinary 24 Hours in America
Weingarten, Gene Blue Rider Press (384 pp.) $28.00 | Oct. 22, 2019 978-0-399-16666-2
Washington, Eric K. Liveright/Norton (352 pp.) $27.95 | Oct. 22, 2019 978-1-63149-322-5
|
A captivating portrait of a day in the life of the United States by a much-honored Washington Post journalist. Weingarten (The Fiddler on the Subway, 2010, etc.), the only two-time winner of the Pulitzer Prize for feature writing, notes at the beginning that only one of his previous books has “even approached commercial success.” His latest book is his most ambitious, with the author showing how much art a great journalist can wrest from a literary stunt with a theme as old as that of Thornton Wilder’s in Our Town: Each day is remarkable in its own way. He chose a date at random—Dec. 28, 1986—and then found people for whom its events indelibly stamped all the days that followed. He admits that “it was a stunt. But I like stunts, particularly if they can illuminate unexpected truths… although great matters make for strong narratives, power can also lurk in the latent and mundane.” Some of his entries give memorable glimpses of celebrities, among them New York City mayor Ed Koch, Grateful Dead frontman Jerry Garcia, and dooce website founder Heather Armstrong. But Weingarten offers equally vivid profiles of the less well known. They include Prentice Rasheed, a Miami shopkeeper who accidentally electrocuted a burglar with a homemade booby trap he’d installed to deter intruders; Brad Wilson, who walked away after his helicopter flipped over and crashed during a fishing trip in the Pacific Northwest; and Eva Baisey, a nursing student from Washington, D.C., who had implanted in her body the heart of a dead murderer and who improbably has become “one of the longest-living transplant patients on the planet.” One of the finest plain-prose stylists in American journalism, Weingarten tells his elegantly structured stories without sentimentality or melodrama, a virtue especially apparent in his story of two policemen who rushed into a flaming house in Falls City, Nebraska, hoping in vain to save a 2-year-old boy and 1-year-girl. A slice of American life carved out by a master of the form.
kirkus.com
|
nonfiction
|
1 september 2019
|
y o u n g a d u lt
How racial challenges shaped the life of an influential African American. Redcaps—porters and luggage handlers—at New York’s Grand Central Terminal started in 1895 and by 1905 were entirely staffed by African American men. The job, writes Washington (Manhattanville: Old Heart of West Harlem, 2002) in a thoroughly researched and illuminating biography, was “a rare and propitious employment option in an era of rigid racial barriers.” Foremost among the redcaps was James H. Williams (18781948), who, from 1909 to 1948, served as “a general factotum” whose duties involved “hiring, training, assigning, and supervising some five hundred men.” Known as “the Chief,” he became an influential figure in New York’s African American community, famous “for rallying his Red Cap porters to support ‘racial uplift’ causes.” Those causes included supporting the NAACP; organizing mutual aid societies to alleviate financial troubles and bolster business ventures; mounting a fundraising campaign for a Colored YMCA and YMHA in Harlem; buying war bonds at the outbreak of World War I; and participating in the Grand Central Red Cap Orchestra, band, and chorus. The Red Cap Quartet performed regularly on national radio; the orchestra played at the 15th reunion of the Princeton University class of 1917. Besides promoting civic and cultural projects, Williams organized both a baseball and a basketball team, making sure that their games received positive media attention. Washington gives a palpable sense of the myriad obstacles blacks faced: Many redcaps, for example, had college training but saw “that a diploma did not ensure the ability to break through certain prevailing Jim Crow barriers.” Williams’ eldest son transcended the color line to become the first black fireman in Manhattan, inciting every fireman in the company to request a transfer (requests that were denied); a few years later, he was the first black fireman promoted to the rank of officer. As one former redcap wrote on the eve of World War II, as “a soldier fighting for those things that are constantly being reiterated as the American way,” he protested that black workers were “tyrannized, intimated, and plagued.” An absorbing, fresh perspective on black history. (80 photos)
103
ALL POLITICS IS LOCAL Why Progressives Must Fight for the States
GOOD HABITS, BAD HABITS The Science of Making Positive Changes That Stick
Winter, Meaghan Bold Type Books (304 pp.) $28.00 | Oct. 1, 2019 978-1-56858-838-4
How acting on local issues can empower voters. In her debut book, journalist Winter makes a compelling case for the importance of state and local races in promoting progressive politics. Too often, Democrats have focused on federal elections, overlooking statehouses, while Republicans invest money and strategy in local races. The result, writes the author, is that Republicans “continue to have outsize power on the state level across the country,” affecting crucial issues such as gun laws, health care, and voting rights. Focusing on state politics in the swing states of Missouri, Colorado, and Florida, Winter argues persuasively that “seemingly disparate local laws in fact have broad national consequences.” She chose those states “because they each have something to tell us about how Democrats and progressives lost, and how they might win again—not within a single campaign cycle but over the long haul.” Of the three states, Colorado stands as a model of success, with organizers who worked energetically for nearly two decades “to keep Colorado Democrats and progressives in the game.” They gained control of the state Senate in 2000, and although they lost it two years later, their victory showed them that they could win. Seeing that Republicans were funded by extremely wealthy individual donors and conservative organizations (for example, the Koch brothers and Americans for Prosperity), Colorado progressives tapped local multimillionaires for contributions; their support attracted other left-leaning philanthropic and political donors. In addition, the organizers coordinated their efforts in advertising, mailings, recruiting volunteers, and in targeting key districts and races. Florida stood in sharp contrast. Although Democrats campaigned fiercely in presidential years, after they left, the state had no progressive infrastructure. Moreover, “left-leaning donors and interest groups came to consider Florida Democrats a lost cause,” leaving “a patchwork of underfunded and sometimes mismanaged organizations and volunteer chapters.” In Missouri, Republicans pounced on “charged cultural issues—guns, abortion, and race” to fragment Democratic voters. For voters frustrated with national politics, Winter sees local politics as “a venue where we can do something.” A timely, urgent call for political engagement.
104
|
1 september 2019
|
nonfiction
|
Wood, Wendy Farrar, Straus and Giroux (320 pp.) $28.00 | Oct. 1, 2019 978-1-250-15907-6
The nuances of creating a proactive, positively charged habitual life. Wood (Psychology and Business/ Univ. of Southern California) has spent her career amassing research material to support theories that human behavior is best controlled with habitual repetition rather than willpower and good intentions, which are often not nearly enough to shift everyday activity. The author believes that in order to change behavior, the mechanics of habit formation must be understood first. Wood persuasively instructs readers with an informative amalgam of data, graduate training experiments, and psychological theories on conscious thought and rewiring desire and mannerisms. She notes that the same learning mechanisms responsible for bad habits also control good ones. “Going to the gym regularly and smoking a couple of cigarettes a day are the same,” she writes, with the difference being how our habitual selves perceive and strive for personal goals. Wood notes that recent scientific studies reveal just how difficult human behavior is to change over the long term, but this data is also arming people with better game plans to disrupt the forces behind destructive patterns. Perhaps the most practical aspect of the book is the focus on functional tools and principles to interrupt and overcome the kinds of habits that prevent people from attaining more fruitful livelihoods and overall contentment. It is possible to achieve what she calls a “habit life” free from negative influences through the systematic replacement of poor habits with new ones that are beneficial and become just as familiar and comfortable. She instructs readers to disable the compulsive cues that engage such potentially bad behavior as overeating, distracted driving, and online shopping. When applied to real-life situations and acknowledged by readers seeking true behavioral reengineering, her research and valuable perspectives offer both hope and the possibility for a more manageable, productive life. A practical and cautionary story about how to break the cellphone habit concludes this intelligent assessment with encouragement. A timely, essential guide to understanding and molding our behaviors to achieve better results in our ever changing lifestyles. (15 b/w illustrations)
kirkus.com
|
While Yates Garcia’s account of her own magical coming-of-age includes mystical experiences and glimpses of rituals she has crafted, it is also a forceful critique of capitalism and patriarchal culture. initiated
INITIATED Memoir of a Witch
Yates Garcia, Amanda Grand Central Publishing (352 pp.) $27.00 | Oct. 22, 2019 978-1-5387-6305-6
|
kirkus.com
y o u n g a d u lt
A professional witch recounts the trials she endured in finding her vocation. That a contemporary witch would quote Starhawk quoting Doreen Valiente in an epigram will come as little surprise to students of the history of women’s spirituality. The former is an ecofeminist who has played a vital role in reimagining goddess worship for the modern age. The latter was instrumental in shaping Wicca, a mid-20th-century reiteration of English witchcraft. That this quotation is followed by a line from Hélène Cixous’ “The Laugh of the Medusa” is a bit more surprising. Taken together, these epigrams offer an illuminating introduction to Yates Garcia and her work. A seventh-generation Californian, the author has made a name—and a remunerative career—for herself as the “Oracle of California.” She co-hosts a podcast called Strange Magic, she has more than 27,000 followers on Instagram, and, in 2017, she talked with Tucker Carlson about her magical efforts to bind Donald Trump from doing harm. It would be wrong, though, to dismiss Yates Garcia as a dilettante cashing in on the current interest in witches. Her mother is a practicing witch and raised the author within her own tradition, a mix of Unitarian Universalist feminist theology, neopaganism, and political activism. While Yates Garcia’s account of her own magical coming-of-age includes mystical experiences and glimpses of rituals she has crafted, it is also a forceful critique of capitalism and patriarchal culture. Her philosophy of witchcraft emphasizes collective action and social justice. But this is not a manifesto. It’s a tale of adventure, a heroine’s journey to find her own power. Along the way, she chronicles her encounters with fairies, monsters of various kinds, and at least one demon lover. Even though “the forces of patriarchal authority have destroyed our stones, our caves, our temples, our cathedrals…the Goddess is being reborn.” Thoughtful, engaging, and fresh: a welcome addition to the annals of women’s spirituality.
|
nonfiction
|
1 september 2019
|
105
children’s THE BIG BOOGER BATTLE
These titles earned the Kirkus Star:
Acosta, Alicia Illus. by Carretero, Monica Trans. by Siret, Céline nubeOCHO (40 pp.) $15.95 | Nov. 12, 2019 978-84-17123-91-8 Series: Little Captain Jack
FIX THAT CLOCK by Kurt Cyrus....................................................... 111 TORPEDOED by Deborah Heiligman; illus. by Lawrence Lee......... 117 LITTLE MOLE’S WISH by Sang-Keun Kim; trans. by Chi-Young Kim....................................................................119 WILD HONEY FROM THE MOON by Kenneth Kraegel...................120 VOYAGE OF THE FROSTHEART by Jamie Littler............................120 THE GIRL WHO RODE A SHARK by Ailsa Ross; illus. by Amy Blackwell...................................................................... 131 THE BOY WITH THE BUTTERFLY MIND by Victoria Williamson.......................................................................134 WHAT THE EAGLE SEES by Eldon Yellowhorn & Kathy Lowinger..................................................................................134 THE SHORTEST DAY by Susan Cooper; illus. by Carson Ellis......... 137 SNOW GLOBE WISHES by Erin Dealey; illus. by Claire Shorrock..................................................................... 138 THE BEST GIFT EVER GIVEN by Ronnie Martin; illus. by Nathan Schroeder..................................................................143 THE NIGHT OF HIS BIRTH by Katherine Paterson; illus. by Lisa Aisato............................................................................ 146 LITTLE MOLE’S WISH
Kim, Sang-Keun Illus. by the author Trans. by Kim, Chi-Young Schwartz & Wade/ Random (40 pp.) $17.99 | $20.99 PLB Nov. 19, 2019 978-0-525-58134-5 978-0-525-58135-2 PLB
106
|
1 september 2019
|
children ’s
|
Grab a tissue—this vibrant picture book delivers silly adventure alongside copious amounts of mucus. This sequel to Little Captain Jack (2017) takes the diminutive pirate and his crew to unusual new locations as they travel the high seas. After discovering a message in a bottle pleading for help, Jack charts a course for Achoo Island. Soon, the crew discovers that the island is inhabited by person-sized noses (with tiny limbs) intent on coating Jack and company with snot and boogers! Quick thinking and teamwork get Little Captain Jack and his friends to safety, but not before he contracts a mysterious sneezing illness. Hilarity ensues when Jack’s sneezes produce bubbles, confetti, and even popcorn. A return trip to Achoo Island and a clever plan become necessary if he ever wants to find a cure. The theme of the series opener may have been self-acceptance, but readers of this new story are left with a less meaningful takeaway: “Make sure you have a hanky in your hand / if you travel to Booger Land.” Both noses and pirates represent a wide variety of skin tones, and one pirate is shown using a wheelchair. Unanswered questions and a muddled plot may leave readers scratching their heads instead of picking their noses. (Picture book. 4-8)
THE SPACE WE’RE IN
Balen, Katya Margaret Ferguson/Holiday House (176 pp.) $17.99 | Oct. 8, 2019 978-0-8234-4289-8 Frank loves number patterns, ciphers, and soccer, but his relationship with his younger brother, Max, doesn’t fit into any logical category. Frank is 10, and his fascination with codes and numerical sequences is challenged by the unpredictability of Max’s autism. Frank is counting down the days until Max can start his new school, but his focus on the difficulties of life with his brother takes a back seat when true tragedy strikes
kirkus.com
|
the family and Frank begins a countdown of another kind. Leaving childhood innocence far too soon, Frank is supported by his two best friends, his loving family, an empathetic neighbor, and a teacher who understands the temptation to hide what is hurtful from the outside world. Balen’s debut novel draws from her own experiences in a school for children with special challenges, and she balances the struggles of those with autism and those who love them in a book with an achingly huggable main character. The story, narrated by Frank, rings true as the author resists any temptation to make Frank more praiseworthy or more adult than he would be. The inclusion of the golden ratio, Morse code, occasional free verse poetry, and thoughtful changes in typeset add to an already admirable book. The tale is set in contemporary England; the main characters are presumed white; Frank’s friend Ahmed’s family is from Bangladesh. The mysteries of the universe, the complexities of life, and a protagonist readers will fall in love with. (Fiction. 10-14)
Bernard, Johanne & Dupeyrat, Laurent Illus. by Gilles, Alice Bala Kids/Shambhala (96 pp.) $16.95 paper | Nov. 12, 2019 978-1-61180-620-5
This guide, geared toward young meditators, offers over a dozen meditation practices from the Buddhist tradition. The text opens with a bit of history. Unlike other guides, which tend to emphasize secular mindfulness, this text embraces a specifically Buddhist approach to meditation (though this need not limit its utility for readers of other religious traditions or none). Brief information about the Buddha is provided, and sayings and stories traditional to Buddhist teaching are interspersed. The majority of the book consists of individual meditation practices. Each practice is explained, and guidance is offered for how to teach the practice to one’s parents. The direct simplicity of the text is appealing; however, at times the tone drifts toward scolding or even authoritarian, for example, as readers are admonished to begin in certain ways, practice certain exercises only at specified times, or stay absolutely quiet. Several line drawings of male and female figures— all white as the page—appear throughout; even the Buddha is depicted with skin devoid of color. At times, a whiff of privilege is evident; multiple-parent households with quiet, private spaces and easy access to nature are presumed, and no accommodations are given to include children whose experiences may not be reflected in these instructions. Most useful for children already exposed to, and looking to deepen, meditation practice. (Nonfiction. 8-12)
|
Mini Rabbit and Mother Rabbit are making cake, but they’ve run out of berries. “No berries, no cake.” “No cake? No way!” With single-minded determination, Mini Rabbit sets out, clad in a striped shirt and equipped with a jaunty orange backpack—and immediately fails to notice a bush full of berries growing just under their treehouse home. The movement-filled compositions show Mini Rabbit crossing fields and forests, arriving at a lighthouse, climbing a mountain in a snowstorm, and going over a cliff, where persistence is rewarded with one berry, all the while chanting, “Cake! Cake! Cake! I can find berries.” Thinking the tot’s lost, creatures all along the way offer to help, but Mini Rabbit politely declines their offers. It is only when the search leads deep into a cave that Mini Rabbit feels lost—backpack, berry, and big round eyes stand out clearly while black fur blends with the blackness of the cave. Just then, a smell beckons, “Caaaaake!” Retracing the route, Mini Rabbit makes it back home with that one berry, where Mother Rabbit greets her adventurer with a berry cake, of course! But as many a fickle youngster will, Mini Rabbit has moved on: “Can I have some ice cream? I LOVE ice cream.” Charming and whimsical—sure to bring smiles to readers’ faces. (Picture book. 3-6)
y o u n g a d u lt
MEDITATION FOR KIDS How To Clear Your Head and Calm Your Mind
MINI RABBIT IS NOT LOST
Bond, John Illus. by the author Neal Porter/Holiday House (32 pp.) $18.99 | Oct. 8, 2019 978-0-8234-4358-1
FLASH, THE LITTLE FIRE ENGINE
Calvert, Pam Illus. by Taylor, Jennifer Two Lions (40 pp.) $17.99 | Nov. 5, 2019 978-1-5420-4178-2
A little fire engine discovers what it’s good at by eliminating what it is not. Who knew disappointment could be such a keen teaching tool? Narrator Flash is eager to demonstrate firefighting prowess, but every attempt to “save the day” yields bubkes. First Flash is too little to handle a fire at the airport (Crash, an airport crash tender, handles that one). Next Flash is too short to help a tall building that’s on fire (that honor goes to Laddie, a turntable ladder). Finally, an airplane and a foam tender together solve a forest-fire problem. Only when a bridge is suddenly blocked by snow, with all the other trucks on the wrong side of it, does Flash have the opportunity to save a pet shelter that’s ablaze. (Readers will note characters in shirtsleeves at the beginning of the book, so this is a very unexpected snowstorm.) Calvert deftly finds a new way to introduce kids to different kinds of firefighting vehicles by setting up Flash in opposition to situations where it’s just not the best truck for the job. The
kirkus.com
|
children ’s
|
1 september 2019
|
107
taking stock: winter holiday picture books Photo courtesy Leah Overstreet
In the children’s book world, the Christmas season begins in September. That’s when the vast majority of Christmas-themed books hit the shelves, ready for eager, earlybird shoppers. It’s also when we publish our roundup of Christmas, Hanukkah, and—if there are any— other winter-holiday picture books. And I begin to feel very Grinch-y, lip curling from my perspective at the top of my personal Mount Crumpet at the rank commercialism on display. That the Christmas retail juggernaut drives marketers’ perception of book-buying is made amply clear in the proportions. This year, Kirkus reviews some 45 picture books with winter-holiday themes; of them, four are Hanukkah books, two use Christmas imagery to communicate messages of peace, and one focuses on the winter solstice—the rest are Christmas books, underscoring the seemingly unquestioned perceptions that the vast majority of the nation’s book buyers celebrate the holiday and that those who might celebrate other winter holidays don’t buy many (or any) books. It’s not just in the selection of holidays that the nation’s diversity is largely ignored, but within the collection of Christmas books as well. In this year’s clutch, three feature explicitly interracial families: Long Ago, on a Silent Night, by Julie Berry and illustrated by Annie Won; Snow Globe Wishes, by Erin Dealey and illustrated by Claire Shorrock; and Cookies for Santa, by America’s Test Kitchen and illustrated by Johanna Tarkela. Deborah Melmon’s lightly massaged adaptation of ’Twas the Night Before Christmas places at its center a family of three children with brown skin and straight, dark hair. The only identifiably Latinx Christmas celebration occurs in Between Us and Abuela, by Mitali Perkins and illustrated by Sara Palacios. Almost all the rest of this year’s batch of Christmas picture books reviewed cast characters of color in supporting roles—if they appear at all. The only nonwhite Santas are of the Salvation Army or department-store sort. 108
|
1 september 2019
|
children ’s
|
Why, if you are a Christmas-celebrating person of color or caregiver to a child of color, would you spend money on books that seem to ignore your existence? And, sadly, a whole lot of the annual Christmas glut is not particularly good. It’s hard to escape the conclusion that there’s not much creativity left to be wrung from Christmas stories when the season produces such titles as The Tooth Fairy Vs. San ta, Peanut Butter and Santa Claus: A Zombie Culinary Tale, and The Dinosaur That Pooped Christmas! (“Safe to say,” opines our reviewer, “it’s the only dinosaur-poop–themed Christmas book readers will ever need”). To be sure, there are a lot of terrific books that families will be happy to add to their book bags. Francesco Tirelli’s Ice Cream Shop, Tamar Meir’s historical tale (illustrated by Yael Albert) of an Italian gentile who gave shelter to her father-in-law and his family during the Holocaust, includes a lovely, touching celebration of Hanukkah. Susan Cooper’s The Shortest Day, illustrated by Carson Ellis, is a brief but incandescent survey of solstice observances beginning in prehistoric Europe and concluding with a Yule celebration in a modern, Western, multicultural home with a Christmas tree, menorah, and sprig of holly in the living room. And on The Night of His Birth, Mary wonders aloud at the miracle that is her child in author Katherine Paterson and illustrator Lisa Aisato’s luminous, reverent work. One of our favorites, however, Nutcracker Night, embodies the contradictions inherent in the packaging and delivery of Christmas culture. Author Mireille Messier and illustrator Gabrielle Grimard’s buoyant celebration of a child’s first encounter with the popular ballet follows an Asian child-and-dad pair who sit in a robustly diverse audience—and watch a troupe of mostly white dancers. Can’t we do better? —V.S. Vicky Smith is the children’s editor.
kirkus.com
|
An excellent jumping-off point to encourage children to engage with art. how artists see animals
anthropomorphized engines and planes irritatingly include unnecessary eyelashes on trucks with feminine pronouns, but this is mitigated by the fact that the girls get cool names like “Crash” and save the day first. Enthusiastic if unremarkable digital art presents both firefighters and citizens in an array of genders and races. An innocuous telling, sure to slip in effortlessly with other firetruck books. (Picture book. 3-6)
HOW ARTISTS SEE ANIMALS Mammal Fish Bird Reptile
Carroll, Colleen Abbeville Kids (48 pp.) $13.95 | Oct. 1, 2019 978-0-7892-1348-8 Series: How Artists See
In this revised edition of one book in a series entitled How Artists See, Carroll has selected an eclectic collection of 23 paintings, sculptures, and artifacts by artists ancient and modern from many different cultures. Each artwork is depicted on one page or a double-page spread, frequently alongside a detail from the larger work. The book presents depictions of animals by varied artists: Andy Warhol, Frida Kahlo, Albrecht Dürer, Kishi Ganku, Robert Bateman, Henri Matisse, Roy Liechtenstein, Alexander Calder, Frank Gehry, John James Audubon, Tamás Galambos, Georgia O’Keeffe, Ana Maria Pacheco, Simon Stålenhag, Audrey Weber,
y o u n g a d u lt
|
kirkus.com
|
children ’s
|
1 september 2019
|
109
INTERVIEWS & PROFILES
Raina Telgemeier [sponsored]
IN HER LATEST GRAPHIC MEMOIR, GUTS, THE ARTIST/AUTHOR WRITES FRANKLY ABOUT ANXIETY AND STOMACH ISSUES By James Feder Photo courtesy Joseph Fanvu Photography
Raina Telgemeier was producing autobiographical comics long before the runaway success of her New York Times bestselling graphic novels Smile (2010) and Sisters (2014). From the age of 9, enamored by the comic strips she read in newspapers, Telgemeier began creating her own. For a “lack of other stories,” she chose to focus on the everyday, on life as she saw it unfolding around her. “I had a really hard time coming up with ideas,” she recalls. “I thought if you wanted to be a writer, you had to be somebody who made stuff up, and I wasn’t one of those kids.” And so her comics became a diary of sorts, something private and personal that she did for herself without any intention of sharing. “But after doing that for 25 years,” she says, “I realized the ideas, the stories, were right there.” While Telgemeier may have found the basis for her latest graphic novel–cum-memoir, Guts, in her own life experience, that didn’t mean it was an easy story to tell. “It’s a story I’ve been living with my entire life,” she explains, but unlike Smile, which explored her encounter with orthodontistry, or Sisters, which dealt with her relationship with her sibling, Guts is centered around issues we don’t typically think of as appropriate for “polite company:” anxiety and irritable bowels. After introducing readers to a character—her younger self— who deals tangentially with anxiety in her previous books, Telgemeier felt compelled to address the issue head on. “I thought, ‘You know what, it’s time to tell this story and be completely up front about it, even though it’s embarrassing and there are stigmas and taboos, and it’s related to a phobia that deals with bodily 110
|
1 september 2019
|
children ’s
|
functions.’ ” And while her early work may have dealt with less weighty issues, she found that the experience of producing such books nevertheless prepared her to approach this chapter of her life with the sleight of hand it required. “I think the beauty of the graphic novel format is that you can show and tell,” Telgemeier explains. “So with something like anxiety, which can be really hard to describe—especially for a young person—you can use a combination of color and playing with something like time and dialogue to get to this really cool place where you can describe something deep and personal in a way people can actually feel for themselves.” Telgemeier began dealing with anxiety and her stomach issues when she was around 9, the same age that she discovered comics. “One of the places I found comfort,” she remembers, “was in the comic strip “For Better or For Worse.” While it didn’t address her specific concerns, it dealt with “typical problems that kids had: bullies and pimples and crushes,” and for Telgemeier, that proved to be enough. She was particularly struck by the fact that the creator was writing from her own experiences. “It was so validating to see that, and it was a big motivation for me to want to create something similar.” There is a long-standing tendency among parents, teachers, and librarians to dismiss the merits of graphic novels or to see them as steppingstones toward “real” literature. “I think that does kids a real disservice,” Telgemeier insists. “Just because they’re laughing, just because there are pictures, doesn’t mean there isn’t value. There’s so much to be found in this medium,” she says, listing off comics that range from Jennifer and Matthew Holm’s Babymouse to Marjane Satrapi’s Persepolis. “A lot of kids will say that they don’t like reading,” Telgemeier continues, “and we—as in other cartoonists—find that graphic novels can get kids interested in reading for the first time. Books can be intimidating because of their size or the number of words or chapters, but the pictures make it effortless. I get excited emails from kids who say, ‘Yours is the first book I ever read.’ They discover a love of reading, and then they find that they want more.” James Feder is a New York–born, Scottish-educated writer based in Tel Aviv. Guts was reviewed in the June 1, 2019, issue.
kirkus.com
|
Crisp, Georges De Groot, and Marie Sybilla Merian as well as art from cave paintings in France, a mosaic from Pompeii, an ancient Greek coin, a Chiriquí frog pendant, and a Kuba carved wood crocodile. Carroll’s prose is simple but lively: engaging, questioning, sometimes humorous, often invoking sensory responses. As she remarks in a closing note, “The questions… are open-ended, with no right or wrong answers—they are meant to encourage children to look critically and ask thoughtprovoking questions of their own.” This book would provide an excellent jumping-off point for a teacher or parent to encourage children to engage with art, to spark creativity, and to build visual-literacy skills. Biographical notes and resources for each artist appear in the backmatter. Companion title How Artists See Families publishes simultaneously. A great addition to the visual-literacy library for young children. (Informational picture book. 6-10) (How Artists See Families: 978-0-7892-1349-5)
BOA CONSTRUCTOR
In the second installment of the Binder of Doom series, readers will reconnect with Alexander Bopp, who leads the Super Secret Monster Patrol, a group of mutant children who protect the citizens of their beloved town of Stermont. His friends Nikki and Rip rejoin him to add new monsters and adventures to their ever growing binder of monsters. As in series opener Brute-Cake (2019), Alexander and his friends attend the local library’s summer program, this time for “maker-camp.” They are assigned a Maker Challenge, in which each camper is to “make a machine that performs a helpful task”; meanwhile, mechanical equipment is being stolen all over Stermont. Unfortunately, the pacing and focus of the book hop all over the place. The titular boa constructor (a twoheaded maker-minded snake and the culprit behind the thefts) is but one of many monsters introduced here, appearing more than two-thirds of the way through the story—just after the Machine Share-Time concludes the maker-camp plotline. (Rip’s “most dangerous” invention does come in handy at the climax.) The grayscale illustrations add visuals that will keep early readers engaged despite the erratic storyline; they depict Alexander with dark skin and puffy hair and Nikki and Rip with light skin. Monster trading cards are interleaved with the story. Returning fans will be happy to see their friends, but this outing’s unlikely to win them new ones. (Paranormal adventure. 6-8)
|
Three young builders repair a rundown clock housed in a wooden tower. The rickety wooden tower stands alone, paint peeling, stairs broken. The gears in the clock have rusted; most of the numbers have fallen off. Three determined young people clad in overalls and toting tools arrive to restore it. Two present as male—one tall, thin, and black, the other shorter and white. The lone girl has straight, dark hair cut in a short bob and olive skin. The rhyming text has an appealingly singsong nursery-rhyme cadence as it chronicles their arrival, the work they do, and the host of small animals that have made the clock tower their home. It also offers opportunities for interaction by describing details in ways that encourage children to observe closely and to count. Variations in the style, size, and color of the typeset add emphasis and visual interest and contribute to the playful feel. Crisp, colorful illustrations enhance and extend the text. In addition to depicting the action and individuals described (down to the last of 20 mice who race to escape the demolition), they reveal subtle patterns in the trees, shrubs, and clouds and the details of the clock face and its gears. With lots to look at and a pleasing rhythm, this energetic repair project ticks along very nicely indeed. (Picture book. 4-8)
y o u n g a d u lt
Cummings, Troy Illus. by the author Scholastic (96 pp.) $4.99 paper | $24.99 PLB | Sep. 3, 2019 978-1-338-31469-4 978-1-338-31470-0 PLB Series: The Binder of Doom, 2
FIX THAT CLOCK
Cyrus, Kurt Illus. by the author HMH Books (40 pp.) $17.99 | Nov. 26, 2019 978-1-328-90408-9
THE YETI AND THE JOLLY LAMA A Tale of Friendship Das, Surya Illus. by Mineker, Vivian Sounds True (32 pp.) $17.95 | Oct. 8, 2019 978-1-68364-386-9
A fearsome yeti is befriended by a gentle lama in this picture book. In Tibet, a lama spends his days in meditation “wishing peace and happiness for the world and all its creatures.” One day, going into the village for the midsummer festival, he finds it empty. He learns that a yeti has terrorized the village and the villagers are afraid to come outdoors. The lama persuades them to celebrate anyway. Afterward, back at his cave, the lama is praying for “peace and happiness” when the yeti shows up, ready to pounce. But this brief moment of narratively welcome tension is immediately diffused when the yeti, instead, lies down at the lama’s feet, pacified by the “warm glow of the lama’s heart.” This turn of events may well disorient young readers. Hopefully they will identify with the lama’s subsequent kindness and compassion to the yeti and the yeti’s conversion into a happy, helpful companion, but this well-worn (although vital) theme fails to captivate
kirkus.com
|
children ’s
|
1 september 2019
|
111
in this treatment. Mineker’s illustrations are colorful, showing many Tibetan faces and a brown yeti, but beyond this are unremarkable in their design and perspectives. While author Das is a well-regarded, well-known Western monk in the Tibetan Buddhist tradition, the book’s cutesy language, somewhat patronizing jocularity, and lack of narrative tension make it a bland read. Kindness and compassion delivered in a pat manner. (author’s note) (Picture book. 3-8)
MIMI’S TREASURE TROUBLE
Davick, Linda Illus. by the author Beach Lane/Simon & Schuster (240 pp.) $13.99 | Oct. 8, 2019 978-1-4424-5892-5 Series: Mimi’s World, 2
A girl’s quest for treasure alienates her friends. Mimi lives in an apartment in Periwinkle Tower, where most of her friends live as well. Their current project is to dig a tunnel so that Sofie, who isn’t lucky enough to live in Periwinkle Tower, can sneak in and live among her friends. What Mimi hasn’t told her friends is that her reasons for helping dig the tunnel aren’t entirely altruistic: She’s hoping to find buried treasure. When that information comes to light, and after Mimi insults her friend Yoshi and calls him “stupid,” her friends abandon her. She has to swallow some humble pie if she wants to win them back. Though their town of Pueblo del Mar is ostensibly in the United States and Mimi and her friends attend school, there are no parents in this world, and the children drive their own cars and cook their own food. The shallow conflicts in the story shift chapter by chapter, and the worldbuilding is neither realistic nor fantastical, putting it in an uncomfortable nowhereland. Bobblehead-style illustrations present a diverse cast of characters, but Mimi’s ever present sombrero (a gift from Yoshi after a bad haircut) feels like a cheap way to signal that the character is Latina. It seems the book wants us to laugh with it, but it’s much easier to laugh at it. Both meandering and implausible even when suspending disbelief. (Fiction. 5-9)
WOW! LOOK WHAT BUGS CAN DO!
de la Bédoyère, Camilla Illus. by Johnson, Ste Kingfisher (32 pp.) $15.99 | $8.99 paper | Oct. 1, 2019 978-0-7534-7517-1 978-0-7534-7516-4 paper Series: Wow! Oversized illustrations of various insects “slither, creep, crawl, scamper, swim, climb…or fly” across colorful pages that also sport the “Extraordinary Facts” announced on the cover. 112
|
1 september 2019
|
children ’s
|
The initial double-page spread is a bright, grassy green. A large black headline announces “The bug club.” Directly beneath it, in smaller black lettering: “Step into the exciting world of mini-beasts! Don’t be afraid!” Large, colorful, semicomical renditions of several insects—and a lizard whose tongue is trying to catch a fly—are scattered across the pages, accompanied by blocks of text that give a few facts about cicadas, rhinoceros beetles, peacock butterflies, tiger beetles, and ants. More text is included in two opaque circles of contrasting colors, each with the headline, “Wow!” Each succeeding double-page spread uses a similar layout, producing in readers the opposite effect of a bedtime story. The categories include legs, homes, camouflage, unusual survival skills, and more. On several occasions, the text cleverly adds buglike meanings to well-known sayings. Although the colorful busy-ness and overabundance of exclamation marks would suggest a preschool audience, an abundance of text and compound sentences makes it more appropriate for older readers who don’t mind hype. Their reward: plenty of cool and/or gross facts with which to impress others. Hopefully, young readers will read all the way to the ending’s reminder of the importance of bugs to our planet. Companion title Wow! Look What’s in the Oceans publishes simultaneously and with similar effect. Fun with bugs. (Informational picture book. 6-9) (Wow! Look What’s in the Oceans: 978-0-7534-7518-8)
A WARM FRIENDSHIP
DeLange, Ellen Illus. by Molnár, Jacqueline Clavis (32 pp.) $17.95 | $9.95 paper | Oct. 1, 2019 978-1-60537-449-9 978-1-60537-503-8 paper A squirrel and a snowman cherish their friendship and hope it will last forever in this Belgian/Dutch import. When Squirrel sees a shivering, sobbing snowman alone in the cold, she gathers scarves and blankets with the other forest animals to keep him warm. Her act of kindness begins a friendship full of fun that inspires the whole forest to join their play. However, the snow starts melting as the “days fly by,” and Squirrel’s best friend disappears, too. All the forest animals experience the loss. Collagelike illustrations cover every spread with whimsical, wintry scenes, leaving no white space apart from the snow. DeLange foreshadows the snowman’s inevitable demise with warmer weather, so his melting arrives naturally, but the resolution afterward is abrupt and offers hollow closure. Owl’s words of comfort (the concluding lines of the book) dismiss Squirrel’s feelings about the loss of her best friend with the platitude “Don’t be sad”: Snowman lives on in the flowers, leaves, and hearts of his friends. Bright spring colors in the background correspond with this tone of forced positivity. The story introduces no twists or surprises to the “melting snowman” trope. While the celebration of friendship and kindness is sweet, the treatment of Squirrel’s grief gives the story’s overall message an insensitive ring. An invalidating and tactless lesson about coping with the sudden loss of a friend. (Picture book. 3-6)
kirkus.com
|
A stirring tribute to black excellence. the unstoppable garrett morgan
THE UNSTOPPABLE GARRETT MORGAN Inventor, Entrepreneur, Hero
DiCicco, Joan Illus. by Glenn, Ebony Lee & Low (40 pp.) $19.95 | Oct. 1, 2019 978-1-62014-564-7
y o u n g a d u lt
An accessible first look at a celebrated inventor in the black community. Garrett Morgan has been credited with the invention of the traffic light but is often overlooked in favor of other famous black innovators, such as George Washington Carver and Charles R. Drew. Debut picture-book author DiCicco gives young readers a solid overview of Garrett Morgan’s wideranging versatility. The account of his humble beginnings as part of a Kentucky sharecropping family highlights how his circumstances led him to solve problems creatively. When he left for the North, he advanced his education with private tutoring. DiCicco uses affirmative vocabulary like “unstoppable” and “brave” to describe his resilience and determination in life—an attitude that led to his decision to marry a white woman before interracial marriages were federally legal. The bulk of the book is devoted to his invention of a piece of safety apparatus that ensured a supply of fresh air to firefighters before turning to the invention of the traffic light. The racism that he encountered along the way is not soft-pedaled. A detailed timeline and bibliography steer readers to resources that will enable them to further explore his life. Glenn supplies earth-toned paintings that give a sense of the period and evoke mid-20th-century Disney cartoons. A stirring tribute to black excellence. (Picture book/biog raphy. 7-11)
from Scripture in a “Wisdom of the Word” rebuttal. Confusingly, some quotes used to represent “wordly” wisdom would seem to support the Scriptures referenced. Though the fables are generally well told, a few nonbiblical messages might be mistakenly communicated to those seeking the moral to be clear from the start. For instance, in the story of “Rabbit’s Foxy Guest,” early dialogue could easily lead readers to believe that the tale is a warning against being hospitable toward others rather than a warning against deception. Overall, the book is actively hostile to readers not already aligned with the creators’ worldview. A mixed bag of morality tales. (Fables. 6-10)
FROG’S RAINY-DAY STORY AND OTHER FABLES
Dowling, Michael James Illus. by Dowling, Sarah Buell Carpenter’s Son Publishing (72 pp.) $19.95 | Oct. 1, 2019 978-1-949-572-46-9 Michael James Dowling steps out in the tradition of Aesop, using anthropomorphized animal characters to teach moral lessons within a Christian framework. He opens with the titular tale, in which Frog begins to write a story only to find his letters leaping off the page in revolt. The letters must learn that their greatest success comes in doing what they were created to do. From the start the author shows himself wary of nonbiblical truth. After the moral of each tale is revealed he pointedly attacks self-help and Eastern philosophy and religion by quoting various writers, philosophers, and religious leaders of non-Christian traditions under the heading “Wisdom of the World,” which is then contrasted with quotes |
kirkus.com
|
children ’s
|
1 september 2019
|
113
Large, unfussy black type creatively shifts to fill negative space. milton & odie and the bigger-than-bigmouth bass
MILTON & ODIE AND THE BIGGER-THAN-BIGMOUTH BASS
Fraser, Mary Ann Illus. by the author Charlesbridge (32 pp.) $16.99 | Oct. 1, 2019 978-1-62354-098-2
Polar-opposite otters find camaraderie in this read-aloud. Grumpy Milton and exuberant Odie are two adorable anthropomorphic otters on parallel ice-fishing pursuits. Dressed in muted greens and grays, Milton finds negativity in the old boot he fishes out of the frozen lake, criticizes his bait, and is less than enthused about crossing paths with the cheery Odie when Milton’s line tugs Odie’s fishing pole out of the water. With an exuberant, red-and-yellow plaid coat and bright blue hat and mittens, Odie sees possibilities and positives as readily as Milton can find the downside in anything. From their meeting, they learn about teamwork and experience a sweet role reversal after some success. While the pair of otters represents a type of emotional binary, the gently repetitive events in the story could well start conversations about ranges of emotions. Warmth is established through images of happy fish swimming beneath Odie (those beneath Milton match his glum mien), Odie’s genuine smile, and emphasized onomatopoeia. Large, unfussy black type creatively shifts to fill negative space or snowy white landscapes. Combine this with Grumpy Pants (2016) by Claire Messer or Bernice Gets Carried Away (2015) by Hannah E. Harrison for a trio of reads that can offer some giggles while exploring emotions and friendship. Sunnily earnest. (Picture book. 4- 7)
GO, GIRLS, GO!
Gilbert, Frances Illus. by Black, Allison Beach Lane/Simon & Schuster (40 pp.) $17.99 | Nov. 5, 2019 978-1-5344-2482-1 Girl power meets things that go in this colorful early picture book. Girls with diverse skin colors, hair colors, and hair textures drive, conduct, steer, speed, rev, fly, build, load, dump, and rocket in vehicles of many different types. A spread introducing three girls being active in their vehicles is followed by a spread calling out the sounds their machines make (“VROOM! goes Emma. / HOOT! goes Meg. / CLANK! goes Jayla”), then a spread saying “GO, GIRLS, GO!” This three-spread pattern repeats with three new girls and vehicles each time. From trains and tractors to tugboats, taxis, planes, and motorcycles, these girls “go” in every way, working, playing and saving the day. Girls from previous spreads help girls on later spreads, showing an ideal of cooperation and unity that furthers the value of the girl-power message. On the last “GO, GIRLS, GO!” spread, all the girls march together, some holding 114
|
1 september 2019
|
children ’s
|
signs for peace, equality, and womanhood—a touch that may tip the balance a bit too far into the realm of didacticism for some tastes. The illustrations feature bright primary colors, block shapes, patterns, stars, and large, clear fonts that will appeal to young audiences. With repeated readings, pre-readers will be reciting the words on their own. A hit for girls who identify strongly with girlhood and love things that go. (Picture book. 3-6)
THE BEST KIND OF BEAR
Gormley, Greg Illus. by Barrow, David Nosy Crow/Candlewick (32 pp.) $16.99 | Nov. 12, 2019 978-1-5362-0823-8
Bear sets out to discover what kind of bear he is, but he doesn’t quite fit into
a category. Bear is in the library searching through books about bears, trying to figure out what kind of bear he is, when Nelly, a brown child with her hair in two puffs, meets him. Bear decides to see if there is “a bear out there who can help.” He travels west and finds a grizzly bear who loves “nice long naps.” Bear also loves napping—but when the grizzly announces he’ll be sleeping for six months, Bear realizes he “can’t possibly be a grizzly bear.” The grizzly bear agrees, pointing out the “funny little stitches” on Bear’s tummy are un-grizzly-like. Bear’s visits with a polar bear in the north, a spectacled bear in the south, and a sun bear in the east follow the same pattern. Bear returns home saddened. He tells Nelly, “I suppose that I’m just an ordinary and uninteresting bear.” But Nelly points out all his unique features and asks if he would like to be her bear. Bear agrees that “Nelly’s Bear” is the best kind to be. The illustrations use shading, line, and speckles over muted browns, blues, and greens, emphasizing characters and sketching their settings. This heartwarming tale can be enjoyed as a simple story or used to talk about identity, relationships, and belonging. Thoughtfully layered and simply sweet. (Picture book. 3-8)
SHINE!
Grabenstein, J.J. & Grabenstein, Chris Random House (224 pp.) $16.99 | $19.99 PLB | Nov. 5, 2019 978-1-5247-1766-7 978-1-5247-1768-1 PLB Previously a “blender,” Piper Milly finds a way to shine in a school full of would-be stars. Piper’s father’s new job is choral director at Chumley Prep, a tony independent school where everyone’s an achiever. It comes with full tuition for Piper, who’s now able to attend the school where her deceased mother once shone. Feeling out of place
kirkus.com
|
and extremely untalented in this new, more competitive world, seventh grader Piper eventually finds friends and discovers that her empathy and willingness to help others make her stellar, too. She even finds it possible to do something nice for the classmate who has made fun of her and her father from their very first encounter. From a characterization standpoint, Piper’s enthusiasm for astronomy helps her stand out as a protagonist in this novel about finding one’s place in middle school, but her nemesis, Ainsley Braden-Hammerschmidt, is drawn as an alltoo-familiar arrogant child of privilege. The puzzle here is more subtle than in some of co-author Chris Grabenstein’s previous Mr. Lemoncello books: There’s a new prize at Chumley Prep, the Excelsior Award; every student hopes to win it, but no one knows quite how. A subplot involving a teacher who hasn’t gotten over her resentment of Piper’s mother seems extraneous, but there’s plenty of believable dialogue and humor. The cast is default white; Piper’s friends have names representative of different cultures and are gratifyingly quirky. A crowd-pleasing reminder that kindness pays. (Fiction. 10-13)
THE HADLEY ACADEMY FOR THE IMPROBABLY GIFTED
Grennan, Conor Illus. by Valdrighi, Alessandro Tommy Nelson (368 pp.) $16.99 | Oct. 8, 2019 978-1-4002-1534-8
Eighth grader Jack Carlson may well be the chosen one of prophecy—but not the way readers might think. After his best friend presents a poorly received class report on the mysterious titular institution, Jack inexplicably finds himself deposited on its doorstep. One instructor proclaims Jack to be the long-awaited Guardian, prophesied to kill the Reaper King, but the rest, more skeptical, give Jack and his hastily assembled team just three days to prove themselves. As the deadline looms, everything starts to go horribly, disastrously wrong….This may come from an evangelical Christian imprint, but any religious message here is kept
y o u n g a d u lt
THE ONE AND ONLY WOLFGANG From Pet Rescue to One Big Happy Family
Greig, Steve & Hess, Mary Rand Illus. by Sarell, Nadja Zonderkidz (32 pp.) $17.99 | Sep. 3, 2019 978-0-310-76823-4
Wolfgang is an all-animal family first popularized on Greig’s Instagram. The meaning of family is important to 12 animals who became one family through adoption. In order to fully acquaint readers with the members of this family, individual portraits of each animal and an amusing fact are presented in a double-page gallery at the beginning of the book. Family members include nine dogs, one rabbit, one pig, and one chicken Each animal has a quirky side that is visible through the illustrations, which digitally collage photographs of the animals onto cartoon backgrounds. It is obvious to readers that there is much love and acceptance in this book despite all of their differences. Readers see them milling around the kitchen together, making a bubbly mess while bathing, and engaging in movie night. Throughout the book, various ages, sizes, and abilities are depicted to represent a diverse family; graying muzzles indicate that several are of advanced years. All of the members of this family are loved, whether it is the old cocker that trips all of the other dogs, the big pig who eats all of the food, the deaf dog, or the blind dog. More a description of their imagined living circumstances than a story, the busy, amusing scenarios will endear these characters to readers. Jodi Picoult provides an afterword. A memorable and entertaining celebration of adoption. (Picture book. 5- 7)
|
kirkus.com
|
children ’s
|
1 september 2019
|
115
strictly subtextual. Jack, apparently white, is a nice enough but somewhat bland protagonist; his teammates are more diverse (cued by naming convention and mention of skin color) and agreeably quirky, if a bit one-note. While it’s difficult to see a secretive school that kidnaps children to train as “borderline psychopath” soldiers through brainwashing, torturous interrogations, and mandatory death matches as a force for good, their opponents are undoubtedly irredeemably monstrous. Unfortunately, the first part of the story is a tedious agglomerate of contrived exposition, clichéd set pieces, and cringeworthy coincidences; it’s a pity because about halfway through, the narrative suddenly twists into an intense thrill ride, with battles and betrayals and (literally) an apocalyptic body count, concluding in a clever subversion of that chosen-one trope. By the final cliffhanger, readers will be primed for a sequel; the trick will be getting them there. (Fantasy. 10-14)
FEARLESS FELINES 30 True Tales of Courageous Cats
Hamilton, Kimberlie Scholastic (160 pp.) $9.99 | Nov. 5, 2019 978-1-338-35583-3
So much is said about heroic dogs, but what about fearless felines? Hamilton collects the life stories of 30 cats of note. Each is profiled in a single-page bio that highlights its special contribution to history and a full-page, full-color illustration by one of 17 artists. Arranged alphabetically, the accomplished kitties are from all corners of the map and all walks of cat life. There’s Félicette, the first catsronaut, from France; Dewey, the library cat from Iowa that inspired a bestselling book; Scarlett the New York momma cat who saved her kittens from a fire; and Oscar, the first bionic cat, with two prosthetic legs. Cats can even be war heroes, as Pitoutchi, who saved his human in the trenches of World War I, and Pyro, a World War II flying ace, both demonstrate. Interleaved among the biographies are two-page spreads of additional feline facts and kitty trivia—the likes of “Silly Cat Superstitions,” “Mighty Mousers,” and “Feline Muses” to the famous—tied in some way to the bios that precede them. At the outset is a very brief timeline of feline-human interaction from 7500 B.C.E. to 2018; and at the close is a timeline of the profiled pusses, a glossary, furr-ther reading, websites, and author and illustrator bios. A cornucopia for cat connoisseurs. (Nonfiction. 7-14)
116
|
1 september 2019
|
children ’s
|
BUZZING WITH QUESTIONS The Inquisitive Mind of Charles Henry Turner Harrington, Janice N. Illus. by Taylor III, Theodore Calkins Creek/Boyds Mills (48 pp.) $18.99 | Nov. 5, 2019 978-1-62979-558-4
A thorough biography of early African American scientist Charles Henry Turner. From a young age, “questions hopped through…Turner’s mind like grasshoppers.” His teacher encouraged him to “go and find out,” and that is what he spent his life doing. He attended college when most colleges didn’t accept African Americans, and he kept asking questions as he studied biology. The “indefatigable scientist” studied spiders: Two spreads explain how he learned that “each spider wove a web just right for its home.” He studied crustaceans and ants, bees and moths. His significant findings are explained both in the illustrations and in the lucid paragraphs of text that describe the experiments and his conclusions. The importance of his findings in the field is made clear, and the curiosity and hard work that led to them are the focus. One spread mentions the racial prejudice he lived through and his service to the community. His work is cast in the light of uplifting humanity: “He wrote that biology could help people see the connections among all living things.” The digital illustrations depict people, creatures, and experiments in thick black lines and swaths of color that help readers understand the science being discussed. This extensively researched, jam-packed text intrigues and inspires with Turner’s example of discovery and hard-won, meaningful contributions to knowledge about life. A well-written tribute to a deserving champion of science. (author’s note, timeline, sources, notes) (Picture book/ biography. 7-10)
UNPLUGGED AND UNPOPULAR
Heagerty, Mat Illus. by Pantoja, Tintin & Amante, Mike Oni Press (144 pp.) $19.99 | $12.99 paper | Oct. 15, 2019 978-1-62010-680-8 978-1-62010-669-3 paper In the near future, a young girl and her friends fend off fuzzy purple extraterrestrials intent on domination. Erin Song lives in a world dependent on smartphones and the internet, devoid of handwriting, bookstores, and DVDs. Erin’s quest for popularity leads her to help the most popular girl in school cheat on a test. Inevitably, the scheme quickly falls apart. Erin’s outraged boredom at her revoked technology privileges turns to panic when she realizes Culver City has been invaded by ETs using computers, smartphones, and TVs to transmit false information and erase any memory of the
kirkus.com
|
An exceptionally well-researched and impressively crafted tale of desperation, tragedy, and survival. torpedoed
humans they abduct—including Erin’s older brother. Can Erin and a gang of elderly Luddites defeat the aliens? Divided into five long chapters, this humorous, intergenerational story relies heavily on the digitally inked, full-color illustrations. Expressive characters, enticing layouts, and a pastel color scheme add comedic flair. Although there are a few plot points that get lost amid the sequential panels, overall the visual storytelling is clear. Unfortunately, top-notch illustrations cannot overcome a predictable plotline, underdeveloped characters, and a heavyhanded message. The final battle is awash with fun gadgets, but victory is disappointingly swift, too easily won. The illustrations depict Erin as mixed-race (white mother, Asian father) and show a realistically diverse community, yet the text fails to develop the supporting characters. Finally, lacking nuance, the beware-of-too-much-technology moral drags down the story. Fast-paced, full-color fluff appealing to voracious sci-fi comic fans but few others. (Graphic science fiction. 8-12)
Hooks, Gwendolyn Illus. by Agoussoye, Simone Capstone Editions (40 pp.) $18.95 | Oct. 1, 2019 978-1-5435-1280-9
A little-known true story of a slave sheds new light on George Washington and his family. Ona Maria Judge was born a slave on Mount Vernon, the Virginia plantation of George Washington, commander of the Continental Army during the American Revolution. Ona’s mother, Betty, served as the Washington family seamstress and imparted needlework skills to Ona, which enabled her to escape harsh fieldwork conditions by becoming a house slave. When Washington was elected president, the family relocated to New York City, moving Ona—now Martha Washington’s personal slave—her brother Austin, and five other slaves with them in
y o u n g a d u lt
TORPEDOED The True Story of the World War II Sinking of “The Children’s Ship”
ONA JUDGE OUTWITS THE WASHINGTONS An Enslaved Woman Fights for Freedom
Heiligman, Deborah Illus. by Lee, Lawrence Godwin Books/Henry Holt (288 pp.) $19.99 | Oct. 8, 2019 978-1-62779-554-8
Heiligman recounts the little-known World War II maritime disaster of the sinking of the passenger ship City of Benares, which was evacuating children from England to Canada. In 1940, with German air raids reducing many of England’s major cities to smoldering ruins and a threatened invasion looming, thousands of British parents chose to send their children to safety in Canada through a program called the Children’s Overseas Reception Board. On Sept. 13, 1940, the passenger liner departed Liverpool in a convoy bound for Canadian ports. Onboard were 90 CORB children, their chaperones, crew, and paying passengers. Their Royal Navy escort left it on Sept. 17, and that night, unaware of the refugee children aboard, the commander of German submarine U-48 ordered three torpedoes launched at the Benares, the third hitting its target with devastating effect. Heiligman makes the story especially compelling by recounting the backstories and experiences of several of the children and their chaperones. These characters are presumably white; Heiligman takes care to note that the overwhelming majority of the crew were South Asian Muslims whose stories were not collected after the disaster. It’s a customarily masterfully paced and beautifully designed book, with reproductions of archival photographs and documents complemented by original pencil art by Lee that captures the action aboard the Benares and afterward. Expansive backmatter includes interviews conducted with Heiligman’s sources, several by her. An exceptionally well-researched and impressively crafted tale of desperation, tragedy, and survival. (bibliography, notes, index) (Nonfiction. 10-14) |
kirkus.com
|
children ’s
|
1 september 2019
|
117
Book-bait for middle-grade readers that oozes eww appeal. gross as a snot otter
1789. After a return to Mount Vernon, the family moved again to Philadelphia, the new capital. With the abolitionist movement gaining momentum, Ona realized the Washingtons would not free her; she would have to take her freedom. In 1796, when Mrs. Washington promised Ona as a wedding gift to her granddaughter, Ona decided to escape, assisted by the Rev. Richard Allen, a free black man, and others, to New Hampshire. The narrator emphasizes just how hard the Washington family tried to force Ona to return to them, using deception whenever possible. While this story offers important historical information, it is text-heavy, with an accretion of distracting details. The naïve-style illustrations are colorful but inconsistent, particularly in their evocation of the period, which will also limit this book’s appeal to children. A worthwhile story poorly told. (author’s note, bibliography) (Picture book/biography. 6-9)
THE FATE OF FAUSTO A Painted Fable Jeffers, Oliver Illus. by the author Philomel (96 pp.) $24.99 | Sep. 17, 2019 978-0-593-11501-5
A cautionary fable on the banality of belligerence. Fausto—dapper, balding, and tanned (but presenting white)—believes he owns everything and sets out to prove it. “You are mine,” he declares to everything he meets, from a flower to a mountain, compelling increasingly reluctant submission by yelling, clenching his fist, and stomping. Only the sea denies him, asking how he could own anything he doesn’t even love, and inviting Fausto to make good on his angry threat to show it who’s boss. Trying to stomp on the sea (combined with an inability to swim) ends predictably for Fausto… whereupon all of the overgrown toddler’s “possessions” go on about their business, indifferent to his fate. With typically measured minimalism Jeffers relates this timely episode in prose and gestural images so spare that they frequently give way to single lines and even blank pages. In place of an explicit moral, he closes with an anecdote from Kurt Vonnegut, who quotes fellow writer Joseph Heller’s insight that “the knowledge that I’ve got enough” gave him a leg up over any billionaire. Even readers too young or unschooled to catch the reference in the title character’s name will chime in on Vonnegut’s summation: “Not bad! Rest in peace!” Whether aimed at certain public figures or all of us, a pointed suggestion that tantrums bring but temporary, superficial rewards. (Picture book. 7-adult)
118
|
1 september 2019
|
children ’s
|
GROSS AS A SNOT OTTER
Keating, Jess Illus. by DeGrand, David Knopf (48 pp.) $17.99 | $20.99 PLB | Oct. 29, 2019 978-1-5247-6450-0 978-1-5247-6451-7 PLB Series: World of Weird Animals What makes an animal gross? In their latest entry in their World of Weird Animals series, Keating and DeGrand present 17 more curious creatures, this time animals that may inspire disgust. The Canadian-based zoologist-turned-author has found repulsive examples from around the world. These include slime-covered sea-dwellers, farting fish, gulls who projectile-vomit, even a Spanish newt that can extend its barbed ribs out through its poisonous skin. Zombie worms from ocean depths, tree frogs (who occasionally turn up in Australian toilets), and burrowing South American caecilians will likely be unfamiliar; common housefly larvae (maggots), Siberian chipmunks, and slobbery giraffes have surprisingly unsavory aspects. Poop protects a Marabou stork’s legs and provides meals for dung beetles. Mucus protects snot otters and parrotfish. Fully-formed toadlets hatch from a Surinam toad mother’s back. This title follows the pattern of previous ones: Spread by garishly colored spread, readers are introduced to weird and wonderful creatures with a photograph, two short paragraphs of intriguing information, and fast facts: common and Latin names, size, diet, habitat, and predators and threats. Words and phrases that may not be familiar (think “chytridiomycosis,” “cutaneous respiration,” “eviscerate,” “ocean acidification,” and “pharyngeal teeth”) are bolded in the text and defined in a glossary. Cartoon illustrations and a lively design complete the package. With no index or page numbers, this is fact-full but best for browsing. Book-bait for middle-grade readers that oozes eww appeal. (Informational picture book. 7-11)
LONG-HAIRED CAT-BOY CUB
Keret, Etgar Illus. by Basil, Aviel Trans. by Silverston, Sondra Triangle Square Books for Young Readers (48 pp.) $16.95 | Oct. 8, 2019 978-1-60980-931-7
A day at the zoo is interrupted by a business call that sends Dad off to the office, leaving his son to have fun on his own. The boy wanders about, noticing how sad the animals seem in contrast to the happy families all around. After a face-painting makes him look like the titular “long-haired cat-boy cub,” he finds an empty cage, curls up inside, and falls asleep. He awakens on a magical ship helmed by Habakkuk, an eccentric human who is on a mission to kidnap animals from zoos and return them to their natural habitats. The little boy provides lots of
kirkus.com
|
information for Habakkuk’s notebook about his new identity, including his need for frequent games and stories and his dislike of important work-related phone calls. He helpfully gives the address of his habitat and is duly returned home. He confronts his parents in his new guise and provides them with the notebook for guidance for establishing a much improved father-son relationship. There is underlying longing as the boy narrates his own tale without anger or bitterness and makes imaginative and strange events seem perfectly reasonable. Basil’s colorful, double-paged illustrations capture the emotions and the magic and provide lots of visual surprises. The narrator, his parents, and Habakkuk all have light skin. Translated from Hebrew, this Israeli import is a poignant cautionary tale told with kindness and humor. (Picture book. 4-8)
LITTLE MOLE’S WISH
A child worries that his friend is replacing him but discovers that friends can be shared. Sir Tim, a white boy wearing a gray, visored helmet and a red cape over his crest-emblazoned sweater, is walking to the playground with his friend Sara, a white girl with blonde hair. When Sara sees her brown-skinned friend Max, she suggests they play together, and “before Tim can say anything, she’s gone.” While Max and Sara run from the swing to the seesaw to the grass having fun, Sir Tim watches them, with “a strange feeling in his tummy.” The text wonders, “Doesn’t Sara like him anymore?” Sir Tim tries stunt after increasingly daring stunt to regain Sara’s attention, but she’s “too busy laughing and playing with Max”
y o u n g a d u lt
Kim, Sang-Keun Illus. by the author Trans. by Kim, Chi-Young Schwartz & Wade/Random (40 pp.) $17.99 | $20.99 PLB | Nov. 19, 2019 978-0-525-58134-5 978-0-525-58135-2 PLB
SIR TIM IS A LITTLE JEALOUS
Koppens, Judith Illus. by van Lindenhuizen, Eline Clavis (32 pp.) $17.95 | $9.95 paper | Nov. 5, 2019 978-1-60537-492-5 978-1-60537-502-1 paper
Befriending someone made of snow holds certain risks. Heading home to his grandmother, Little Mole finds a small snowball. He greets it, pushes it along so it grows far taller than him, and tells it a secret: “ ‘I just moved here. I don’t have any friends.’ / The snowball listened quietly.” He wants to bring this new friend home with him on the public bus, but these buses are for animals, not snow, and each driver nixes the idea. What if Little Mole shapes the snow into a bear? Gives it a snowbackpack or his own hat? Finally aboard a warm bus with his friend, Little Mole dozes off. When he wakens, the worst has happened. Most readers will understand why the snow-friend’s gone, but Little Mole doesn’t, and a great sadness ensues. Kim’s textual refrains (“Little Mole had a brilliant idea”; “He and his friend waited patiently”) are gently reassuring. The illustrations—done in colored pencil, pastel, and pen—are quiet and spare, showing snowy wilderness expanses with only a few trees and bus-stop signs. White snow blends softly into blue skies, with pale yellow used for warmth. Everything seems headed to the saddest possible ending, for how could a melted friend return? But after Little Mole’s sleepless night, the friend does return—or its likeness does—sitting across a snowy field, waiting. Did it come from magic or Grandma? Is there a difference? Stillness, tenderness, and hope are the essence of this quiet gem. (Picture book. 4- 7)
|
kirkus.com
|
children ’s
|
1 september 2019
|
119
to notice. When his final stunt ends with a big fall, Sara finally comes running. Tim reveals his worries to Sara, who assures him she can have more than one friend and he will always be her best friend. This Dutch/Belgian import presents a familiar scenario with a simple story arc and an unsurprising resolution that is almost too easy and, regrettably, seems not to encourage interracial friendships. The child-friendly illustrations use soft lines and smeared colors, with patches of red clothing on gray and green backgrounds. Best for the youngest audiences, this is an adequate treatment of the theme for those whose shelves lack it. The story itself does not add much to the title and cover. (Picture book. 4- 7)
WILD HONEY FROM THE MOON
Kraegel, Kenneth Illus. by the author Candlewick (64 pp.) $17.99 | Nov. 5, 2019 978-0-7636-8169-2
A determined mother embarks on a surreal adventure. Kraegel’s format-defying tale is an unexpected story of love, determination, and parenting. Mother Shrew’s son, Hugo, is taken ill on the last day of January with a rare illness that makes him lethargic, with hot feet and a cold head. From “Dr. Ponteluma’s Book of Medical Inquiry and Physiological Know-How,” Mother Shrew learns that the only cure for this odd, unnamed illness is a spoonful of honey from the moon. Ferociously determined to cure Hugo, she sets out to save her son. In each new chapter, Mother Shrew faces a new obstacle or not-too-scary adversary as she braves the moon’s unusual environment—its verdant fields and lush forests make a stark contrast to the wintry landscape Mother Shrew has left behind—and its madcap inhabitants. Divided into seven heavily illustrated chapters, the story is one that will captivate contemplative and creative young readers. Caregivers may find this to be their next weeklong bedtime story and one that fanciful children will want to hear again and again. Kraegel’s ink-andwatercolor illustrations are reminiscent of Sergio Ruzzier’s but a bit grittier and with a darker color scheme. The surreal landscapes are appropriately unsettling, but a bright color palette keeps them from overwhelming readers. This odd story is not for every reader, but those who enjoy it may find a friend for life. (Fantasy. 5-8)
120
|
1 september 2019
|
children ’s
|
BUGS IN DANGER Our Vanishing Bees, Butterflies, and Beetles
Kurlansky, Mark Illus. by Liu, Jia Bloomsbury (176 pp.) $19.99 | Nov. 12, 2019 978-1-5476-0085-4
“The disappearance of a few prominent insects could lead to the complete unraveling of life on Earth.” This is only one of the dire warnings that punctuate several chapters in a text that is accessible, informational, and often humorous. Using Darwin’s theories and the assumption that every species must prioritize its own promulgation or perish, the author suggests, among other things, that humans may have created their own decline by emphasizing individual life choices over species survival. He emphasizes biodiversity as the key to preserving life as we know it, employing the historical decline of ladybugs, bees, butterflies, and fireflies to fuel that argument. The text—original for young readers and not adapted from a book for adults—has fascinating details, both historical and biological, but sometimes omits expected depth. After pages devoted to monarchs, it does not mention the fact that the migration spans generations. After a lengthy discussion of colony collapse disorder, only one paragraph mentions the fact that, apparently, no organic beekeepers have experienced it. Another example is the lackluster list in the “What Can I Do?” chapter, which does not match the urgency of sentences such as the one quoted above. Indeed, the first idea on the list is a condescending plea not to stomp on insects. As an entomological reference book or to start conversations about biodiversity or climate change, the book is solid; it is not advisable as a single source. Happily, there is an extensive bibliography. A conversation starter. (endnotes, bibliography, index) (Nonfiction. 10-14)
VOYAGE OF THE FROSTHEART
Littler, Jamie Viking (448 pp.) $17.99 | Nov. 5, 2019 978-0-451-48134-4
Exiled from his home among the Fira people, young Ash braves the wild Snow Sea and the ferocious Leviathans in pursuit of his long-lost parents. Ash’s status as a Song Weaver rouses fear and dread throughout the Fira Stronghold, where rumors of the potentially destructive power of Song Weaving abound. After all, a Song Weaver can communicate with the deadly Leviathans, making them vulnerable to the loathsome creatures’ influence. When an aggressive Leviathan assault forces the Frostheart, a massive sleigh crewed by traders known as Pathfinders,
kirkus.com
|
A helter-skelter caper from Down Under. selfie search
to take momentary refuge in the Fira Stronghold, Ash spots an opportunity to embark on his quest. Accompanied by his stoic guardian, a powerful yeti named Tobu, the young Song Weaver joins the Frostheart’s peculiar crew, including a feisty, walruslike captain named Nuk, a bold, young Drifter named Lunah, and a mysterious archeomek expert named Shaard. Full of intriguing worldbuilding details, as well as a cast of memorable, enchanting characters, Littler’s saga offers oodles of thrilling moments of danger interspersed with an acute understanding of heartfelt storytelling. The inclusion of striking illustrations, which heighten reader immersion, further delineates each character’s charm. (Ash is depicted with pale skin; some others have darker skin.) Equipped with a song left to guide him along the way, Ash uncovers secrets about his parents and powers in equal measure while new friends and foes—human-kin and Leviathan alike— join him on his adventure. The enthralling dawn of an unmissable voyage. (Fantasy. 8-12)
y o u n g a d u lt
SELFIE SEARCH
Macintosh, Cameron Illus. by Atze, Dave West 44 Books (128 pp.) $12.90 | Oct. 15, 2019 978-1-5383-8465-7 Series: Max Booth Future Sleuth
Publishing 19 August 20
An ancient artifact, LOL, leads a 25th-century fugitive from the Skyburb 7 Home for Unclaimed Urchins and his beagle-bot, Oscar, to buried treasure. The small black item that his museum-worker friend Jessie hands over seems uninteresting to Max at first…until he manages to charge it up and discovers that it’s a 400-year-old cellphone with a trove of selfies—one of which shows a long-lost statue of famous actor–turned-politician Nicole Squidman. Can Max use clues from the photo to find the priceless statue, then keep both it and himself out of the clutches of archnemesis Capt. Selby of the Recapture Squad, and perhaps even track down a descendant of the phone’s owner? No problem…with plenty of help from Jessie and Oscar (a surprisingly capable robo-pooch with a 3-D printer in its butt), plus a few massive contrivances from Macintosh. Atze’s occasional cartoon vignettes add an appropriate vibe to a largely white futuristic world of hover-skates, roborats, and floating suburbs. But some things, like friends, bullies, and the special relationship between a boy and his dog, never change. A “Sleuth Truth” appendix fills in the cellphone’s early years. A helter-skelter caper from Down Under, with the occasional “broken gizmatron or ancient thingami-bot” from ages past to puzzle over. (Science fiction/mystery. 7-9)
|
kirkus.com
OwlkidsBooks.com Made possible with the support of Ontario Creates
|
children ’s
|
1 september 2019
|
121
INTERVIEWS & PROFILES
Ibtihaj Muhammad
THE U.S. OLYMPIC FENCER WRITES HER FIRST PICTURE BOOK, ABOUT MUSLIM SISTERS ON THE FIRST DAY OF SCHOOL AND PRIDE IN HIJAB By Alex Heimbach Photo courtesy Heidi Gutman-Guillaume
As a member of the 2016 U.S. Olympic fencing team, Ibtihaj Muhammad became the first Muslim American to compete in hijab. When her sabre team won the bronze medal, she also became the first Muslim American to medal at the Olympics. Her achievements made her an inspirational figure in the midst of a contentious election and a period of renewed attacks on American Muslims. “To me,
122
|
1 september 2019
|
children ’s
|
the whole idea of sport itself is to bridge communities,” she says. “No matter where you’re from, what your background, how much your parents make, if you’re male or female, it doesn’t matter. We’re all able to unite under one umbrella of sport.” Since 2016, Muhammad has taken that ideal of bridging communities and explored it in a range of other projects, promoting her modest clothing line, Louella, and publishing a memoir, Proud, about her journey. Now, she’s making her picture-book debut with The Proudest Blue (Little, Brown Books for Young Readers, Sept. 10), co-authored by S.K. Ali and illustrated by Hatem Aly. When Faizah’s older sister, Asiyah, picks out a beautiful blue scarf for her hijab, Faizah is excited for their first day of school. “It’s such an important time to have a story around hijab and family…when we have such a divisive time politically,” Muhammad says. Even when bullies tease Asiyah, Faizah feels only pride and admiration for her sister. That positive, excited attitude toward wearing hijab was vital to Muhammad’s conception of the story. “It’s so authentic, because I know I never thought of hijab as being a bad thing,” she says. “I still don’t. I never have.” She’s confident that young women, whether they wear hijab or not, will see themselves in these girls—especially the strong bond between the sisters. No matter your background, Muhammad says, “you look up to your older sibling, and when they do something you haven’t yet done, you see them
kirkus.com
|
Alex Heimbach is a writer and editor in California. The Proudest Blue received a starred review in the July 1, 2019, issue.
THE BOY AND THE BEAR
Massini, Sarah Illus. by the author Nosy Crow/Candlewick (32 pp.) $16.99 | Nov. 5, 2019 978-1-5362-0814-6
A lonely little boy in a red knitted hat is sadly in need of a playmate. Despondently, he realizes that games like seesaw, catch, and hide-and-seek require two players. The satchel-toting bear passing by does not seem to be a likely companion. But then a paper boat bobs across the pond with a message: “BOO!” The boy responds with a return paper boat inscribed “Boo to you too!” After an exchange of paper-boat messages, the boy finds that the sender is that large, strangely blue bear. After trying— and failing at—several rounds of the boy’s favorite games, the boy and Bear seem to be incompatible playmates. One day Bear comes up with an idea. He builds a superduper treehouse out of logs, tied together with string. The boy is entranced with this, and they have great fun with the treehouse until winter comes and Bear disappears, leaving a paper-boat message: “I MUST GO.” The boy spends a long winter missing his friend until spring comes, and a flurry of paper boats signals Bear’s reappearance. Massini’s charmingly textured and colorful illustrations have a pleasing sense of spaciousness but don’t rescue this title from banality and tedium. The boy presents white. Boy and bear will have to work a bit harder to compete. (Picture book. 2-5)
y o u n g a d u lt
as brave.” Faizah’s love and admiration for her sister are at the core of The Proudest Blue, and that’s something she feels all kids can relate to. But Muhammad does hope the story can help educate non-Muslims and promote a more positive perception of hijab. Growing up, she dealt not only with bullies, but also those who reacted with confusion or dismay to her hijab. “I know how hurtful sheer ignorance can be,” she says. “I’m not sure [people] realize how piercing that kind of naiveté can be, especially to a kid.” On the first day of school each year, she’d have to explain her faith all over again to new teachers and students. As tiring as those experiences could be, Muhammad learned a lot from them about how to thrive in any circumstance, and it’s that strength and confidence she hopes to inspire in young readers. “Even if it is your first day of school, your first day of hijab, your first day on the field, whatever it is,” she says, “you have everything you need inside to be successful.”
ANNA & SAMIA The True Story of Saving a Black Rhino Meisel, Paul Illus. by the author Farrar, Straus and Giroux (32 pp.) $17.99 | Oct. 15, 2019 978-0-374-30577-2
This biographical picture book about Anna Merz, the head of the Lewa Wildlife Conservatory in Kenya, describes the bond that developed between her and a baby rhino. When Anna observes an abandoned baby rhino, she brings it into her home, nursing the growing calf from a bottle and even bringing the animal into her own bed. Naming the calf Samia, Anna begins learning how to communicate with her and teaching her what she would need to know to survive in the wild. She even notices personality traits: Samia is smart and helpful and can be quite silly at times. Meisel’s illustrations explore the bond visually, depicting the growing affection between woman and rhino and the inevitable funny moments a rhino in the home can generate. The interactions between Anna and Samia are charming, but the very occasional inclusion of silent, unnamed, brown-skinned Kenyan men in the illustrations raises uncomfortable questions. The role of the |
kirkus.com
|
children ’s
|
1 september 2019
|
123
A cutaway drawing of the plush and stylishly decorated interior of Sophie’s nose is simultaneously charming and disgusting. the finger and the nose
black men in this story set in Kenya is not clear. Are they servants? Are they guides? For the purposes of this story, they are unimportant, existing as background like the many animals speckled throughout the book. The backmatter is similarly unbalanced, giving one paragraph to the conservancy’s work with its Kenyan neighbors and much more information on Merz and rhinos. Fans of Jane Goodall’s work will appreciate this title that documents a little-known story. (bibliography) (Pic ture book. 4-8)
I AM WALT DISNEY
Meltzer, Brad Illus. by Eliopoulos, Christopher Dial (40 pp.) $15.99 | Sep. 10, 2019 978-0-7352-2875-7 Series: Ordinary People Change the World The iconic animator introduces young readers to each “happy place” in his life. The tally begins with his childhood home in Marceline, Missouri, and climaxes with Disneyland (carefully designed to be “the happiest place on Earth”), but the account really centers on finding his true happy place, not on a map but in drawing. In sketching out his early flubs and later rocket to the top, the fictive narrator gives Ub Iwerks and other Disney studio workers a nod (leaving his labor disputes with them unmentioned) and squeezes in quick references to his animated films, from Steamboat Willie to Winnie the Pooh (sans Fantasia and Song of the South). Eliopoulos incorporates stills from the films into his cartoon illustrations and, characteristically for this series, depicts Disney as a caricature, trademark mustache in place on outsized head even in childhood years and child sized even as an adult. Human figures default to white, with occasional people of color in crowd scenes and (ahistorically) in the animation studio. One unidentified animator builds up the role-modeling with an observation that Walt and Mickey were really the same (“Both fearless; both resourceful”). An assertion toward the end—“So when do you stop being a child? When you stop dreaming”— muddles the overall follow-your-bliss message. A timeline to the EPCOT Center’s 1982 opening offers photos of the man with select associates, rodent and otherwise. An additional series entry, I Am Marie Curie, publishes simultaneously, featuring a gowned, toddler-sized version of the groundbreaking physicist accepting her two Nobel prizes. Blandly laudatory. (bibliography) (Picture book/biography. 6-8) (I Am Marie Curie: 978-0-525-55585-8)
124
|
1 september 2019
|
children ’s
|
THE FINGER AND THE NOSE
Merlán, Paula Illus. by Gómez Trans. by Dawlatly, Ben nubeOCHO (44 pp.) $16.95 | Oct. 22, 2019 978-84-17123-78-9 Series: Somos8
A girl, her finger, and her nose work to find common ground in this peculiar picture book. A funky Spanish import tells the tale of a finger that takes up residence in protagonist Sophie’s nose, with no plans to vacate any time soon. Her parents have warned her that chronic nosepicking will have dire consequences, but she just can’t resist, and eventually, her finger—named Tim—turns the nose into a cozy home. Sophie’s nose expands to accommodate the finger’s various activities until she realizes that her nose is in danger of reaching the ground. Her parents are present through her crisis but gently encourage her to figure out a solution on her own. Sophie and her finger practice creative problem-solving to ensure that everyone feels satisfied. Gómez’s bright and playful doodles prevent this story from straying too far into gross-out territory. A cutaway drawing of the plush and stylishly decorated interior of Sophie’s nose is simultaneously charming and disgusting. The texts in the Spanish and English editions differ noticeably, though the message of working collaboratively to overcome conflict shines through in both. Characters are all depicted as white. Readers who pick this quirky book will uncover a sweet story of cooperation under all that snot. (Picture book. 4-8) (El dedo en la nariz: 978-84-17123-78-9)
CHARLIE NUMB3RS AND THE WOOLLY MAMMOTH
Mezrich, Ben & Mezrich, Tonya Simon & Schuster (192 pp.) $17.99 | Nov. 5, 2019 978-1-5344-4100-2 Series: The Charlie Numbers Adventures, 3 Two gangs of middle school brainiacs use carbon dating to take down a smuggling ring. The book begins with a flash-forward: Charlie’s on a cargo ship in Boston Harbor, menaced by a pair of off-the-shelf bad guys, leaping into freezing water to escape. The action cuts back two weeks to when Charlie and his sixth grade Whiz Kids discover a bone on a field trip. They identify it with the help of an excitable white-bearded science professor at Harvard: It’s a woolly mammoth tusk! How did it get to Boston? To find out, they’ll need the help of a new group of budding scientists, led by Janice, a black girl who uses a wheelchair and talks in disability platitudes (“I know I’m different, but we’re all different, right?”). Somehow, every clue in their mystery goes back to “Africa,” though neither specific African countries nor any
kirkus.com
|
human residents of the continent are ever referenced. The Whiz Kids are all white except Kentaro, the “little Japanese kid,” and all are male except Crystal; the others are Charlie and two redheaded boys, one gangly and disorganized and the other fat with apparently comical allergies. Their new friends, who attend school in the city—unlike the Whiz Kids, who live in a wealthy suburb—offer racial diversity. What with all these characters, along with (somewhat-accurate, rarely relevant) Boston trivia and science factoids and a mystery involving a wealthy white businessman, there’s no room for character development. Formulaic and busy. (Adventure. 8-11)
THREE LOST SEEDS Stories of Becoming
A STEM story of nature’s resilience. Rhyming text follows, in turn, three seeds that each overcome natural barriers and disasters to eventually thrive and grow into the “plant it was planning to be.” A bird takes a cherry, then drops it into a stream, but the little pit ends up taking root in muddy soil by the stream, and it grows into a tree. Wong adds visual interest to her scientifically accurate illustrations of flora by depicting, here, a Muslim family unmentioned by text with two children and a mother wearing hijab, first picnicking by the stream and then later (the children now bigger) picking cherries from the tree. In the next part of the book, a forest fire brings destruction, but it also unearths an acacia seed brought deep underground by ants. This little seed then grows as part of reforestation. The third seed drifts in a pod until an earthquake drains the lake in which it floated. Wong’s art shows a child who appears Asian gazing at it upon cracked, barren ground. A page turn delivers a dramatic fast-forward: “When rain filled the crater / ONE HUNDRED YEARS later, / the lotus seed drank up and GREW!” Strong backmatter provides more information about seeds and seed banks, bolstering an already excellent offering. Seed shelves with this title to grow STEM readers. (Picture book. 4-8)
M IS FOR MOVEMENT
Nagara, Innosanto Illus. by the author Triangle Square Books for Young Readers (96 pp.) $19.95 | Nov. 5, 2019 978-1-60980-935-5 A fictionalized memoir depicts an Indonesian child developing consciousness of activism on both local and global scales. |
y o u n g a d u lt
Morton, Stephie Illus. by Wong, Nicole Tilbury House (36 pp.) $17.95 | Oct. 1, 2019 978-0-88448-764-7 Series: Tilbury House Nature Book
In episodic chapters, the narrator, born in Indonesia to an Indonesian father and a possibly American mother, recounts their upbringing in Indonesia and their growing awareness of activism against a corrupt authoritarian regime. (The narrator, possibly assumed to be the author, is never indicated by gendered pronoun and similarly does not mention any ethnic identity markers of their mother.) Nagara introduces young readers to many political concepts, including corruption, collusion, and nepotism, juxtaposed with dissidence, free speech, and populism. While those in power are mostly represented by the sinister, unnamed “Minister,” readers may infer the time period from the “NO KKN” slogan protesting the New Order of the Suharto period and mentions of the Soweto uprising in South Africa and activist groups such as the Black Panthers and the American Indian Movement in the United States. Nagara introduces broader concepts of diversity using the example of multicultural Indonesia, celebrating unity while not shying away from discrimination against the ethnic Chinese or those falling outside traditional gender roles. The extremely ambitious text sometimes feels disjointed, especially within the framework of a story that is not exactly true, though is still a powerful narrative that encourages long-term awareness, work, sacrifice, and patience in order to effect change for all people. Inspiring. (Fiction/memoir. 9-13)
IF MONET PAINTED A MONSTER
Newbold, Amy Illus. by Newbold, Greg Tilbury House (40 pp.) $17.95 | Oct. 1, 2019 978-0-88448-768-5
From the creators of If da Vinci Painted a Dinosaur (2018), introductions to 16 more artists who didn’t paint monsters—but could have. Once again the illustrator brushes in a hamster docent to guide viewers through a gallery of paintings that evoke the styles, and often specific works, of an artistic roster that gives people of color (Jean-Michel Basquiat, Robert Thompson) and women (Dorothea Tanning, Frida Kahlo, Helen Frankenthaler) strong showings alongside their dead white male colleagues. The tone is generally tongue-in-cheek—but there are some genuinely creepy critters too, from a surprisingly disturbing Giuseppe Arcimboldo face to surrealist Tanning’s eerily invisible midnight walker. Still, seeing Edward Hopper’s Nighthawks transformed into small rodents, a long, green body gliding sinuously among fuzzy Claude Monet water lilies, undead figures cavorting in an Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec “danse macabre,” or the dramatic slashes of a Franz Kline– style abstract certainly makes the originals approachable as well as serving as points of departure for private imaginings. The accompanying captions are largely superfluous (“M.C. Escher’s creatures creep up and down, around and around.” So they do), but as before, a blank page set on an easel at the end
kirkus.com
|
children ’s
|
1 september 2019
|
125
INTERVIEWS & PROFILES
Hena Khan
A PAKISTANI AMERICAN FAMILY IN ATLANTA IS AT THE CENTER OF THE AUTHOR’S MODERN RETELLING OF THE CLASSIC LITTLE WOMEN By Kathie Meizner Photo courtesy Havar Espedal
126
whom you feel you get to know intimately and the deep relationships between the sisters, friends, neighbors, and lovers. Some of the traditional values and gender norms of the book mirrored those of my culture growing up. I thought those parallels would be fun to explore. The family’s culture seems so easily woven into this book. Is there pressure to be explicitly expository about Muslim and/or Pakistani American culture? In my first novel, Amina’s Voice, I consciously took readers into a mosque so they could see what one is like if they haven’t been before, introduced the concept of the Muslim daily prayers, and more. Hearing that readers welcomed those details and enjoyed them was important to me and very validating. Someone from a different culture wrote me to say how much she connected with a scene where Amina’s auntie hands her leftover rice after a dinner party in a yogurt container—it struck a chord with her since she had lived it. Now I include elements of my culture or religion that fit my story, things that add flavor and depth.
Hena Khan grew up in Maryland near Washington, D.C. She is the author of five picture books about Muslim traditions and celebrations and three books in her middle-grade sports series, Chasing the Dream. Her first novel, Amina’s Voice, was named one of Kirkus’ Best Books of 2017. Khan’s newest book, More to the Story (Salaam Reads/Simon & Schuster, Sept. 3), tells the story of four very different sisters through the eyes of aspiring journalist Jameela, the second oldest. She recently answered our questions about the book.
Why the Atlanta setting? It’s an area I’m familiar with, and they have a vibrant Pakistani American community. I was glad to include details like sweet tea and local restaurants I enjoy. I think people expect to see immigrant families like Jameela’s in other big cities but don’t always think of Pakistani American Muslims living in the South.
More to the Story pays tribute to the pleasure you had reading Little Women multiple times as a child. What elements of Little Women are reflected in this book? The most important aspects of [Little Women] for me were the strong characters with distinct personalities
Jameela, the narrator, writes about microagressions after an incident at school. Have young readers shared similar experiences with you? Young people I meet do share those types of comments with me. I lived with microaggressions my whole child-
|
1 september 2019
|
children ’s
|
kirkus.com
|
hood but never had a word to name what they were or the ability to pinpoint how they made me feel. I hope Jameela’s article might help kids recognize that they aren’t alone and that the things they hear are rooted in ignorance and prejudice. Jameela prays for her family, her world, and her sister’s health in a lovely private moment. For some kids, who have to live with so much being out of their control, the idea of something to turn to, or a greater power watching over and guiding them, can be comforting. I don’t try to make a big deal about religion or religious beliefs in my writing but demonstrate it as the basic, every-day aspect of life it is for so many people. Do you think that journalists and writers can save the world? As a storyteller, I like to think so! We see how words both have the power to bring us together and, unfortunately, divide us too. I believe stories are an essential force for uniting people, creating empathy, and sharing our common humanity.
LIGHT A CANDLE / TUMAINI PASIPO NA TUMAINI
Nkongolo, Godfrey & Walters, Eric Illus. by Campbell, Eva Trans. by Nkongolo, Godfrey Orca (32 pp.) $19.95 | Oct. 1, 2019 978-1-4598-1700-5
An informative story, told in both English and Nkongolo’s Swahili translation, about the Chagga tribe, who live on the slopes of Mount Kilimanjaro, the tallest mountain in Africa. Ngama, son of the village chief, notices a gathering in the village and learns that the country’s leader has come to tell the Chagga that the Republic of Tanzania is now independent of white rule. The men must now climb the mountain and mark their independence with a torch. Ngama assumes he will go, but his father says it is only for men, and Ngama is not yet a man. Crestfallen but undeterred, Ngama sneaks out of the village behind the men the next morning, and although they all eventually know he has followed them into the rugged terrain of the snow-capped mountain, no one makes him turn back. Keeping his distance, he receives only minimal help from the men despite being underdressed for cold weather, underprepared in terms of food and provisions for the journey, and exhausted from trying to breathe at high elevations. But in the end, Ngama receives affirmation of his leadership potential because of his determination. Campbell’s colorful and highly textured paintings capture the vastness of the terrain and the vibrancy of the characters’ patterned clothing. An afterword provides further information about Kilimanjaro, the Chagga, and Tanzania’s first president, Julius Nyerere. The importance of freedom in Tanzania comes through clearly. (Picture book. 6-8)
y o u n g a d u lt
Kathie Meizner manages a public library in Maryland and reviews children’s books for Kirkus Reviews. More to the Story was reviewed in the July 1, 2019, issue.
invites personal additions to the exhibit. Capsule profiles of each artist parodied close the volume. An engaging approach to fine art—but the premise shows signs of wear. (Informational picture book. 5-9)
THE MISSING BARBEGAZI
Norup, H.S. Jolly Fish Press (224 pp.) $11.99 paper | Nov. 5, 2019 978-1-63163-377-5
A young girl finds herself involved with the mythical barbegazi. Eleven-year-old Tessa lives in a village in Austria and competes on an alpine ski racing team, but she is currently saddened over the ill health of her grandmother and the recent death of her grandfather. Before he died, Opa told her about the mythical, thought-to-be-extinct |
kirkus.com
|
children ’s
|
1 september 2019
|
127
This irresistible book begs to be shared. i’m not millie!
barbegazi—mountain elves—and she is determined to see one. When Tessa does encounter a barbegazi named Gawion, she eventually learns that Gawion’s sister has been abducted, and Tessa determines to help. The thin, formulaic plot gets no support from its underdeveloped, inconsistent characters. Protagonist Tessa is sad about Oma’s frailty, but there’s no elaboration of their relationship, and for a ski racer, Tessa is extraordinarily uncompetitive. Plot developments are decidedly convenient: Adults are absent on flimsy pretexts, and Gawion speaks Tessa’s language (and all others, including Dog). Important plot points are mentioned early and feel off-the-cuff, with no subsequent prompts, guaranteeing that readers will be confused later on. The subplot of what went wrong with a formerly close friendship is unexplained in both its advent and resolution. The backstory of the barbegazi overexplains its connection to the present story, and the barbegazi family interactions are too much like human parents and teenagers to be innovative. The cast seems to be all white. A potentially interesting setting is undermined by a thin plot and underdeveloped characters. (Fantasy. 8-12)
HUMAN BODY
Olstein, James Illus. by the author Sterling (80 pp.) $12.95 | Oct. 1, 2019 978-1-4549-3759-3 Series: Odd Science Fast facts about the human body and all its parts inside and out. Illustrator Olstein has turned his Tumblr blog of science facts into a science-trivia series for young readers. This title offers a collection of info-bits about the human body. A table of contents reveals its organization. From atoms to bacteria, hair to feet, each of the 20 sections is covered in one or more spreads. Each spread includes one to four facts. The author’s choices are quirky and surprising: “Your ears secrete more earwax when you are afraid”; “Your lungs are not the same size”; “Besides primates and people, koalas are the only other animals to have unique fingerprints.” They’re usually accompanied by a short explanation, but he offers no sources. Graphically interesting illustrations in muted retro colors accompany each entry. Humans may be white, brown, or green. The clean lines and minimalist depictions make these look like posters, and they are both appealing and appropriate to both substance and audience. Some involve a bit of visual humor; a cat seems to be combing a woman’s hair; an ice cream cone has turned another woman blue. Other titles in this series publish simultaneously: Amazing Inventions, Incredible Creatures, and Spectacular Space. Libraries where the National Geographic Kids Weird but True series circulates well may find this similarly appealing. Trivial but tantalizing. (Nonfiction. 8-11) (Amazing Inven tions: 978-1-4549-3758-6; Incredible Creatures: 978-1-4549-3760-9; Spectacular Space: 978-1-4549-3761-6)
128
|
1 september 2019
|
children ’s
|
MAY ALL PEOPLE AND PIGS BE HAPPY
Pavlicek, Micki Fine Illus. by Pavlicek, John North Atlantic (32 pp.) $17.95 | Oct. 29, 2019 978-1-62317-389-0
A picture book promoting mindfulness and loving kindness. Claire has a favorite stuffed toy called Pigalina. After establishing how much she loves Pigalina, the text suddenly introduces a friend, Molly, who one day “got angry and called Claire a bad name.” Flat cartoon art stiffly depicts the altercation and Claire’s shock, without any buildup to this plot point. Hurt, Claire retreats home and cuddles Pigalina. Suddenly, and again without any real story development, Pigalina begins talking: “May you be safe. / May you be happy. / May you feel love,” the sentient toy soothes Claire. These words help, and then the pair goes out to the kitchen, where Claire sees her parents. She bestows the wishes on them and then on others out in the world. Ultimately she “send[s] loving wishes” to many people, including Molly, and doing so feels healing and empowering. The heartfelt message of the book will likely inspire readers’ imitations of Pigalina and Claire’s wishes for themselves and others as well as conversations about mindfulness, but both the art’s and the text’s execution leave much to be desired in terms of storytelling. Claire is a girl of color with interracial parents, and Molly presents white. Keep in mind for mindfulness training if not for pleasure reading. (Picture book. 4- 7)
I’M NOT MILLIE!
Pett, Mark Illus. by the author Knopf (40 pp.) $17.99 | $20.99 PLB | Nov. 26, 2019 978-1-101-93793-8 978-1-101-93794-5 PLB Wild animals take the place of Millie during and after dinnertime, until her caregiver offers an incentive to become human again. A speech bubble coming from a character offstage says, “Millie, stop playing with your green beans.” But on the table is a robin, with a worm in its mouth, who replies, “I’m not Millie.” The back and forth continues, with various table and postdinner directives on the verso matched by denials from a beaver, a hippo, an alligator, a cat, a kangaroo, and more (notably, never a monkey). The animal variations are cleverly matched with the child’s naughty behavior: It’s a tortoise when Millie’s accused of “dawdling”; a koala climbing the lamp says, “Sounds like you’re really frustrated with this Millie person.” The back-and-forth text using both sides of the spread creates an enjoyable rhythm, with anticipation of the next scene building to a silly conclusion in which Millie eagerly reverts back to human form—a
kirkus.com
|
brown-skinned girl—in exchange for a treat that’s just for her. The ink-and-watercolor illustrations make the animals seem quite at home inside while the oversized font for the adult’s speech implies the frustration we don’t need to see, keeping readers firmly on Millie’s side. Bribery be darned, this irresistible book begs to be shared. (Picture book. 2- 7)
BRUNO HAS ONE HUNDRED FRIENDS
Pirrone, Francesca Illus. by the author Clavis (32 pp.) $17.95 | $9.95 paper | Oct. 8, 2019 978-1-60537-405-5 978-1-60537-504-5 paper
ROOM FOR ONE MORE
Polak, Monique Kar-Ben (232 pp.) $8.99 paper | Oct. 1, 2019 978-1-5415-4043-9
Rosetta’s life changes when a 16-yearold refugee from the Nazis comes to live with her. A grade six girl in 1942 Montreal, narrator Rosetta has two sisters, but she hadn’t expected to gain an older brother. Isaac fled Hitler’s Germany on the Kindertransport but was |
y o u n g a d u lt
A bear named Bruno finds a new technological distraction in the woods. One day Bruno, Rico, and Renzo go fishing. While walking along a woodland path, Bruno finds something beautiful: a smartphone. He discovers fun sounds, exciting pictures, and new words. The best thing the phone offers is connections to new friends, and soon, Bruno has 100 friends. With so many new friends and diversions, Bruno has interest only in his phone, ignoring Rico and Renzo. During dinner, in bed, and even on the toilet, Bruno only has time for his new phone. Only after his two friends leave and the phone goes black does Bruno realizes what true friendship is. Translated from Dutch, Bruno’s story is clearly relevant to current technological society. His experiences will be familiar to many kids (and their grown-ups), demonstrating how the allure of instant friends, information, and media makes it so easy to get lost in the digital world. Pirrone emphasizes the quality of friendships over the quantity. The muted, angular illustrations add amusing details and acknowledge how mesmerizing phones can be. Drawn animals and plants placed on subtly textured backgrounds make up the charming full-color, full-page images. A bold display type is used to emphasize some of Bruno’s excited thoughts and words. A kid-friendly reminder of the dark side of connected life. (Picture book. 4- 7)
later interned by the British government. Now freed, he’s alone in a foreign country. Isaac’s entry into Rosetta’s family isn’t frictionless: Rosetta squabbles with her sisters, she’s jealous of Isaac’s relationship with her father, and she snoops in his few possessions. But she and Isaac grow close, and what she learns about his past is worrying. Rosetta is from a family of lightskinned observant Jews and is ignorant of religious segregation or persecution. Isaac, with one Jewish parent and one Christian, saw his own mother—a tall, blonde, blue-eyed “Aryan goddess” who works for the Nazis—repudiate him. Even in theoretically liberal-minded Montreal, Isaac’s not free of persecution. Jewish quotas will likely keep him from attending medical school at McGill. Moreover, Rosetta’s best friend’s brother, a handsome blond non-Jew, says vile anti-Semitic things to Isaac. Italicized, phonetically rendered accents (“So, one afternoon, I vent der”) keep Isaac at arm’s length even as Rosetta grows closer to him, and there’s more than one “remarkable coincidence” holding the whole together, but readers will respond to how flawed, likable Rosetta learns how to welcome refugees wholeheartedly. As timely as historical fiction can be. (Historical fiction. 8-11)
WHEN THE MICE FAMILY COMES TO VISIT
Qin, Wenjun Illus. by Xu, Xiaoxuan Starfish Bay (48 pp.) $17.95 | Nov. 1, 2019 978-1-76036-089-4
An anthropomorphic mouse family hosts a family reunion in this picture book translated from Chinese. Melvin, a young mouse, is excited for the upcoming Mice Festival, an annual family reunion. His family will be hosting it this year, and the preparations are nonstop. While author Qin details the activities, illustrator Xu delivers illustrations filled to their edges with copious homey details, somewhat reminiscent of Tasha Tudor’s style. Full-page illustrations, double-page spreads, spot illustrations, and one impressive three-page foldout give the story a visual animation. If only the same could be said for the narrative. Its undemanding arc relates the arrival of the relatives and their joy and delight in one another, with a small blip of tension when Uncle Dom is tardy; but all ends well—and, if possible, even cozier. Gender stereotypes are strictly adhered to: The aunties and Melvin’s mother prepare all the food; the boys tussle; the girls play dress-up. The theme of unselfish, loving family togetherness with nary a quibble is delivered with a sentimental perseverance that may not resonate with Western readers. An author’s note at the end reads peculiarly, essentially an explanatory synopsis of the story reiterating the value of family and love. An illustrator’s note following is also eccentric, conveying a fragmented homage to imagination, bravery, and, yes, love. A persistently rose-colored narrative about family togetherness is buoyed by homey, cozy, copiously detailed illustrations. (Picture book. 3- 7)
kirkus.com
|
children ’s
|
1 september 2019
|
129
THUKPA FOR ALL
Ram, Praba & Preuitt, Sheela Illus. by Ranade, Shilpa Karadi Tales (48 pp.) $13.95 | Oct. 1, 2019 978-81-9338-898-3 Both the making of and eating of thukpa—a Tibetan noodle soup that is also consumed across Nepal, the eastern states of India, and in the occupied territories of Jammu and Kashmir—sit at the center of this tale about a tight-knit community in Ladakh (a subregion of Jammu and Kashmir). As the book opens, Tsering, who is blind and uses a cane as a mobility aid, hums, “Hot, hot thukpa / Hearty, chunky thukpa / Yummy, spicy thukpa.” As he walks through his village, he invites community and family members to come and join him at home for a bowl of thukpa. Tsering makes his way through his world on his own: When Abi, his grandmother, asks him to bring her peas for the soup, he “shuffles along the stone wall to the vegetable patch” and “feels the smooth pea pods with his fingers.” Tsering’s invited guests arrive, but just as Abi begins cooking, the power goes out! Abi worries, but Tsering assures her that “lights on or off ” doesn’t matter to him. Tsering is the perfect sous chef, and all ends well when the power returns. The pages are filled with delightful onomatopoeia—“flap, thwap” flutter the prayer flags; “tring, tringg” goes a bell—and Ranade’s inviting illustrations detail the life and geography of this mountainous region. Informative backmatter includes an introduction to the region, a glossary, and a recipe. A delightful family story that broadens representations of South Asia and South Asian children. (Picture book. 4-8)
PLUTO GETS THE CALL
Rex, Adam Illus. by Keller, Laurie Beach Lane/Simon & Schuster (48 pp.) $17.99 | Nov. 12, 2019 978-1-5344-1453-2 Heart (-shaped surface feature) literally broken by its demotion from planet status, Pluto glumly conducts readers on a tour of the solar system. You’d be bummed, too. Angrily rejecting the suggestions of “mean scientists” from Earth that “ice dwarf ” or “plutoid” might serve as well (“Would you like to be called humanoid?”), Pluto drifts out of the Kuiper Belt to lead readers past the so-called “real” planets in succession. All sport faces with googly eyes in Keller’s bright illustrations, and distinct personalities, too—but also actual physical characteristics (“Neptune is pretty icy. And gassy. I’m not being mean, he just is”) that are supplemented by pages of “fun facts” at the end. Having fended off Saturn’s flirtation, endured Jupiter’s stormy reception (“Keep OFF THE GAS!”) and relentless mockery from the asteroids, and given Earth the cold shoulder, Pluto at last takes the sympathetic suggestion of Venus and Mercury to talk to the Sun. “She’s pretty 130
|
1 september 2019
|
children ’s
|
bright.” A (what else?) warm welcome, plus our local star’s comforting reminders that every celestial body is unique (though “people talk about Uranus for reasons I don’t really want to get into”), and anyway, scientists are still arguing the matter because that’s what “science” is all about, mend Pluto’s heart at last: “Whatever I’m called, I’ll always be PLUTO!” Hurray for the underdog. (afterword) (Informational pic ture book. 6-8)
MAKE TROUBLE YOUNG READERS EDITION Standing Up, Speaking Out, and Finding the Courage To Lead Richards, Cecile with Peterson, Lauren McElderry (240 pp.) $17.99 | Oct. 15, 2019 978-1-5344-5195-7
The famed activist tells her life story. With emphasis on her subject’s early development, Shamir here carefully adapts Richards’ bestselling 2018 memoir (written with Peterson) for a younger crowd, hoping to inspire fledgling activists to follow Richards’ pathbreaking example in introducing social change. The eldest of four and a “classic all-A’s first child…raised by troublemakers,” Richards was born in 1957 in Texas to “rabble-rousing” civil rights lawyer David Richards and Ann Richards, who went from “frustrated housewife” to “the first woman elected in her own right as governor of Texas.” Exposed early on to then-segregated Dallas’ “rampant” racism and homophobia and given her progressive pedigree (“we looked like the quintessential upper-middle-class Dallas family. But while other families bowled, we did politics”), Richards richly details the varied calls to action for social causes she’s answered throughout her career. She started “Youth Against Pollution” in seventh grade in Austin and a food co-op while at Brown University, where she “majored in history” but “minored in agitating”; fought to keep religion out of Texas public schools and nationally to register voters; joined Rep. Nancy Pelosi’s staff; and headed Planned Parenthood for 12 years (2006-18)—not to mention getting married and parenting three children along the way. Throughout the memoir, Richards lends solid practical advice for resisting and organizing while offering a fascinating window into contemporary social struggles. Gritty, accessible, and sure to strike a chord with action-oriented Gen Z. (Memoir. 10-18)
kirkus.com
|
The artwork is a gorgeous complement to the eclectic curation. the girl who rode a shark
HAPPY HAIR
Roe, Mechal Renee Illus. by the author Doubleday (32 pp.) $16.99 | $19.99 PLB | Oct. 15, 2019 978-1-9848-9554-7 978-1-9848-9555-4 PLB
THE GIRL WHO RODE A SHARK And Other Stories of Daring Women Ross, Ailsa Illus. by Blackwell, Amy Pajama Press (128 pp.) $22.00 | Sep. 24, 2019 978-1-77278-098-7
Brief biographies of 52 intrepid women, spanning the globe and all centuries, are flanked by large, full-color illustrations and by maps that show the women’s adventuring sites. The introduction sets up the idea that the book has been written by, for, and about human females—a bit unfortunate. The claim that these are women whom “the history books forgot about” is mostly true (Sacagawea, Joan of Arc, and Amelia Earhart are outliers) and explains why such noteworthy figures as Rosa Parks and Malala Yousafzai are just names at the bottom of the pages about Bessie Coleman and Nujeen Mustafa, respectively. Although the introduction suggests that being an adventurer is not related to monetary wealth, a good number of the women are from privileged backgrounds. The thoughtful |
DOG AND RABBIT
Saltzberg, Barney Illus. by the author Charlesbridge (48 pp.) $14.99 | Oct. 8, 2019 978-1-62354-107-1
y o u n g a d u lt
A book that pays homage to the versatility of black hair. A dark-skinned black girl, eyes closed, face forward, greets readers on the cover against a bright yellow background, and she wears a pink bow (die-cut out of the case) in her wavy updo. This is one of many hairstyles featured in the illustrations, designed to help readers appreciate the potential for styling natural Afro hair. “Bomb braids,” “pom-pom puffs” and “‘frohawk” (an Afro-styled mohawk) also appear. Like these, most of the hairstyle names incorporate alliteration, making them fun to read aloud. At first glance, readers might think this book is about one girl’s hair—which is possible, given how many styles one head of afrotextured hair can sport—but skin color changes, as do clothes, earrings, and other details that are easily altered, although every girl holds the same face-front, eye-closed position. But the sameness of each face leaves no room for variations in other features such as the eyes, lips, and nose. Hence, young readers might consider this a paper version of the video games that allow changes in hairstyles on a face that has limited or no customizability—which also limits the book’s usefulness as multicultural literature. The refrain, “I love being me,” offers a worthwhile affirmation, but cookie-cutter faces undermine the message about diversity. (Picture book. 4-8)
glossary and endnotes—and the biographies themselves—help explain this. The artwork, reminiscent of art deco travel posters, is a gorgeous complement to the eclectic curation. The biographies are written in a conversational style, often including a short quote from the subject. The idea of adventuring is deliberately loose, with the biographies organized under categories of artists, pioneers, scientists, activists, athletes, and seekers. The tales range from being inspirational (most of them) to creepy (pirate queen Teuta had a Roman ambassador killed because he annoyed her) to weird (Manon Ossevoort drove a tractor to the South Pole in 2004). All are fun to read. An exciting labor of love—for kids of all gender identities. (Collective biography. 8-12)
A conversation starter for preschoolers. Dog and Rabbit are fine on their own, but they each want a friend. Pleasantly square pages contain softly edged illustrations mostly separated by negative space, emphasizing the emotional and physical distance between the animals. Chunky, black, handwriting-inspired type contrasts with the negative space and balances the gentle blues, greens, and browns that make up the bulk of the color palette. Brown, floppy-eared Dog eventually notices Rabbit and wishes for friendship, but gray Rabbit is fixated on what he believes is a bunny inside Dog’s house. Even as Dog is thinking about Rabbit on one of the rare double-page spreads, Rabbit looks up at the same evening moon thinking about the unreachable bunny. But once Rabbit wanders into Dog’s house to discover that the bunny is a refrigerator magnet, the pair quickly settles into an amicable friendship. The duo’s contentment is fortunate, for no other potential matches seem to exist save for a few fleeting glimpses of a red bird. The colors, sparse illustrations, and predictable plot make this a satisfactory beginning book about friendship for young children. Grown-up readers may go down rabbit holes of their own, wondering whether Rabbit is settling for Dog and about the merits of waiting around for others to arrive at their own realizations. An odd-couple friendship story with a focus on perception and patience. (Picture book. 3-5)
kirkus.com
|
children ’s
|
1 september 2019
|
131
The simple text presents the sometimes-long, tongue-twisting career names while helpfully defining them. baby loves scientists
JUMPING MOUSE A Native American Legend of Friendship and Sacrifice Schroe, Misty Illus. by the author Page Street (32 pp.) $17.99 | Nov. 5, 2019 978-1-62414-817-0
An ordinary mouse, dreaming of a less ordinary life, sets off on a journey that tests her in this new take on the story told by John Steptoe in The Story of Jumping Mouse (1984). When a little female mouse suggests to the other mice that they set off to find the High Places of legend, she realizes the others don’t want a different life, and so she chooses to go alone. Soon, she comes to a fast-moving river where she meets Grandfather Frog. Moved by “the eagerness of [her] heart,” Grandfather Frog gifts her his ability to leap great distances and calls her Jumping Mouse. As she continues her journey, Jumping Mouse encounters Brother Buffalo and Sister Wolf, both of whom she finds distressed and crying. Displaying compassion, she gives the one her vision and the other her sense of smell, jeopardizing her own quest. Though the simple story lacks high dramatic conflict, the illustrations—hand-built, clay-sculpted characters photographed in real-life natural settings—provide visual interest and deserve praise. Younger readers will mostly enjoy the animal characters while older ones will likely engage with themes of friendship, self-sacrifice, and the importance of following one’s dreams. Some readers may find it troubling that misinformed beliefs in a singular, pan-Indian culture are reinforced by the generic subtitle as well as by the absence of the author/illustrator’s specific tribal affiliation/descent or even any note on the story’s origin. A cute story that doesn’t reach the high places it could. (author’s note, note on art) (Picture book/folktale. 4-8)
THE ADVENTURES OF MOOSE & MR. BROWN
Smith, Paul Illus. by Usher, Sam Pavilion Children’s (40 pp.) $17.95 | Oct. 8, 2019 978-1-84365-428-5
Anthropomorphic animals meet through happenstance, become friends, and help each other with their problems. The new spin this title tries to apply to the overly familiar trope is that one of the two characters—monkey Mr. Brown— is a famous fashion designer. He meets Moose on a plane when Moose is traveling from Alaska to London. Moose is introduced as having a superfluous and perpetually absent-minded twin— Monty—who has boarded the wrong plane. Mr. Brown offers to help Moose look for Monty, though looking seems to just mean that Moose will accompany Mr. Brown as he travels around the world to work. Moose, in return, provides Mr. Brown 132
|
1 september 2019
|
children ’s
|
with top-notch fashion ideas, such as scarves for giraffes and sunglasses for snakes. Though clearly aiming for some degree of lovable kitsch, this title overshoots and lands squarely on bizarre. The premise is preposterous; the narrative meandering. At best the choice to feature an anthropomorphic (possibly stuffed) monkey character named “Mr. Brown” is unfortunate; at worst, it’s offensive—especially taken alongside the tiny vignette that is the sole representation of Africa. The illustrations are frequently too crowded, making decoding them difficult and rendering the entire work a confusing mess. Safe to skip it. (Picture book. 4-8)
BABY LOVES SCIENTISTS You Can Be Anything! Spiro, Ruth Illus. by Chan, Irene Charlesbridge (24 pp.) $12.99 | Oct. 15, 2019 978-1-62354-149-1 Series: Baby Loves
What do you want to be when you grow up? If they haven’t already thought about their futures (and they probably haven’t), toddlers and preschoolers might start planning after perusing this cheerful first guide to scientific careers. Plump-cheeked, wide-eyed tykes with various skin and hair colors introduce different professions, including zoologist, meteorologist, aerospace engineer, and environmental scientist, depicted with cues to tip readers off to what the jobs entail. The simple text presents the sometimes-long, tongue-twisting career names while helpfully defining them in comprehensible terms. For example, an environmental scientist “helps take care of our world,” and a zoologist is defined as someone who “studies how animals behave.” Scientists in general are identified as those who “study, learn, and solve problems.” Such basic language not only benefits youngsters, but also offers adults sharing the book easy vocabulary with which to expand on conversations with kids about the professions. The title’s ebullient appearance is helped along by the typography: The jobs’ names are set in all caps, printed in color and in a larger font than the surrounding text, and emphasized with exclamation points. Additionally, the buoyant watercolors feature clues to what scientists in these fields work with, such as celestial bodies for astronomers. The youngest listeners won’t necessarily get all of this, but the book works as a rudimentary introduction to STEM topics and a shoutout to scientific endeavors. So rocket science can be fun. (Informational picture book. 3-6)
kirkus.com
|
THE SPEED OF STARLIGHT An Exploration of Physics, Sound, Light, and Space Stuart, Colin Illus. by Abadía, Ximo Big Picture/Candlewick (80 pp.) $24.99 | Oct. 1, 2019 978-1-5362-0855-9
MR. CAT AND THE LITTLE GIRL
Wang Yuwei Illus. by the author Clavis (32 pp.) $17.95 | $9.95 paper | Oct. 1, 2019 978-1-60537-488-8 978-1-60537-500-7 paper
Sometimes friendships can be all too fleeting. In this tale told across the seasons, Mr. Cat, a painter, encounters a tiny slip of a girl beneath some autumn leaves amid winter’s snows. Concerned, he takes her home and feeds her toast. Though at first he must adapt to having someone new around, soon Mr. Cat comes to care for her and watch out for her. He even finds creative inspiration in the yellow flowers that appear in her footsteps outdoors. Mr. Cat searches for the name of the flower in an encyclopedia and discovers a picture of the girl, as well as some sad news about |
THE SNOW BEAR
Webb, Holly Illus. by Artful Doodlers Tiger Tales (192 pp.) $6.99 paper | Oct. 1, 2019 978-1-68010-446-2 Series: Winter Journeys
y o u n g a d u lt
A stylish-looking compilation of physics facts. Stuart and Abadía have created a visually striking book of trivia around the general topic of physics, touching on a few other sciences along the way. The oversized (over 13 inches tall) volume categorizes the information into four main topics: “Physics,” “Sound,” “Light and Color,” and “Space.” The information in each topic is summarized in a short paragraph with vocabulary-building words set in bold, as are the names of scientists mentioned. Unfortunately, after the table of contents, there is no additional tool to help readers (or rereaders) find a topic—there is no index, glossary, or phonetic pronunciation guide. Readers who encounter tantalizing facts (there are “planets where it rains diamonds”? Diplodocus whipped “its tail so quickly that it created a cannonlike boom”?) will look for a bibliography, further resources, or notes in vain. Abadía’s illustrations, a combination of graphite, wax, ink, and digital color, do little to expand on the text. The look is decidedly retro and features elements that may be foreign to young readers: Such images as a rotary phone, a cabinet-style TV with rabbit ears, and a gramophone create a feeling of distance from modern science. Of the many humans depicted, most are white-presenting. The book may be of slight interest to trivia-seeking readers but will provide little help for anyone who wants to do serious digging. A swift but insufficiently substantive tour of the topic. (Nonfiction. 8-12)
her life span. The straightforward text (translated from Chinese into Dutch and then into English) at times repeats what appears in the illustrations rather than leaving space for artistic vision and, furthermore, can be rather lengthy for a picture book. However, the smudgy, soft-edged illustrations are quite captivating. Close-ups of the girl and Mr. Cat really engage readers, and the spare use of yellow draws their eyes along. The use of white space creates tension and provides balance for several full-color spreads. The story, though, is slight, and it might leave young readers puzzled as to the little girl’s demise as well as Mr. Cat’s future now that he has been changed by his friend. A slip of a story with quite engaging illustrations. (Pic ture book. 5- 7)
After hearing her grandfather’s stories of finding a polar bear cub while living with an Inuit family in the Canadian Arctic, a little girl dreams her own wintry
adventure. Sara’s parents have skipped the family’s annual Christmastime visit to Grandpa this year, staying at home as they await the birth of her baby brother and sending her alone. Sara loves visiting Grandpa but misses her parents, especially now that a major snowfall threatens to keep them isolated up north over the holiday. Grandpa, writing a book on Inuit folktales, entertains her with accounts of his own childhood, when he accompanied his father—then studying the Inuit people—to the Canadian Arctic, where Grandpa and Alignak, an Inuit boy, rescued a polar bear cub. Sara builds a snow bear and coaxes Grandpa into building a small igloo, where she snuggles into a sleeping bag and, listening to more stories, dreams. Originally published in 2012, the story—especially in its generic portrait of Inuit culture—feels stale, the characters bland. As recollected in Grandpa’s childhood memories and Sara’s dream, the Inuit are familiar, pre-industrial tropes—exotic sources of folktales and artifacts. (An endnote oddly describes Nunavut, Canada’s vast Inuit territory, as a “settlement.”) Vacillating between realism and fantasy, the plot never kicks into gear. Sara and Grandpa present white. Homey illustrations add warmth to an otherwise chilly read. Trite and plodding. (author’s notes) (Fiction. 6-10)
kirkus.com
|
children ’s
|
1 september 2019
|
133
THE BOY WITH THE BUTTERFLY MIND
Williamson, Victoria Kelpies (224 pp.) $14.95 | Nov. 5, 2019 978-1-78250-600-3
Two British preteens grapple with their parents’ divorces—and sharing a home. In Scotland, 11-year-old Elin lives with her divorced mother and her mother’s boyfriend, Paul. She believes that if she can be her father’s “Perfect Princess,” he’ll be persuaded to return. In England, Jamie, also 11, lives with his divorced mother and her boyfriend, Chris, whom he does not get along with. Due to ADHD, he’s impulsive, forgetful, and never perfect. Instead of relocating to the U.S. with his mom and Chris and at his mother’s urging, Jamie moves in with his dad. After establishing each protagonist’s background through alternating first-person chapters, Williamson reveals that Jamie’s father is Paul. As Elin and Jamie adjust to living and going to school together, their initial spats turn to all-out war. The harder Elin schemes to break up the family, the harder Jamie tries to keep the peace, driving the plot. Parental arguments, financial strain, and other dynamics add to the tension, and a butterfly motif unites the story. When the kids finally realize the pain they share, they join forces to become a blended family in an encouraging ending. Although Elin and Jamie are vastly different, the author deftly shows the trauma of divorce on children. Most characters are assumed white; Paul is ethnically Chinese, and Jamie is implied biracial (Chinese/white). An achingly realistic, yet hopeful, depiction of divorce. (Fiction. 8-12)
ALIEN SUPERSTAR
Winkler, Henry & Oliver, Lin Illus. by Nicolle, Ethan Amulet/Abrams (264 pp.) $14.99 | Oct. 1, 2019 978-1-4197-3369-7 Series: Alien Superstar, 1 An extraterrestrial teen refugee becomes a Hollywood star. Citizen Short Nose, a 13-year-old, blue-skinned, six-eyed, bipedal ET, has left his home world in an effort to escape the authoritarian forces that reign there. The teen runaway lands his spacecraft in the middle of Universal Studios and easily blends in among the tourists and actors in movie costumes. Citizen Short Nose quickly changes his name to Buddy C. Burger and befriends Luis Rivera, an 18-year-old Latinx actor who moonlights as Frankenstein on the Universal lot. Inspired to be an actor by his grandmother Wrinkle’s love of Earth culture, Buddy lands a gig on Oddball Academy, playing (of course) an alien from another 134
|
1 september 2019
|
children ’s
|
world. On set, Buddy befriends Cassidy Cambridge, the brownskinned teen star of the show. Buddy balances keeping his true identity secret (everyone just assumes he’s wearing an alien costume) with becoming an overnight sensation. The book is efficiently written, moving the story forward so quickly that readers won’t have time to think too hard about the bizarre circumstances necessary for the whole thing to work. This series opener’s big problem is the ending: The story just stops. Characters are established and plot mechanics are put together, but the book basically trusts readers to show up for the next installment. Those enamored with Hollywood gags and sci-fi plot boiling will probably be engaged enough to do so. A decent start to a silly sci-fi series. (Science fiction. 8-10)
WHAT THE EAGLE SEES Indigenous Stories of Rebellion and Renewal
Yellowhorn, Eldon & Lowinger, Kathy Annick Press (132 pp.) $14.95 paper | Nov. 12, 2019 978-1-77321-328-6 The co-authors of Turtle Island: The Story of North America’s First People (2017) team up again, this time addressing encounters between the Indigenous people of North America and European invaders. A standout overview of Indigenous struggles, this slim volume highlights the scope of influence Europeans had on this continent by going beyond the standard story of English Pilgrims to include the Vikings and Spanish. The book follows a series of nonconsecutive events that highlight the resistance strategies, coping mechanisms, and renewal efforts undertaken by Indigenous nations primarily in present-day Canada and the U.S. Visually engaging, with colorful maps, drawings, photos, and artwork, the book includes modern moments in Native culture as well as history based on archaeological findings. Young readers will be introduced to an Indigenous astronaut and anthropologist as well as musicians, social activists, Olympians, soldiers, healers, and artists. The chapter titled “Assimilation” is a fine introduction to Indigenous identity issues, covering forcible conversion, residential schools, coercive adoption, and government naming policies. By no means comprehensive in their approach, Yellowhorn (Piikani) and Lowinger have focused on pivotal events designed to educate readers about the diversity of colonized experiences in the Americas. Sections in each chapter labeled “Imagine” are especially powerful in helping young readers empathize with Indigenous loss. Essential. (author’s note, glossary, selected sources, image credits, index) (Nonfiction. 10-13)
kirkus.com
|
Santat’s multimedia art elevates Bird’s joyful, playful text to holiday picture-book excellence. the great santa stakeout
winter-holiday picture books COOKIES FOR SANTA The Story of How Santa’s Favorite Cookie Saved Christmas
America’s Test Kitchen Illus. by Tarkela, Johanna Sourcebooks Explore (32 pp.) $17.99 | Sep. 3, 2019 978-1-4926-7771-0
LONG AGO, ON A SILENT NIGHT
Berry, Julie Illus. by Won, Annie Orchard/Scholastic (40 pp.) $17.99 | Sep. 3, 2019 978-1-338-27772-2 Parallel stories in verse and image connect a contemporary child’s arrival with that of the Christ child. Berry’s debut picture-book text offers readers moving, graceful verse in the voice of a present-day new parent linking |
kirkus.com
|
y o u n g a d u lt
When Santa loses his favorite cookbook, it looks like Christmas might be cancelled. The story is premised on the conceit that Santa’s annual Christmas preparations include making Krinkle cookies (recipe included in backmatter) for everyone at the North Pole. Alas, his heirloom cookbook with the recipe is lost, and he’s worried “everyone will be disappointed.” In an abrupt cutaway to Boston, readers meet Abigail and William, visiting the library with their mother. Unbeknownst to the precocious gourmand Abigail, the cookbook she borrows is the one Santa is missing. How it got to Boston and onto the library’s shelves is unclear, but she makes this connection when watching a television broadcast that Santa and Mrs. Claus host annually, and he sadly bemoans the loss of his cookbook. With Christmas just two days away, Abigail’s family decides they can’t get him the recipe, but they can bake cookies and enlist others’ help. America’s Test Kitchen, whose offices are conveniently just down the street, helps out— both with discerning some artfully named ingredients and soliciting viewers to also make more cookies for Santa to enjoy and share. It’s a happy ending, but Tarkela’s illustrations here and elsewhere are stiff and redundant, undermining the book’s overall success. Characters’ irises are oversized, giving them a distinctly creepy look. Santa and Mrs. Claus present white while Abigail and William seem to be biracial, with an Asian mom and white dad. This sweet story is sadly underbaked. (Picture book. 4- 7)
the birth of a child with Jesus’ birth. “Hoof and feather, hide and beak— / Some say the animals began to speak / Their love for the child. Could it be true? // We will whisper our love for you,” reads the verse, with accompanying digital illustrations casting the same baby and parents both in modern times and in the “long ago” biblical era. The pages are busy, sprinkled with lots of extra stars, and some of the imagery is downright mystifying—why is there a city perched on the baby’s head? But in a refreshing turn (as compared to many Nativity picture books), family members are depicted as people of color. The father has brown skin and Afro-textured, black hair while mother and baby have brown, wavy hair, and light-brown complexions. The contemporary setting is urban, and at the book’s end, historical and modern worlds merge in Won’s illustration depicting the Wise Men seeking directions from police officers in front of brownstones and a camel hitched to a fire hydrant. While the art style can seem labored or even at odds with the spare, elegant text, this is a picture book that many will cherish as part of holiday traditions. Joyful, joyful. (Picture book. 3-8)
THE GREAT SANTA STAKEOUT
Bird, Betsy Illus. by Santat, Dan Levine/Scholastic (40 pp.) $17.99 | Sep. 3, 2019 978-1-338-16998-0
Can Santa’s biggest fan snap the ultimate selfie? Freddy Melcher (who has light skin and brown hair and eyes and whose surname is a clever variant of the Wise Man moniker, Melchior) could be Santa’s biggest fan. All year long, he celebrates the jolly old elf and collects all things St. Nick. As Christmas Eve approaches, Freddy is determined to capture a photo “with Santa, fresh out of the chimney.” He devises a four-step plan involving a rooftop trap and goes to bed determined to stay awake and meet his idol—but, alas, sleep takes hold. A sudden “CRASH!” awakens Freddy, who sees “something big [roll] right off the roof.” Is Santa hurt? Poor Freddy dashes outside, fearing the worst, only to find a Santa lawn ornament headfirst in the snow, with a note attached reading, “NICE TRY, FREDDY! —SANTA.” Santat cleverly depicts this note viewed from Freddy’s perspective, which aligns readers with the protagonist and hides his reaction—for the moment. A page-turn reveals that Freddy feels “FANTASTIC,” because “while other kids nestled all snug in their beds, Freddy had played hide-and-seek with his hero!” Never mind a happy ending, this is a downright jolly one—merry, even. Santat’s multimedia art elevates Bird’s joyful, playful text to holiday picture-book excellence, his use of chiaroscuro especially masterful in the nighttime scenes. Sure to be caught under many a tree. (Picture book. 4-8) (Note: Bird is a freelance contributor to Kirkus.)
winter-holiday picture books
|
1 september 2019
|
135
Hoppy Christmas to all. santa claus vs. the easter bunn
SANTA CLAUS VS. THE EASTER BUNNY
Blunt, Fred Illus. by the author Sourcebooks Jabberwocky (32 pp.) $12.99 | Oct. 1, 2019 978-1-4926-9164-8 A clash between Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny resolves itself in merry collaboration. The title should be switched: It’s the Easter Bunny who plots to take down Santa Claus after feeling bitter about all of the help and thanks St. Nick receives year after year. As the text explains, the Bunny has no elf helpers and follows an exhausting three-step process to make chocolate eggs “before delivering them all by himself. (Which explains why you often find Easter eggs scattered all over your yard).” Then, in stark contrast to Santa, who receives goodies from children around the globe, including carrots for his reindeer, the Easter Bunny gets no thanks. “I LIKE CARROTS. IS IT TOO MUCH TO ASK FOR A CARROT?” he exclaims in an angry speech bubble. Grinch-like, he decides to sabotage Christmas by filling the elves’ toy-making machines with chocolate: “THOSE POOR SWEET CHILDREN! WHATEVER WILL THEY DO WHEN THEIR TOYS MELT? Wooo Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha.” Alas, the plan backfires. Children are delighted by their chocolate toys. “I CAN PLAY AND EAT CHOCOLATE AT THE SAME TIME!” says one child who holds a chocolate airplane. Bereft, the Easter Bunny decides to leave for good, but Santa stops him and offers a jolly partnership, complete with elf helpers—and carrots! Blunt’s scratchy cartoons go big on the Bunny’s maniacal grins. Hoppy Christmas to all (and a Merry Easter, too). (Pic ture book. 4- 7)
THE WORST CHRISTMAS EVER
Bostrom, Kathleen Long Illus. by Porfirio, Guy Flyaway Books (48 pp.) $17.00 | Sep. 17, 2019 978-1-947888-09-8
Poor Matthew is having the worst Christmas ever. Well before the holiday season arrives, only Jasper the dog provides Matthew with any comfort when his parents announce in the springtime that the family is moving. When autumn rolls around, Matthew (whom stiff, undistinguished illustrations depict as resembling his dad and appearing white with light skin, red, straight hair, and blue eyes) still hasn’t adjusted. Readers learn that “at his new school, Matthew counted the hours until he could run home to Jasper. At church nothing felt right.” Little sister Lucy (who looks like their mother, with wavy dark hair, light-brown skin, and brown eyes), is happy in their new community, and their parents appear to be happy, too. Lucy’s joy is quite apparent when the minister announces plans for an outdoor Nativity, and she volunteers her doll, Gabriela, to 136
|
1 september 2019
|
children ’s
|
“be baby Jesus.” Matthew is embarrassed by her exuberance, but those feelings shift to deep sadness and worry just before Christmas when Jasper disappears. The family makes fliers and calls around to shelters and veterinarian offices, to no avail. On Christmas Eve, Matthew’s “heart ached for Jasper, lost somewhere in that terribly silent night.” And then, in “a Christmas miracle,” Jasper appears in the living Nativity’s manger, a narrative contrivance that beggars belief and does not mitigate the one-note moodiness of the pages that have come before. Not among the best. (Picture book. 4- 7)
A WARM CHRISTMAS
Boukarim, Leila Illus. by Moxham, Barbara Marshall Cavendish (40 pp.) $10.00 | Jul. 7, 2019 978-981-4828-29-1 A white Christmas is a dream come true for Jack—or is it? Jack has a snow globe that seems to hold his vision of an ideal Christmas setting. The snowy landscape with three evergreen trees contrasts with the tropical place where Jack lives with his family. “Where Jack lived, Christmas was never white,” reads an early spread depicting Jack and his parents outside near large trees, a parrot sitting on a branch, and a dog panting in the heat. Without any explanation, the setting suddenly changes to depict a snowstorm outside as text reads, “One magical Christmas Eve… / Jack’s wish came true!” Is this a dream? Did the snow globe on the table somehow instigate the change in weather? Why does Jack have a long, white-and-red muffler in this warm climate? Such essential plot points go unexplained as Jack ventures outside to play in the winter wonderland. He enjoys himself until he realizes he’s all alone, and then he returns home. Somehow, dumping out the water and snow from his snow globe causes his family to reappear and the landscape to return to its warm, tropical state, affirming that “a warm Christmas is the best kind of Christmas there is.” Jack and his family present white. Instructions for a DIY snow globe follow. Hard to follow and likely to leave readers cold. (Picture book. 4- 7)
SANTA’S SECRET
Brennan-Nelson, Denise Illus. by Melmon, Deborah Sleeping Bear Press (32 pp.) $16.99 | Aug. 15, 2019 978-1-53411-038-0 Can an inquisitive child find the real Santa? Rhyming, first-person text follows a child to the city with the family for some holiday fun. They appear white in the cartoon illustrations, with peachy skin and straight, auburn hair (though Grandma’s coif is gray and wavy). When Santa goes by during a parade, he has light-brown skin and round, goldrimmed glasses. On the facing page, the narrator is surprised
kirkus.com
|
to see another Santa with lighter skin and square, black-framed glasses. Puzzled, the child narrates, “I demanded to know: ‘Who is the REAL one?!’ ” Grandma tells her, “It’s Santa’s secret, just as it should be,” but the child decides to investigate. Most of the sleuthing occurs while visiting Santa in a store where he’s taking photos with children. The determined kid whips out a notepad and grills him. This patient, white Santa looks different from the others, rather like he’s stepped out of “A Visit From St. Nicholas.” Then, while getting hot cocoa in a coffee shop, the child spies another (white) Santa look-alike (minus the red suit). Before the narrator can ask anything, he says, “ ‘Reindeer like barley and berries to eat. / But carrots,’ he added ‘are their favorite treat.’ ” Then suddenly, he’s gone! This encounter somehow leaves the narrator satisfied with not knowing who the REAL Santa is, but the non-ending may leave readers cold. Ho-ho-hum. (Picture book. 3-6)
SANTA MOUSE
A Christmas picture book from the 1960s gets some updates. Brown and De Witt’s 1966 collaboration about a lonely, solitary, kindhearted mouse who leaves a gift of cheese for Santa will be recognizable to many—including, perhaps, some who eschewed it for outmoded gender roles and racial stereotyping in a spread introducing the protagonist’s imaginary playmates. The original text reads, “The little girls would bring their dolls / And dress up and have tea. / The boys would all play cowboys / Or be Eskimos / Or Spanish / But when he’d try to touch them, / Like a bubble they would vanish.” The accompanying illustrations show “little girl” mice in hats and dresses for a tea party and boys with stereotypical costumes and props for their pretend play. The updated version uses the word “Inuit” instead of “Eskimo” but retains the concept of playacting ethnicity and the stereotypical illustrations of a matador and a harpoon-wielding, fur-clad rodent figure. On a brighter note, the revised text rejects strict gender norms and says, “some of them would bring their dolls [and] there were others who’d play cowboys.” Abetted by an expansion of page count from 20 to 32, changes in design and layout make for a cleaner look in the new version that will enhance read-alouds, but even massaged, the spread about playmates still sounds an off note. A revision that will still provoke reservations. (Picture book. 2- 7)
|
kirkus.com
|
Bruel, Nick Illus. by the author Roaring Brook (24 pp.) $9.99 | Aug. 20, 2019 978-1-250-19843-3 Series: Bad Kitty
Bad Kitty is back—with a letter to Santa. Even though she “is not so sure she’s been good this year,” Kitty writes to Santa to ask for “a nice present.” Next she must “GIVE the letter to Santa,” and a picture shows her gripping a newspaper with the headline “MEET SANTA TODAY!” and a photo of Kris Kringle. While en route to the store to see him (her letter cleverly stuck into the folded brim of her knitted hat), Kitty encounters someone she thinks is Santa but who turns out to be someone dressed in a Santa suit and ringing a bell for charity. Other similar encounters show a diverse range of people (men, women, and a child with different skin tones and hair textures) wearing Santa suits and holding signs reading “GIVE.” There’s even a dog and an octopus getting in on the action in the digital, cartoon-style pictures. Kitty is overwhelmed by all the Santas, none of whom looks like the white-bearded white man in the newspaper. And alas, when she reaches the store, it’s closed! Angry, she balls up her letter and stomps on it before heading home. But, in a gift of an ending, Bad Kitty ends up with a very nice present under her tree: a fish in a brown-paper package all tied up with string. Nice enough. (Picture book. 4- 7)
y o u n g a d u lt
Brown, Michael Illus. by De Witt, Elfrieda Little Simon/Simon & Schuster (32 pp.) $17.99 | Sep. 17, 2019 978-1-5344-3793-7
BAD KITTY SEARCHING FOR SANTA
THE SHORTEST DAY
Cooper, Susan Illus. by Ellis, Carson Candlewick (32 pp.) $17.99 | Oct. 22, 2019 978-0-7636-8698-7
Rituals to celebrate the cycle of light and dark have existed since the beginning of time. Newbery Medalist Cooper uses sparse, evocative language that personifies how humans celebrate the changing of the seasons. Featuring a poem created first for the Christmas Revels, the book tells the story of the solstices, how the world moves from the year’s longest day in the summer to the shortest day of winter. The tone is both solemn and reverent yet also full of rejoicing. The story begins as silent as sunrise, the rich, evocative illustrations of Caldecott Honoree Ellis giving voice as she shows early humans working during the time of light, their day’s activities revolving around the movement of the sun. “So the shortest day came,” writes Cooper, and Ellis’ beautiful gouache paintings depict a world that is pushing against the dark with candles and dance and song. Despite the urgency of the people to push away darkness for light, the tone of the tale is one of hope, anticipation, love, joy and spiritual happiness, culminating with Yule. People depicted morph from early
winter-holiday picture books
|
1 september 2019
|
137
hunter-gatherers to people in northern European medieval garb to a multiracial gathering. They gather in a modern Western home with mantelpiece decorated with menorah and holly, singing carols by the Christmas tree. As precious as sunshine. (author’s note) (Picture book. 4-8)
THE LITTLE FIR TREE
Adapt. by Corr, Christopher Illus. by adapter Frances Lincoln (32 pp.) $17.99 | Oct. 1, 2019 978-1-78603-662-9
A Christmas story about gratitude, adapted from a Hans Christian Andersen tale. The eponymous little fir tree is discontented in the forest, especially when it sees other, bigger trees being cut down to build cabins and ships. People and animals alike praise the tree for its beauty, but it remains dissatisfied. Then the tree is cut down, and it goes to a home where people (all of whom appear white in the naïve illustrations) decorate it for Christmas. Here, the tree feels proud and wishes the woodland animals could see it. It also enjoys listening to a story—a moment that offers readers an intertextual reference to “The Snow Queen.” But when the decorations are removed, the fir tree doesn’t understand that it’ll be taken outside and put into a shed the next day. This fate brings sadness again, but the tree is eventually gladdened when children return it out-ofdoors. Its limbs lacking the needles it once had, the tree glories in the fresh air and sunshine, seemingly happy to be outside. Where the original story ends dismally for the tree, Corr is kinder, building in a subtle circle-of-life arc. The final sentence notes that a squirrel’s larder, which presumably includes the fir tree’s cones, allows a new tree to grow. Throughout, opaque, daub-y paintings with a folk-art sensibility enliven the storytelling but do little to expand on the details of the text. A Christmas tree-t. (Picture book. 3-6)
THE CRAYONS’ CHRISTMAS
Daywalt, Drew Illus. by Jeffers, Oliver Penguin Workshop (52 pp.) $19.99 | Oct. 15, 2019 978-0-525-51574-6 Series: Creative Creature Catcher
A flurry of mail addressed to Duncan’s crayons ushers in the Christmas season in this novelty spinoff of the bestselling The Day the Crayons Quit (2013) and The Day the Crayons Came Home (2015). Actual cards and letters are tucked into envelopelike pouches pasted to the pages; these are joined in some cases by other ephemera for a package that is likely to invite sudden, intense play followed by loss and/or damage that will render 138
|
1 september 2019
|
children ’s
|
the book a disappointment to reread. That’s probably OK, as in contrast to the clever story that kicked this small series off, this outing has a hastily composed feel that lacks cohesion. The first letter is addressed to Peach from Mom and includes a paper doll of the “naked” (de-wrappered) crayon along with a selection of tabbed changes of clothing that includes a top hat and tails and a bikini top and bottom. Peach’s implied gender fluidity does not mitigate the unfortunate association of peach with skin color established in the first book. The sense of narrative improvisation is cemented with an early page turn that takes the crayons from outdoors snow play to “Feeling…suddenly very Christmas-y, the crayons headed inside.” Readers can unpack a box of punch-out decorations; a recipe for gluten-free Christmas cookies that begins “go to store and buy gluten-free cookies”; a punch-out dreidel (turns out Grey is Jewish); a board game (“six-sided die” not included); and a map of Esteban (aka Pea Green) and Neon Red’s travels with Santa. Haphazard but jolly enough for one outing; it probably won’t last for more. (Novelty. 4-8)
SNOW GLOBE WISHES
Dealey, Erin Illus. by Shorrock, Claire Sleeping Bear Press (32 pp.) $16.99 | Sep. 15, 2019 978-1-53411-031-1
When a snowstorm blows through town, it knocks out power and sends evening commuters scurrying for the safety and warmth of home. But in the electricity-free night, one family turns the darkness into an opportunity to slow down and enjoy time together. This charming story follows the evening of an interracial family of four: a brown-skinned and dark-haired woman, little girl, and little boy, and a man presenting as white with light-colored skin and light hair. They have a candlelit picnic of Chinese takeout next to a blazing fireplace and decorated Christmas tree. The family enjoys the rest of the quiet snowy evening beneath a blanket fort in which they sleep together, cat and dog bundled in as well. The next morning, they and the rest of the community go out to play in the snow. The final spread in the book depicts the family’s cat and dog looking at the happy human tableau, now within the snow globe, which reads “Peace on Earth.” The muted colors, simple, childlike renderings, and happy characters make this book about a snowstorm feel warm and cozy—think hygge in picture-book form. Aside from the star-topped, decorated tree and the “Peace on Earth” message, often associated with Christmas, there are no religious symbols used in the book. The feelings of community and togetherness are palpable. (Picture book. 4-8)
kirkus.com
|
Presents for Hanukkah can be both surprising and perfect. kugel for hanukkah?
THE TOOTH FAIRY VS. SANTA
Deenihan, Jamie L.B. Illus. by Hunting, Erin Penguin Workshop (32 pp.) $12.99 | Oct. 1, 2019 978-1-5247-9080-6
KUGEL FOR HANUKKAH?
Everin, Gretchen M. Illus. by Ashdown, Rebecca Kar-Ben (32 pp.) $17.99 | Sep. 1, 2019 978-1-5415-3464-3
The traditional Ashkenazic Hanukkah treat of latkes is about to be replaced. The youngest sibling in an observant Jewish family narrates the family ritual of lighting the shamash, or helper candle, and then adding one more candle for each night of Hanukkah until, finally, eight are burning brightly. Blessings are recited and gifts are exchanged. The young narrator would like a cuddly animal but receives an odd assortment of presents. Or are they really that odd? At the same time, Grandma is opening an apron, a cookbook, and oven mitts. Eating a wide assortment of vegetable-filled latkes does not quite make the long-haired youngest sib happy until the final reveal—make that two! Grandma and her cooking utensils and ingredients result in a delicious if not traditional treat: “Cranberry Chocolate Chip Hanukkah Kugel.” The recipe is included at the end of the story. Oh, and that wish for a pet is also fulfilled. It is not especially cuddly, but it will be well loved. Everin’s tale is entertaining and happy and will make |
kirkus.com
|
LITTLE ROBIN’S CHRISTMAS
Fearnley, Jan Illus. by the author Nosy Crow/Candlewick (32 pp.) $16.99 | Sep. 10, 2019 978-1-5362-0825-2
A pourquoi tale for Christmastime. Fearnley’s story stops just short of explicitly stating that its aim is to explain how the robin got its red breast, but readers are invited to draw this conclusion. On the cover, a white and brown bird is clad in a red knitted vest and glides across the ice. The half-title page shows the same bird flying, but then on the title page the bird is vest-free, its feathered, white breast showing. The first spread in the book proper shows Little Robin admiring his reflection in a mirror while wearing a knitted white vest decorated with a holly pattern. Six vests of other colors appear on hangers around his tree-hollow home, but none is the red one from the frontmatter. Subsequent spreads show the bighearted Little Robin wearing and then giving away each of these vests when he encounters others animal out in the cold. White, green, pink, yellow, blue, purple, and orange vests are gifted to a frog, hedgehog, mole, squirrel, rabbit (who cleverly wears the vest as a hat in the illustrations, its ears poking through the arm holes), mother and baby otter, and mouse, respectively, until poor Little Robin is left shivering in the cold, vest-less. So who saves the day and provides Little Robin with a red vest for his breast? Santa, of course (here depicted as a white human). A cozy Christmas re(a)d. (Picture book. 3-6)
y o u n g a d u lt
When Veda loses her first tooth on Christmas Eve, an aspiring tooth fairy must battle Santa for the chance to leave her something. In Deenihan’s wordy text, Santa Claus (who, like the protagonist fairy and the little girl, appears white with light skin) is surprisingly cranky and territorial about Christmas Eve gift-giving. “Please feel free to come back any other night of the year,” he tells Blue, a fairy on his first lost-tooth mission and out to prove himself worthy of “a spot on the Tooth Fairy Team.” The stakes are high: If he fails to “locate and retrieve the client’s lost tooth” he will “be assigned to the polishing department for one year”—the worst job ever, apparently. But Santa won’t budge when Blue makes his case: “We can’t share Christmas Eve!” And so begins a raucous competition that causes a mess, upending a plate bearing cookies and a carrot. Also on that plate is a letter addressed to both of them that provokes a change of heart in the grinchy Santa. He and Blue clean up, and Blue takes Veda’s tooth and leaves a coin (hard to see in the busy picture), while Santa puts presents under the tree. They leave a note, too, and then Santa takes the triumphant Blue back to Toothtopia. The garish illustrations are more often overcrowded than not, a problem exacerbated by the oddly out-of-sync candy-colored palette. Skip. (Picture book. 4-6)
a pleasant addition to holiday book shelves. Ashdown’s colorful illustrations feature a googly-eyed family and a menorah depicting each night of the holiday. The historical setting of Hanukkah is assumed. Presents for Hanukkah can be both surprising and perfect. (Picture book. 3-6)
THE DINOSAUR THAT POOPED CHRISTMAS!
Fletcher, Tom & Poynter, Dougie Illus. by Parsons, Garry Aladdin (32 pp.) $17.99 | Sep. 17, 2019 978-1-4814-9872-2
Santa delivers a naughty boy his comeuppance in this yuck- and yuk-filled
Christmas book. Santa is appalled at the length of greedy Danny’s list—especially since the lad already has a “mountain of toys.” Santa decides, “I’ll leave him a present, / But this year his present might just be unpleasant.” After hearing a clatter, Danny rushes to see a “GIGANTIC egg” dwarfing the Christmas tree. It promptly hatches a dinosaur that sets to devouring everything,
winter-holiday picture books
|
1 september 2019
|
139
Shimokawara glories in textures, making the whorls in the animals’ fur seem touchable. the gifts of the animals
and everyone, in sight. Danny watches, horrified, as it eats his grandmother, his parents, and their whole house. The comical, rhyming text’s tone is light and is supported by the cartoon digital art, which shows a rotund, house-sized dinosaur on the former site of Danny’s home. Bereft, the boy realizes “it wasn’t the house or the presents he missed; / Without family, Christmas just didn’t exist.” Lucky for him, though perhaps not for squeamish readers, the dinosaur’s overindulgence leads to two spreads of voluminous defecation, with Danny’s family, the house’s contents, Santa and reindeer, and more all sailing “from the dinosaur’s butt” on a “massive WHOOOOOOSH” of liquid, brown poop. All characters are unscathed, and cleanup happens mercifully quickly, though readers may feel a bit ill at the sight of piles and rivulets of poop still decking the halls. Santa, Danny, and his family all present white. Safe to say it’s the only dinosaur-poop–themed Christmas book readers will ever need. (Picture book. 4-8)
HOW TO TRICK A CHRISTMAS ELF
Fliess, Sue Illus. by Sanfilippo, Simona Sky Pony Press (32 pp.) $16.99 | Oct. 1, 2019 978-1-5107-4430-1 Some advice for pulling the wool over Santa’s helpers’ eyes. While the trademarked Elf on the Shelf isn’t explicitly mentioned, its all-seeing power is clearly referenced in this story about helping children stay off Santa’s naughty list. Worried kids with a range of skin tones and hair colors are addressed by the text, which asks, “what if you could trick [the elf] so that you can sneak a look? Maybe you can change his mind…and what goes in his book!” Elf distraction is the goal, and the rhyming couplets say that the best way to divert an elf ’s attention is to “construct a tiny Christmas sleigh that only he could fly.” Subsequent spreads give step-by-step instructions and materials suggestions for the project, ultimately providing a guide for readers to build their own sleighs to distract the elves that spy from their shelves. In a twist at the end, the elf is so delighted by the sleigh that he rewards the children by affirming that they are on the nice list. A letter addressed to them, not a list after all, provides this affirmation, but it also could be read as suggesting bribery as a good strategy for niceness. This stance undermines the culminating message that “giving from your heart…[is] what good people do” since the children clearly had ulterior motives for their sleigh building. Not very nice. (Picture book. 4- 7)
140
|
1 september 2019
|
children ’s
|
THE GIFTS OF THE ANIMALS
Gerber, Carole Illus. by Shimokawara, Yumi Familius (32 pp.) $17.99 | Aug. 1, 2019 978-1-64170-159-4
A poetic imagining of gifts from the Nativity animals to the newborn baby Jesus. Gerber’s lilting rhymes reinterpret biblical text from the book of Luke, Chapter 2, verses 1-16 in the King James Version (reproduced in the back of the book). The frontmatter notes that they draw inspiration from “a 12th century Latin song, which became known in England as ‘The Animal Carol’ ”; within, the author imagines what the Nativity animals might have done to “prepare their stable for Christ’s birth.” She writes that an ox “drops straw into a manger bed.” Then “sheep tear loose bits of their wool / to make the bed feel soft and full.” Birds on the stable’s roof give feathers, which mice carry to the manger. A cow finds a blanket and adds it to the bed, too. Mary and Joseph appear with the baby, and the realistic-style illustrations depict the trio as olive-skinned with dark hair, and the shepherds have a similar appearance. The first angel to appear seems white, but the heavenly host singing in exaltation includes at least three angels of color (albeit ethereally washed-out). The book proper closes with shepherds and animals gathered around the Holy Family as they “all sing: ‘Glory to our newborn King!’ ” Shimokawara glories in textures, making the whorls in the animals’ fur and the folds in human characters’ robes seem touchable. A handsome, imaginative volume for Christmas bookshelves. (Picture book. 3-6)
A GUINEA PIG NUTCRACKER
Goodwin, Alex Illus. by Newall, Tess Photos by Beresford, Phillip Bloomsbury (56 pp.) $14.00 | Oct. 8, 2019 978-1-63557-450-0 Series: Guinea Pig Classics
The Nutcracker, but with guinea pigs. A petite trim size befits the content of this photo-illustrated book (the sixth Guinea Pig Classic), most likely to appeal to the niche market of guinea-pig owners. Text that retells the story of the famous ballet is accompanied by Beresford’s photographs of costumed guinea pigs on small stages set with dollhouse furniture and props (costumes and props courtesy of Newall). As the narrative describes Clara looking at her presents, a photo shows a guinea pig clad in a white dress and blue hair ribbon approaching a tiny, potted Christmas tree. Various incongruities between text and art arise, such as when “the big clock strikes twelve,” with Clara dwarfing a small, sparkly grandfather clock. Later, the Mouse King, described as a “terrifying figure,” looks anything but. It’s odd that the term “fandango” is the only nonEnglish word to receive a footnoted definition; perhaps child
kirkus.com
|
readers will have no difficulty negotiating “relevé”? The photos of the costumed guinea pigs aren’t edited to make them appear to dance, which results in rather redundant tableaux of the fluffy creatures, often staring vacantly, sometimes with mouths agape. The backmatter names each guinea pig (including two Dorises), credits the roles they played, and provides background information on the ballet as well as pet rescue centers. Clearly a labor of love—and just as clearly limited in appeal. (Picture book. 4- 7)
GOODNIGHT BUBBALA A Joyful Parody Haft, Sheryl Illus. by Weber, Jill Dial (32 pp.) $17.99 | Oct. 15, 2019 978-0-525-55477-6
A CHRISTMAS SWEATER FOR NINA
Heikkilä, Cecilia Illus. by the author Crocodile/Interlink (32 pp.) $17.95 | Sep. 1, 2019 978-1-62371-937-1
A warm tale for Christmastime. Nina the cat has a “house,” which the illustrations depict as a small, cardboard box in an alley. The opening lines tell readers that “the floor was icy and cold air came through the door,” but the accompanying image shows Nina wearing a redstriped sweater that covers her legs and body from neck to tail. Is this the eponymous Christmas sweater? Not exactly. As Nina |
kirkus.com
|
A MUSTACHE BABY CHRISTMAS
Heos, Bridget Illus. by Ang, Joy Clarion (40 pp.) $17.99 | Sep. 10, 2019 978-1-328-50653-5
y o u n g a d u lt
If Margaret Wise Brown were Jewish with a family that emigrated from Anatevka.... The subtitle aptly describes this latest lampoon of the classic bedtime story. In this outing, the bunny’s bedroom is invaded by a horde of relatives of all ages bearing food and gifts for Hanukkah. They speak in favorite Yiddish-laced phrases such as “A kiss on the keppelah!” and they cook up matzah ball soup and smear cream cheese on bagels. There’s some dancing and singing and “noshing on latkes.” In a possible children’sbook first, one of the couplets rhymes “bubbies” with “hubbies.” Oddly for a Hanukkah celebration, there is no recitation of the blessings on the lit menorah candles. A glossary of the Yiddish phrases is helpful. Most useful, actually, is a recipe from the popular cookbook author and TV cooking show host Ina Garten for potato pancakes. She uses butter, so no mixing these treats with the brisket. Adults may get a laugh or two from the text or, more likely, a faint glimmer of nostalgia. The bright colors do pay homage to the original book, although many of the spreads are overly busy with bunnies. One reading will more than suffice for this knockoff. (author’s note) (Picture book. 5-8)
ventures from her cardboard house, readers will note that a red strand of yarn is trailing from her sweater, unraveling it page after page. She doesn’t notice as she traipses by caroling mice and other creatures. By the time she does realize that “her belly [has] started to get cold,” the yarn is completely unraveled and is “being pulled away and beginning a journey of its own.” Nina follows in hot pursuit through illustrations that show various perspectives of the city and slapstick scenes of the cat crashing into other animals as she tries to catch the yarn snaking away from her. Then the yarn leads to a bookstore, in which she finds Ms. Badger, humming and knitting in a wingback chair. The ending is as abrupt as Nina’s realization that she’s lost her sweater: Nina arrives, Ms. Badger offers her tea, and then with the page turn, the bookstore is named as Nina’s new home. A cozy cat tale, if too-quickly resolved. (Picture book. 3-6)
Silly Mustache Baby (and Santa Baby) holiday fun. In this fourth book about Mustache Baby (aka Baby Billy), his pal Baby Javier transforms into Santa Baby when his facial hair (he was born with a full beard) turns white. This makes him “Santa’s #1 helper, Santa Baby!” Wanting to get in on the action, Baby Billy offers to help by making toys. Unfortunately, he likes his creations so much that he ends up hoarding them and earning a spot on the naughty list. His mustache transforms into a handlebar-style, or “BAD GUY MUSTACHE”—a somewhat fuller version of the one Snidely Whiplash sports in Rocky and Bullwinkle cartoons. Santa Baby is so angry at his friend’s greed that his beard turns into a “MAD GUY BEARD,” and he “saddle[s] up the reindeer” (depicted as dachshunds) to pursue Baby Billy and recover the treats he’s stolen. A misaimed snowball hits one of the “reindeer,” which prompts the pair of babies to reconcile and care for the pup. Santa Grownup sees their compassionate deeds and rewards them with a trip in his sleigh “to help deliver presents all over the world”—but only after twice checking his list to find that “Billy had made it onto the nice list by a hair!” of course. Throughout, readers are gifted with other examples of wordplay and with comical details in the digital art. Illustrations depict Baby Billy and Santa Grownup as white; Baby Javier is presumably Latinx. Ho-ho-ho’s from the goo-goo-gah-ers. (Picture book. 3- 7)
winter-holiday picture books
|
1 september 2019
|
141
DEAR SANTA For Everyone Who Believes in the Magic of Christmas
Hill, Susanna Leonard Illus. by Joseph, John Sourcebooks Wonderland (40 pp.) $17.99 | Oct. 1, 2019 978-1-4926-9474-8
A self-reflective child reaps rewards on Christmas morning. Parker (who presents as a black boy with brown skin and Afro-textured hair in digital illustrations that have an aesthetic right out of current television animation) is nervous when his weekend art teacher, Ms. Holly, assigns the class to write a letter to Santa. Classmates (at least three of whom seem to be children of color while the teacher appears white) write letters extolling their own virtues and denying wrongdoing. In his letter, however, Parker decides to be honest about times he’s been naughtier than nice. His acknowledged misdeeds are utterly benign or grounded in good intentions, and the accompanying illustrations show him interacting with his parents as he recalls behavior infractions throughout the epistolary section. Parker’s mother appears black with the same skin tone as his while his father appears white, and this centering of a biracial child of color in an interracial family is notable among the many Christmas books with white protagonists. Ms. Holly mails the letters, and Santa (depicted as white, though elves are depicted with a range of skin tones) is moved by Parker’s words. He rewards him with all the gifts on his list, a step that may ring false to lessfortunate kids, including those who use the backmatter letterwriting template to write to Saint Nick themselves. Inclusive in some ways but not others. (Picture book. 4-8)
SANTA’S STORY
Hillenbrand, Will Illus. by the author Two Lions (32 pp.) $17.99 | Sep. 10, 2019 978-1-5420-4338-0 Santa knows just the trick to bring his team of reindeer together for their Christmas Eve flight. It’s Christmas Eve, and Santa (who appears to be white with light skin and white hair and is accompanied by a small dog, unnamed by the text) can’t find his reindeer. As he searches in vain, readers are treated to five spreads showing Dasher, Dancer, Prancer, Vixen, Comet, Cupid, Donner, and Blitzen cavorting about the snowy, nighttime, North Pole setting. Hillenbrand’s digital illustrations have a pleasingly soft visual aesthetic, and his text offers playful riffs on the coursers’ names: “Dasher dashed,” “Dancer danced,” and “Prancer pranced,” of course, but then Willenbrand reports that “Vixen vexed,” “Comet commented,” “Cupid crooned,” “Donner dozed,” and “Blitzen boasted.” The alliterative, assonant wordplay supports the story’s resolution, which is that the only way to get the reindeer to return to the 142
|
1 september 2019
|
children ’s
|
sleigh is for Santa to call out “STORY TIME!” Then, all eight gather round “to hear their favorite story.” It is (what else?) the famous poem “A Visit From Saint Nicholas.” After thanking Santa for this gift of a story, the reindeer are hitched to the sleigh and then they take off to deliver “a merry Christmas to ALL…and to ALL a good night.” A merrily-ever-after read. (Picture book. 2-5)
SELFIE THE ELFIE
Holland, Savage Steve Illus. by Tripke, Andrea Ripple Grove (40 pp.) $18.99 | Oct. 1, 2019 978-0-9990249-7-3
A selfie-obsessed elf saves Christmas. Sophie the elf (who appears white with light skin, blonde hair, and blue eyes; some other elves have brown skin, though most look like her though with significantly less-voluminous hair) just loves taking pictures on her “camera phone.” In fact, she loves taking pictures so much that she starts to annoy others with her frequent selfies, and she neglects her assigned job of “tying bows on every present that was stuffed into Santa’s sleigh.” Santa isn’t pleased to notice “piles of presents without any bows,” but fortunately Sophie quickly catches up on her duties. Unfortunately, Santa can’t find his suit when it’s time for him to get into his sleigh; it was mislaid when Sophie’s bow-tying negligence distracted him. All’s well that ends well when Sophie sees a photo of the suit on her phone and directs Santa to its location under a Christmas tree. Why no one could see it in the actual room is unclear, and this is just one piece of the storytelling that’s rather lackluster. Illustrations, too, leave something to be desired, with a cartoon aesthetic that seems at once stiff and oddly disproportionate and a palette that inexplicably colors the reindeer blue. Ho, ho hum. (Picture book. 4- 7)
A CHRISTMAS PAGEANT FOR JESUS Celebrating God’s Grace
Jones, Susan Illus. by Holland, Lee Good Books (32 pp.) $10.99 | Oct. 1, 2019 978-1-68099-540-4
The (Nativity) show must go on in this sweet reflection on Christian faith. A cast of anthropomorphic animals populates this story about a Christmas pageant. Little Chipmunk is excited to participate in the pageant for the first time and goes with his mother to join his faith community of forest friends. But when he arrives, he realizes that he’s “forgotten baby Jesus at home!” Neither the text nor the colorful, soft-edged illustrations explain whether this line refers to a doll of some sort, but that seems to
kirkus.com
|
The images’ clean lines, bright color palette, and high contrast add pop and vibrancy. the best gift ever given
be the logical conclusion. Alarmed and ashamed, Little Chipmunk runs away and hides. Mama finds him and reassures him that “Jesus is always with us. He knows we’re not perfect.” Comforted, Little Chipmunk walks back to the pageant with Mama, and on the way he “spots an unusual stone.” The heart-shaped stone ends up serving as a replacement for the baby Jesus left behind at the Chipmunk home, which is a story development that sadly undermines the core message, reiterated by Little Chipmunk, that “we always have Jesus with us.” Readers who can imagine themselves in Little Chipmunk’s position and who have been reassuring themselves with the knowledge of Jesus’ abiding presence will be forgiven for their confusion. An accessible, if uneven, Nativity story about a little one learning about Christian faith. (Picture book. 2-5)
HO HO HOMEWORK
Is Jack’s substitute teacher really Kris Kringle incognito? Young Jack, who appears to be a child of color with light brown skin and straight, black hair, is wishing for snow. Kids in his class think that all of their wishes will come true when they notice that their substitute teacher, Mr. Clausen, has a lot in common with Santa Claus. He appears white with light skin and curly white hair, including a full beard. Beyond his physical appearance, he also: has a fondness for milk and cookies; wears a red shirt, green pants, and black boots; has a big laugh that “sounded a lot like a ‘ho, ho, ho’ ”; knits stockings; makes lists; and uses a sled as a prop in science class. The titular “ho ho homework” is an assignment for the kids to make paper snowflakes and write their wishes on them. Jack is at first reluctant to do this because he is dubious about whether or not Mr. Clausen is, in fact, Santa Claus, but he ultimately does so, and he and “the whole neighborhood” wake to a white Christmas. The colorful, digitally enhanced watercolor art has an aesthetic that Tomie dePaola fans will recognize and enjoy. It depicts an apparently racially diverse classroom, but the children all seem to be united in a belief in Santa Claus, which feels unlikely. This school story for Christmas has a narrower audience than it depicts. (Picture book. 4- 7)
|
kirkus.com
|
Laurie, Christina Illus. by Moisan, Elizabeth Schiffer (32 pp.) $16.99 | Oct. 28, 2019 978-0-7643-5826-5
A visit from St. Nicholas, under the sea. The text’s conceit is immediately apparent in the title, which recasts the narrator, his wife, their children, and St. Nick as lobsters. The last is dubbed Sea Santa, and he rides underwater in a scallop-shell sleigh pulled by minnows. While this version’s faltering rhyme and cadence may feel especially jarring due to the direct inspiration from the well-known 1823 poem, the text cleverly plays with sea-life facts and terms in lines such as “Skate cases were hung on the reef with care / In hopes that Sea Santa soon would be there.” The appropriately watery illustrations, meanwhile, rightfully eschew the traditional berry reds and piney greens of traditional Christmas books in favor of a cooler palette for the undersea setting. Missed opportunities to fully engage with the text undermine the artistic achievement, however, particularly with regard to Sea Santa’s visual characterization. For example, instead of imaginatively and directly depicting Sea Santa with the lines beginning, “His black eyes they bobbled, his hard shell blue-green, / His fantail flipflopped with a glimmering sheen,” the accompanying spread is dominated by water and seaweed and adopts a distant perspective that obscures the Santa-inspired figure in the lower corners of the spread. Backmatter provides facts about lobsters but fails to elevate the book as a whole. Not the best catch for Christmas. (Picture book. 4-6)
y o u n g a d u lt
Larsen, Mylisa Illus. by Morley, Taia Harper/HarperCollins (32 pp.) $17.99 | Sep. 17, 2019 978-0-06-279688-2
THE LOBSTERS’ NIGHT BEFORE CHRISTMAS
THE BEST GIFT EVER GIVEN A 25-Day Journey Through Advent From God’s Good Gifts to God’s Great Son Martin, Ronnie Illus. by Schroeder, Nathan Harvest House (56 pp.) $19.99 | Oct. 1, 2019 978-0-7369-7854-5
Martin makes his children’s debut, having previously authored The Bride(zilla) of Christ (2016) and other theological titles for grown-ups. This 25-day Advent devotional begins at the beginning, highlighting God’s gifts as demonstrated in stories from the Old Testament before moving on to the New Testament. From creation itself to mercy, hope, and courage, each of these is a great gift—but not the greatest. Along the way Martin highlights different aspects of God’s character and uses the gifts to illuminate facets of the stories. Each devotional concludes with the refrain, “His best gift is even better. What could it be?” This is followed by questions to encourage discussion and a
winter-holiday picture books
|
1 september 2019
|
143
short prayer. In the final few days before Christmas, the devotional turns from less-tangible gifts, instead featuring various personalities in the Nativity story culminating in the greatest gift, the Christ child. Each spread includes enigmatic symbolic illustrations of the story it accompanies. While the symbolism will likely be over the heads of most young readers, the images’ clean lines, bright color palette, and high contrast add pop and vibrancy to the tales. A lovely addition to the Advent season, best enjoyed snuggled up with loved ones. (Religion. 6-10)
ANGELA’S CHRISTMAS
McCourt, Frank Illus. by Colón, Raúl Paula Wiseman/Simon & Schuster (32 pp.) $17.99 | Sep. 17, 2019 978-1-5344-6122-2 A reissue of McCourt’s Irish Nativity story. Like his Pulitzer Prize–winning title, Angela’s Ashes (1996), McCourt’s picture book (first published in 2007 as Angela and the Baby Jesus) draws on his mother’s life. Recently adapted as a Netflix animated film, the story is now rereleased with a new title. In both versions, Colón’s delicate, sure watercolor, colored pencil, and lithograph pencil illustrations lend light and warmth to the story of a little girl’s worry that the baby Jesus in her church’s Nativity is cold. Filled with good intentions, she absconds with the figurine and hides it in her warm bed. Rich dialogue that captures the characters’ Shannonsider brogue enlivens McCourt’s storytelling while subtle characterization evokes tender familial dynamics. Angela’s elder brother, Pat, characterized as mentally disabled, sees her with the baby Jesus and tells their mother, who initially says he has “a great imagination.” Angela is upset when he persists and gives away her secret. Alarmed, but sure of her daughter’s benevolence, Mammy marches the family to the church to return the baby Jesus, where they encounter the priest and a policeman searching for the thief. The resolution hinges on Pat’s benevolence when he misunderstands the policeman’s gentle ribbing that his sister will go to jail and offers himself in her stead. Warm indeed. (Picture book. 4-8)
144
|
1 september 2019
|
children ’s
|
PEANUT BUTTER & SANTA CLAUS A Zombie Culinary Tale
McGee, Joe Illus. by Santoso, Charles Abrams (32 pp.) $16.99 | Oct. 15, 2019 978-1-4197-3634-6
The third picture-book collaboration by McGee and Santoso (Peanut Butter & Aliens, 2017, etc.) takes a stab at holiday festivities. Reginald the zombie, Zarfon the alien, and Abigail Zink, “the smartest girl in Quirkville,” are “eager and excited for Santa’s visit.” But then a terrible storm prompts the mayor to announce that “CHRISTMAS IS CANCELED.” The trio of friends is determined to “help Santa out of that storm.” They head out in Zarfon’s spaceship, loaded with (what else?) peanut butter. When they see the North Pole they quickly discover that the storm isn’t blowing snow all around but rather marshmallow. Santa explains that “the marshmallow cream factory has gone bonkers!” and Zarfon has the bright idea to stuff the factory’s chimneys with peanut butter. This stops the storm for a bit, but then there’s a marshmallow-and–peanut-butter explosion. The combination is nothing short of delicious, so they make sandwiches and then Santa hitches his reindeer to the spaceship (because its engines were clogged), and they sail off to deliver the goodies for Christmas. While fans of prior books may enjoy this one’s familiarity, the story is…a bit of a mess, and the art mostly replicates the action of the text without doing much to help things stick together. Hold the peanut butter and stick to milk and cookies for Santa. (Picture book. 4-6)
FRANCESCO TIRELLI’S ICE CREAM SHOP
Meir, Tamar Illus. by Albert, Yael Kar-Ben (32 pp.) $17.99 | Aug. 1, 2019 978-1-5415-3465-0
A gelato shop in Hungary becomes a hideout for Jews during World War II. Francesco, a young Italian boy, falls in love with ice cream in every flavor. When he moves to Hungary, to the city of Budapest, there is none to be found as tasty as what he loved as a child, so he opens Francesco’s Gelato. No Hungarian culinary specialties are on this menu. One day he encounters a young boy named Peter who shares his passion. After some years pass, the German war against Jews comes to Hungary, and Peter and his family are in danger. Francesco, who has closed his shop, now uses it to hide them and some other Jews. And in the midst of the darkness, Peter finds a special way to celebrate Hanukkah, the festival of lights. The author’s note informs readers that, years later, Peter (known as Yitzchak in Israel) petitioned Yad
kirkus.com
|
Vashem, Israel’s Holocaust museum, to honor Francesco as one of the Righteous Among the Nations. It is Peter’s daughter-inlaw who has written this simple but moving tale of quiet heroism. The delicately rendered illustrations vary from the sunny vistas of Italy to the darkness of the hideout. Faces are expressive, and the scene with hidden families around the hanukkiah (originally molds for chocolate) is especially moving. An accessible and memorable account for young readers of one man’s humanity during the Holocaust. (Picture book. 7-10)
NUTCRACKER NIGHT
Messier, Mireille Illus. by Grimard, Gabrielle Pajama Press (40 pp.) $19.95 | Nov. 1, 2019 978-1-77278-091-8
|
kirkus.com
|
Moore, Clement C. Illus. by Melmon, Deborah Highlights Press (32 pp.) $12.99 | Oct. 8, 2019 978-1-68437-649-0 Series: Highlights Hidden Pictures Storybook
A classic Christmas text gets the Highlights Hidden Pictures Storybook treatment. Illustrator Melmon depicts three children with dark, straight hair and light-brown skin at the heart of this rendition of the familiar holiday text, which tweaks the narrative to read “We children were nestled all snug in our beds,” thus casting them as narrators. (It also changes “breast of the new-fallen snow” to “crest” but leaves “threw up the sash” unchanged.) They spring out of bed; they spy Santa (who appears white with light skin and white hair and beard) and his reindeer (herein never called “coursers”); and they and their dog (identified as Fluffy on a stocking “hung by the chimney with care”) come downstairs to greet St. Nicholas. The printed text on each spread is surrounded by small spot illustrations of individual items that readers can search for in the main, detailed pictures. A helpful key in backmatter pages reveals the precise locations. Blurring the line between game and story, this is a title readers will revisit annually—sort of like St. Nick revisiting those who celebrate Christmas. One to place under the tree in households that don’t hold the original text too dear. (Picture book. 3-8)
y o u n g a d u lt
A sprightly introduction to the classic Christmas ballet. The backmatter notes that “[The Nutcracker] is often the first ballet children attend,” and Messier and Grimard’s collaboration does an exceptional job of distilling the ballet’s story into spare, accessible text and engaging art that could prepare children for attending the ballet, let them relive the experience, or simply give them the delight of the story in book form. The child pictured dancing on the front cover isn’t one of the ballerinas in the performance but a girl attending the ballet with her father. They both appear Asian in the illustrations, and many other audience members also appear to be people of color. Unfortunately, in an otherwise outstanding package, a preponderance of the depicted dancers appears to be white, which seems like a missed opportunity for inclusive representation. The spare text makes no mention of race, instead delivering the story through a series of combinations of expertly chosen onomatopoeia and dialogue guiding readers from the anticipation of the ballet through its first act, intermission, the second act, the curtain call, and the child narrator’s closing, appreciative “Smooch!” of thanks to her dad. Sure to elicit the storytime equivalent of “encore” at Christmastime and beyond. (Picture book. 2-8)
’TWAS THE NIGHT BEFORE CHRISTMAS
ONE WILD CHRISTMAS
Oldland, Nicholas Illus. by the author Kids Can (32 pp.) $16.99 | Sep. 3, 2019 978-1-5253-0203-9 Series: Life in the Wild
A bear, a moose, and a beaver walk into the woods. This holiday title features an anthropomorphic trio of quintessentially Canadian animals, humorously rendered in digital art with a flat, cartoon aesthetic. But although the bear, moose, and beaver are associated with the same place, and although they all celebrate Christmas in this story, conflict arises because one friend is decidedly not like the others: The bear is a literal and figurative tree-hugger, and when the moose and beaver attempt to chop down the perfect Christmas tree, he stops them. (Why he didn’t realize this was their plan when they went into the forest is an unresolved question). “The moose and the beaver were no match for the bear’s strength,” reads the straightforward text, which is accompanied by a picture of the bear hurling both animals over the tree handily. He then ties them to the trunk in an act that could be read as humorous but that also might make readers wonder why he values the tree over his friends.
winter-holiday picture books
|
1 september 2019
|
145
Ultimately, the bear does try to salvage their planned Christmas celebration by bringing decorations, food, and gifts from their house into the woods. He unties his friends, and they celebrate Christmas around the perfect tree, still standing in the woods. A beary green Christmas book. (Picture book. 3-6)
THE NIGHT OF HIS BIRTH
Paterson, Katherine Illus. by Aisato, Lisa Flyaway Books (32 pp.) $18.00 | Sep. 17, 2019 978-1-947888-12-8 A lyrical, moving account of Jesus’ birth, from his mother’s perspective. In text adapted from a story that first appeared in The Pres byterian Survey (1985), Paterson channels the voice of the Virgin Mary, who marvels at the birth of her son after the shepherds have departed and while Joseph sleeps: “Can you believe it? God’s anointed one upon my breast, with milk, just there, at the corner of his tiny mouth.” These down-to-earth, oh-sohuman words are accompanied by a picture of the Madonna and Child, her face turned away as she sits, barefoot, cradling him, while he faces readers. Both have dark hair and olive complexions, as do others depicted in the stunning, full-color illustrations. Prominent, aquiline noses define many profiles, and the characters’ brown eyes radiate wonder and reverence throughout the book. Nowhere is this more apparent than in a spread with an extreme close-up of Mary’s eyes gazing at readers from a full-bleed double-page spread with text that wonders about what the future holds for her baby and herself. Earlier, her parents gazed outward, too, as Mary recalled their worry about her pregnancy before also addressing Joseph’s concerns. But “tonight, I saw the gentle way he washed the son God gave into his care,” Mary later reflects in another moment emphasizing the humanity of this holy night. Divine. (Picture book. 6-10)
BETWEEN US AND ABUELA A Family Story From the Border
Perkins, Mitali Illus. by Palacios, Sara Farrar, Straus and Giroux (40 pp.) $17.99 | Sep. 10, 2019 978-0-374-30373-0
A Christmas fairy tale set at the border wall. María and Juan get on a border-bound bus with their mother. They haven’t seen Abuela in five years. Both children have made gifts: a knitted scarf from María and a drawing of Mary and Joseph on cardboard from Juan. Arriving at the annual Posada Sin Fronteras event (the Inn Without Borders), the children must wait their turn in order to have 30 minutes with Abuela. 146
|
1 september 2019
|
children ’s
|
Touching pinkies through a metal grid, they exchange love and family news. When it’s time to say their goodbyes, María starts feeding the scarf through the small holes in the fence. A border patrol officer intercepts and takes the scarf. “We can’t let anything through the fence.” Orchestrating the requisite Christmas “miracle” to convey howling Juan’s gift to his grandmother occupies about half the book and veers into fantasy. The sister transforms her brother’s artwork into a kite with the knitting needles MacGyver-ed into spine and cross spar. With the unlikely encouragement of the officers, María successfully flies the kite over both the primary and secondary border fences/ walls—which is against the law. To the triumphant shouts of the crowd on both sides of the border, Abuela gets her happy ending. Perkins’ fictionalized account of the actual annual gatherings at San Diego’s Friendship Park paired with Palacios’ chirpy illustrations inadvertently belie the heartbreak and human suffering played out every year. What’s “between us and Abuela”? The same thing that’s between the U.S. and Mexico—an 18-to-30-foot–high double fence. (Picture book. 5-8)
IF I COULD GIVE YOU CHRISTMAS
Plourde, Lynn Illus. by Meyer, Jennifer L. Disney-Hyperion (32 pp.) $17.99 | Sep. 3, 2019 978-1-368-00267-7
A reflection on the intangible gifts of the Christmas season. In a series of spreads depicting anthropomorphic animal parents and their young, simple lines of text starting with the titular line “If I could give you Christmas” lead into statements evoking small pleasures associated with wintertime or the Yuletide season. “If I could give you Christmas, it would taste like the first falling snowflake,” reads the first spread, for example, and a full-bleed digital illustration shows a lynx holding its kitten up in the air to catch a snowflake on its protruding tongue. Later spreads show various animals receiving “the freshest, pointiest, piney-est tree” or “sharing the brightest twinkling star.” Missed opportunities to link these tableaux visually undermine any sense of cohesion, resulting in a book that could have its pages rearranged with no discernable impact on its contents. The concluding lines shift the address to read, “If YOU could give ME Christmas, there’s something you should know…My favorite gift at Christmas… / …doesn’t have a bow,” and there’s a closing image of a bunny and its child hugging. It’s a treacly ending to a sugary sweet book with little substance to distinguish it from scores of other titles on the Christmas book shelf. Not a top pick for the giving. (Picture book. 2-5)
kirkus.com
|
Roberts’ articulation of a tension felt in many a household makes this book stand out. santa’s prayer
NOAH AND THE EIGHT TRUCKS OF HANUKKAH
children are white. While Roberts’ poetry leaves rather a lot to be desired, his articulation of a tension felt in many a household makes this book stand out, effectively bridging the gap between wholly secular and wholly religious offerings. Inartful but sincere. (Picture book. 4-8)
Rips, Nancy Illus. by Saumell , Marina Pelican (32 pp.) $16.99 | Oct. 15, 2019 978-1-4556-2203-0
SANTA’S PRAYER
Roberts, Tom Illus. by Moss, Doug Sterling (40 pp.) $16.95 | Oct. 8, 2019 978-1-4549-3673-2
Santa puts the Christ back in Christmas. “It was on Christmas Eve / In a small Midwestern town” when two kids walking through the snow and imagining all the gifts they’ll receive see “the ol’ man himself / Mr. Kris Kringle / That great jolly old elf ” slipping into a church. Sneaking in after him, they watch as he walks straight up to the manger scene at the altar and begins to pray. He asks Jesus for “the knowledge that I need / To help all of these children / To not give in to greed / To recognize that Christmas / Is not all about me.” Indeed, Santa goes on to actually voice the bromide that Jesus is “the true reason / for the season” and that he, “ol’ Santa,” is simply Jesus’ “servant.” The children exchange a meaningful look as Santa concludes, leaving the church “with a glow on his face.” They then approach the manger to pray: “Dear Jesus—thank you!” Moss illustrates Roberts’ poem with inky, crosshatched lines and spare applications of color. Santa’s red suit provides a vivid focus for the otherwise muted pages. He and the two |
kirkus.com
|
SAMMY CLAWS The Christmas Cat
Rowland, Lucy Illus. by Bowles, Paula Harper/HarperCollins (32 pp.) $10.99 | Sep. 17, 2019 978-0-06-295911-9
A cat nap saves Christmas. Sammy Claws is Santa’s pet, and “he liked nothing better than having a snooze / in a box…or a cupboard…or snuggled in shoes.” While sleeping, he dreams of accompanying Santa on his Christmas Eve voyage. This dream comes true when Sammy Claws falls asleep in a box that gets wrapped up and put on the sleigh, making him an inadvertent stowaway, with the cartoon-style art showing his tail and scarf poking out of the box. Although he’s alarmed to awaken and find himself trapped in a box while flying through the air as Santa travels from place to place, it turns out he’s in just the right place at the right time to thwart a scheming pair of robbers who also sneak onto Santa’s sleigh and decide to make their move when Santa gets out “at a big castle (somewhere south of France).” The locale seems specified for no reason other than to lend support to a rhyme; and then in another contrivance, at this convenient point in the story Sammy Claws is suddenly able to free himself and spring from the wrapped box to attack the burglars, foiling their plans and ushering in police who haul the robbers away. Relieved, Santa, who presents white, invites Sammy to accompany him on his journey, delivering a happy ending to a story that doesn’t really feel as though it’s earned it. A story with wrappings that are just too loose. (Picture book. 3-6)
y o u n g a d u lt
A boy combines his great love of trucks with the Jewish Festival of Lights. Noah and his family live in a spacious suburban home along with their “big fluffy dog.” Noah has many toy trucks, and he loves playing with them. As his mother prepares for Hanukkah by taking out the menorah, the frying pan for the latkes, and the dreidels for a spinning game, Noah is clearly not happy: There are no trucks to be seen! Happily, his father does come up with a connection that makes Noah happy: The Maccabees were strong and so are trucks. So each night, as first one and finally eight candles are lit, Noah receives a present—a truck. There’s a garbage truck from his grandparents, a cement truck from his uncle, and finally, an ice cream truck from his “favorite babysitter.” Noah is now able to celebrate a double holiday, a “Festival of Trucks and a Festival of Lights!” In an author’s note, Rips explains that she has based her story on her young grandson. It’s a story that moves forward one night at a time with no great excitement or finale. Saumell’s illustrations are mostly in a dark palette, surprisingly so for a holiday that celebrates illumination. Children who love playing with trucks and children who love lighting the menorah will likely be left in the dark. (Picture book. 3-8)
THE BEAR AND THE STAR
Schaefer, Lola M. Illus. by Andersen, Bethanne Greenwillow (40 pp.) $17.99 | Sep. 24, 2019 978-0-06-266037-4
A lyrical testament to peace. Nothing definitively marks this as a Christmas book, but readers may be cued to understand it as such due to the opening reference “to a star— / a new star, / barely visible, / yet larger than any before” that Bear spies “early one December morning.” This star signals that “it was time,” though for what remains a mystery until the book’s end. First Bear searches for “a tree— / a tree that would be strong, / a tree that would be tall, / a tree that would be the center / of all to come.” An ideal evergreen appears,
winter-holiday picture books
|
1 september 2019
|
147
Stephens’ pictures amplify the warm, gentle humor of the text. how to hide a lion at christmas
again evoking Christmas, but with subtlety. The text and the oil paintings, which have a soft visual texture, then combine to depict a peaceable kingdom of animals from different habitats gathering around the tree before diverse people assemble, too. Ultimately, they come “to the tree / … / under a star / … / because it was time…” and then a final page turn delivers the concluding words, “for peace.” The accompanying illustration shows a woman with light-brown skin and black, straight hair holding a swaddled baby as she gazes up at the star. The scene evokes Madonna-and-child imagery, but it resists such an easy parallel with the inclusion of other figures: Behind the pair stands a child with similar coloring, before them a fawn, and cardinals fly through the snowy, starlit sky. Serene yet enigmatic. (Picture book. 4- 7)
SANTA AND THE GOODNIGHT TRAIN
Sobel, June Illus. by Huliska-Beith, Laura HMH Books (32 pp.) $17.99 | Sep. 10, 2019 978-1-328-61840-5 Series: The Goodnight Train Not quite the Polar Express…. Sobel’s rhyming text fails to deliver a clear premise for the eponymous goodnight train’s Christmas Eve progress through the pages, and Huliska-Beith’s acrylic paintings embellished with fabric and paper collage don’t clarify the storytelling. At the start of the picture book, a bevy of anthropomorphic animals decorates a rather rickety-looking engine, and then human children gather around and pile into train cars that look like beds and cribs. The train follows a track, seemingly in pursuit of Santa’s sleigh, but to what end isn’t clear. They travel “through a town of gingerbread” and through the woods to find the sleigh blocking the tracks and the reindeer snoozing while, mystifyingly, Santa counts some sheep. Perching the sleigh on the train’s cowcatcher, they all proceed to the North Pole, where the “elves all cheer. / Santa’s here until next year!” But then the goodnight train just…leaves, “heading home on Christmas Eve.” Was this a dream? It definitely wasn’t a story with a satisfying beginning, middle, and end. Santa’s face is never seen; the human children and elves are diverse. A Christmas train book that gets derailed by a lacking story arc. (Picture book. 2-4)
148
|
1 september 2019
|
children ’s
|
THE MOST WONDERFUL GIFT IN THE WORLD
Sperring, Mark Illus. by Fleming, Lucy Tiger Tales (32 pp.) $17.99 | Oct. 1, 2019 978-1-68010-173-7
Good things may come in small packages, but the best things aren’t things at all. Esme is celebrating Christmas with Bear, a grayish-brown, anthropomorphic bear who appears to live with her. They find a last present under the tree with a gift tag reading “For Little Bunny Boo-Boo, Love, Santa.” While Bear wants to open the gift, Esme proposes they bring it to the intended recipient, though they don’t know who or where Little Bunny Boo-Boo is. Luckily, someone has placed helpful, very specific signs pointing the way through the snowy landscape. While others might’ve been deterred by signs describing the “TREACHEROUS PATH,” “HOWLING GALE,” and “DEEP, DEEP snow drifts” the pair must traverse to reach Little Bunny Boo-Boo, Esme and Bear persevere and carry the gift with them. When they arrive at the bespectacled brown rabbit’s cozy house, she welcomes the pair and eagerly opens the present, only to find it empty. But wait! A tiny note from Santa reveals that Little Bunny Boo-Boo, who’s only recently moved into her cabin, has actually received “exactly what [she] asked for”: new friends! Esme is depicted as a light-skinned human girl with black, straight hair and dark eyes in Fleming’s appealing, colorful illustrations, which place her characters in a snowy temperate forest. Beary merry and bright. (Picture book. 3- 7)
HOW TO HIDE A LION AT CHRISTMAS
Stephens, Helen Illus. by the author Godwin Books/Henry Holt (40 pp.) $17.99 | Sep. 10, 2019 978-1-250-23079-9 Series: How To Hide a Lion There’s no hiding Iris’ love for her pet lion. There’s little backstory to explain to readers unfamiliar with How To Hide a Lion (2013) how the lion came to live with Iris and her family. But even though “all the townspeople loved him,” Iris’ mother says the big cat can’t accompany them to Auntie Sarah’s house for Christmas because others on the train and in the town they’re visiting would be frightened. Iris is saddened, and her sadness spurs the lion into action: After she and her family leave home, he follows and hides in the overhead luggage rack on the train. No one notices him, in part because he falls asleep on the journey and therefore is quiet. Unfortunately, he sleeps through the moment when Iris’ family gets off the train. When he awakens, he’s far from Auntie Sarah’s house. But the intrepid feline follows the railroad tracks back to a village, where, after humorous encounters with carolers and Santa himself, he is finally reunited
kirkus.com
|
with Iris. Stephens’ pictures have a cartoon quality to them, and they amplify the warm, gentle humor of the text as they alternate between vignettes and full bleeds, culminating in a relaxed family scene by the Christmas tree at Auntie Sarah’s. Iris, her family, and Santa all present white. Move over, reindeer, a new cat’s coming to Christmas. (Picture book. 3- 7)
DASHER How a Brave Little Doe Changed Christmas Forever
Tavares, Matt Illus. by the author Candlewick (40 pp.) $17.99 | Sep. 10, 2019 978-1-5362-0137-6
IT’S CHRISTMAS!
Wielockx, Ruth Illus. by the author Clavis (32 pp.) $17.95 | $9.95 paper | Sep. 3, 2019 978-1-60537-491-8 978-1-60537-501-4 paper Series: Luke and Lottie
THE TREE THAT’S MEANT TO BE
Zommer, Yuval Illus. by the author Doubleday (32 pp.) $17.99 | Sep. 24, 2019 978-0-593-11967-9
y o u n g a d u lt
An origin story for Santa’s “eight tiny reindeer.” Nearly two centuries after “A Visit From St. Nicholas” originated Santa Claus’ “coursers” and “called them by name,” Tavares offers readers their backstory, centered on “a brave young doe named Dasher.” First, the frontmatter notes “a time…when Santa’s sleigh was pulled…by a single horse, named Silverbell.” Ensuing pages depict not a wintry scene of Santa and Silverbell but a parched landscape with a crowd of people peering at penned reindeer as part of the cruel J.P. Finnegan’s Traveling Circus and Menagerie. Illustrated details in clothing and material culture suggest a 19th-century American setting, but the focus is on the animals’ cramped misery. Though kind children provide solace through carrots and smiles, Dasher’s main comfort comes from her mother’s stories of a northern homeland with “crisp, cold air and cool blankets of white snow.” One windy night, the pen’s gate blows open and Dasher escapes. While following the North Star, she encounters Santa (depicted as a white-bearded white man) and a weary Silverbell and offers to help pull the sleigh. Tavares’ art is at its best in such magical scenes, which fairly beg to be made into Christmas cards, but the storytelling falters due to the ease with which the other reindeer escape when Santa grants Dasher her “best wish yet” and rescues her family. Gorgeous illustrations make this one sure to fly off shelves “like the down of a thistle.” (Picture book. 3-8)
characters appear white in the cartoon, digital illustrations, with light skin and straight, brown hair, though the grandparents’ hair is gray. The straightforward text depicts the children buying, setting up, and decorating their Christmas tree with their parents. They even make cookies to hang on its branches. Then they get dressed up for a festive dinner with their grandparents. The family exchanges gifts that night, a tradition many readers will recognize, though it’s not one often represented in American picture books. Finally, after singing carols together, a sibling gift exchange at book’s end sweetly has the brother and sister give each other their respective favorite toys. The closing exclamation, “Merry Christmas,” not to mention the book’s very title, belies the fact that the whole story takes place on Christmas Eve, not Christmas Day, which is a shame since that’s what makes this otherwise understated book stand out. A merry little Christmas Eve story. (Picture book. 3- 7)
O (little) Christmas tree! Though it’s not as scraggly as the tree Charlie Brown selects in the television special, the little fir tree who narrates this story isn’t like the others in the forest. A scene in springtime reads, “While other trees grew poised and tall, / I lagged behind. / Looking different. / Feeling small.” When humans come to cut down trees to decorate for Christmas, the little fir tree isn’t chosen. It stands, lonesome, surrounded by the stumps of the other fir trees, with bare-branched deciduous trees in the background. In a happy turn, woodland animals hear the tree’s cries and bring “berries, feathers, / nuts, and flowers” to decorate it right where it stands. It’s a joyful, peaceable kingdom of a scene, enlivened with a bit of whimsy when the tree says that “a shooting star dropped down // [and] sank into my branches and shone so pure, / so bright, that I became a tree of light.” Here and throughout, Zommer’s gentle, warm illustrations outshine the text, which falters in its cadence and rhyme. Closing spreads show the tree growing taller, if still a bit crooked and spindly, with birds and forest animals around it. The final spread depicts a child of color and a white child reading books at its base, affirming the act of reading that brought real children to this closing page. Beautiful to behold but uneven to read. (Picture book. 4- 7)
’Tis the night before Christmas for twins Luke and Lottie. In this Dutch/Flemish import, a pair of twins celebrate Christmas Eve with their parents and grandparents. All |
kirkus.com
|
winter-holiday picture books
|
1 september 2019
|
149
young adult DEADLY LITTLE SCANDALS
These titles earned the Kirkus Star:
Barnes, Jennifer Lynn Freeform/Disney (352 pp.) $17.99 | Nov. 5, 2019 978-1-368-01517-2 Series: Debutantes, 2
PLAYLIST by James Rhodes; illus. by Martin O’Neill.......................161 FUGLY by Claire Waller...................................................................... 163
Newly minted Southern deb Sawyer Taft is invited to compete for a spot in a secret society called the White Gloves in the sequel to Little White Lies (2018). It’s been a few months since former auto mechanic Sawyer signed an agreement with her grandmother Lillian to participate in debutante season in exchange for a college education and the truth about her real father. Sawyer now knows her father’s identity, but revealing the truth could be explosive. She treasures her friendship with her cousin Lily and would like to spend some quality time over the summer with charming bad boy outsider Nick. However, an exclusive White Gloves invite provides a chance to investigate the fate of her mother’s friend Ana Gutierrez since Victoria, who’s running the show, shares Ana’s last name. Ana, along with Sawyer’s mother, was part of a pregnancy pact 20 years ago, but Ana disappeared without a trace. When Sawyer and the initiates stumble upon human bones during a White Gloves initiation, rumors fly. Could the bones be Ana’s? Soon, Sawyer unearths more than bones: Blackmail, lies, and treachery simmer just below the surface of the most placid of Southern smiles, and tantalizing glimpses into the past are woven in with Sawyer’s wry narration. Most characters are assumed white; Victoria is Latinx. A focus on sisterhood and more than a few whiplashinducing twists propel this smart and scandalous tale. (Mystery. 14-18)
PLAYLIST The Rebels and Revolutionaries of Sound
Rhodes, James Illus. by O’Neill, Martin Candlewick Studio (72 pp.) $29.99 PLB | Oct. 8, 2019 978-1-5362-1214-3
THE JUSTICE PROJECT
Betcherman, Michael Orca (256 pp.) $14.95 paper | Oct. 1, 2019 978-1-4598-2250-4
A former high school football star attempts to prove a convicted murderer’s innocence while adjusting to a permanent injury. Champion quarterback Matt Barnes’ life and identity revolved around football. After a snowboarding accident left him with a permanent limp, Matt feels adrift. He finds a new role when he accepts 150
|
1 september 2019
|
y o u n g a d u lt
|
kirkus.com
|
PENDRAGON’S HEIR
Bond, Lori CBAY (328 pp.) $9.95 paper | Oct. 15, 2019 978-1-944821-60-9
In this modern riff on King Arthur, Arthur is basically Iron Man—a rich, immature (but inherently good) superhero flying around in a metal suit. After finding herself caught in the crossfire after a strange series of visions, teenage Elaine is whisked from her ordinary, humdrum suburban family life to Keep Tower, an 85-story Manhattan skyscraper owned by Arthur Keep, aka superhero Pendragon. In this slightly alternate reality, superheroes are common, but Arthur and his tech genius wife, Ginny, are still big names; it turns out Arthur has a secret connection to Elaine and is the subject of many of her visions. What follows is in many ways an homage to superhero and ’80s movies: There’s a training montage, absurd but fun technology (particularly the flying robot knights), villainy, a possibly wicked international agency, and of course the requisite romance with a perfect hottie—who works for the dubious agency. The introspection is usually exposition, and the King Arthur references are mostly window dressing, but superheroics plus teen drama are beloved by plenty of readers; as a bonus, this is the first in a forthcoming series. Physical descriptions are vague, allowing readers to project their own imaginations onto characters’ appearances. Derivative, good-natured fun. (Fantasy. 12-15)
|
SAVING EVEREST
Chase, Sky Wattpad Books (352 pp.) $17.99 | Oct. 8, 2019 978-0-9936899-2-5 Beverly’s senior year takes unexpected twists and turns when she befriends the most popular guy in school after he attempts suicide. Everest Finley, quarterback and top of the social pyramid at Shady Hills Academy, suffers from depression. Following a suicide attempt, he’s alive but not doing well. His wealthy parents are selfabsorbed, and his popularity at school plummets. As he begins a downward spiral, he befriends Beverly, who is a bit of a social outcast and described as the only black girl at their predominantly white school (a biracial black and Asian girl seemingly does not count). The story of Beverly and Everest’s budding romance—and Everest’s budding music career—is told in alternating first-person chapters. Unfortunately, Everett’s and Beverly’s narrative voices sound the same, which hinders their character development. Beverly’s blackness seems incidental to the story, and both Everett’s and Beverly’s parents feel like caricatures. And some big questions are left unanswered: Why does Everest’s suicide attempt make the local news just because his father is a corporate bigwig? Why does Beverly’s mother, who works as a hairdresser and doesn’t make much money, somehow manage to send her to private school but then sabotage Beverly’s efforts to make a better life for herself? This ambitious novel tackles tough topics but ultimately suffers from plot weaknesses and lack of character development. (resources) (Fiction. 13-18)
y o u n g a d u lt
an internship with Justice Project, an organization that defends wrongfully convicted prisoners, and takes on the case of a man serving time for murdering his parents 21 years before. Unfortunately, Matt’s partnered with Sonya, his brilliant, if irritating, rival, and their search for the real killer seems hopeless; the remaining witnesses would rather discuss the state championship than long-ago murders, and promising leads hit dead ends. His hometown’s obsession with football lends sympathy to Matt’s depression and occasional self-pity, and Matt’s halting steps toward self-acceptance are believable. Though Betcherman’s (Face-Off, 2014, etc.) expository prose and dialogue slow the pacing and render emotional topics somewhat flat, his overview of wrongful conviction and its psychological toll on prisoners and their families may compel readers to seek further information. An author’s note explains the real-life cases that inspired the plot and provides links to related websites. Most characters default to white, but naming conventions and hairstyles may be intended to imply some racial or ethnic diversity; Sonya is gay, closeted, and possibly black. Thought-provoking if not especially engaging. (author’s note) (Mystery. 14-18)
BETWEEN WORLDS Folktales of Britain and Ireland
Ed. by Crossley-Holland, Kevin Illus. by Castle, Frances Candlewick (352 pp.) $17.99 | Oct. 8, 2019 978-1-5362-0941-9 A selection of folktales from the British Isles. Gathering material previously published in two separate collections, Crossley-Holland (Norse Myths, 2017, etc.) includes nearly 50 stories divided by theme: “Magic and Wonder,” “Adventures and Legends,” “Fairies and Little People,” “Power, Passion, and Love,” “Wits, Tricks, and Laughter,” and “Ghosts.” Readers will encounter familiar favorites, such as “King of the Cats,” “Tam Lin,” and “The Black Bull of Norway,” as well as lesser-known tales. The stories are told in language that is both economical and vividly evocative, with a cadence that lends itself equally well to reading aloud or as a basis for learning a story to tell orally.
kirkus.com
|
y o u n g a d u lt
|
1 september 2019
|
151
religious faith in ya fiction Religion in mainstream YA titles seems to be conspicuous either in its absence or as the focal point of a problem— typically a young person struggling against oppression. Of course, there are religious presses that put out books that address faith in a positive light, often with an explicitly educational purpose. Each of the above types of stories reflects reality for some readers, but the overall implicit message from mainstream publishers appears to be that religious people either don’t exist or that they are, not to put too fine a point on it, the bad guys. And yet, there are a number of young adults for whom religion is a positive part of their lives, to a greater or lesser degree, not a huge source of angst. For these young people, faith offers a framework for doing good in the world, answering important existential questions, and feeling connected to family and community, among other things. This year I’ve been intrigued to notice an increase in the number of books where religious faith is just one element of the protagonists’ lives, one that is naturally woven into the plot, the way many books now include other types of diversity as part of the texture of the story, not “the problem” at its center. These days it’s relatively easy for teens to find genre fiction that includes characters who are queer or people of color, or realistic fiction where such characters are depicted in well-rounded ways, not framed simply in relation to their marginalized identities. It is important to have books that acknowledge struggles related to difference, of course, but erasure takes an emotional toll, as does repeated exposure to traumatic situations. We need more narratives to balance out these two extremes. Forward Me Back to You by Mitali Perkins (April 2) offers an extraordinarily nuanced and layered depiction of faith and good intentions, interrogating the ways that we frame questions of privilege, loss, and good fortune. Race, religion, adoption, family…all these subjects and more are at the core of this deeply emotional tale of members of a Boston church youth group spending a summer working with survivors of trafficking in Kolkata. The rising popularity of witchcraft is reflected in The Lost Coast by Amy Rose Capetta (May 14), a lush Northern California–based fantasy centered on a group of queer young witches trying to find one of their own who has gone missing. They are diverse across multiple dimensions; one character asks, “What word fits in a way that makes you happy at this very moment?”—a question that will resonate with many teens, whether they are witches or not. 152
|
1 september 2019
|
y o u n g a d u lt
|
Kissing Ezra Holtz by Brianna R. Shrum (June 4) notably features a rarely seen Sephardic Jewish protagonist. Bisexual Amalia falls for fellow synagogue member Ezra (one of whose two dads is trans) in a book our reviewer praises as refreshing for depicting “characters for whom religion is significant but not the point.” It’s a charming romance that incorporates Jewish identity into its characters’ lives, in the process presenting us with teens many readers will recognize. After reading Let’s Call It a Doomsday by Katie Henry (Aug. 6)— whose main character is a thoughtful, intelligent open-minded, and caring young woman who finds great meaning in belonging to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints— I sent a copy to a friend who is a Latter-day Saint. She said she was used to her church always being the butt of jokes in books—a sad commentary on how some communities are considered acceptable to mock. Fortunately, this title presents a fully developed, sympathetic, all-too-human cast that will shatter stereotypes while entertaining with its highly original premise. Vibrantly diverse Guyana is the setting for the fantasy The Dark of the Sea by Imam Baksh (Sept. 15). Danesh is nominally Hindu, with devout parents and an irreligious grandfather who encourages him to be skeptical of what the pandit has to say. But otherworldly adventures lead him to question the nature of reality, enlightenment, and belief. The rich texture of the Christian, Muslim, and Hindu communities who live side by side combine with Greco-Roman mythology in this intriguing tale. I Hope You Get This Message by Farah Naz Rishi (Oct. 22) defies easy categorization: It’s the story of an alien invasion of Earth, a commentary on what humans have done to our planet, and a thoughtful reflection on relationships broken and mended that will appeal to a broad range of readers. A Pakistani American Muslim teen and his family, including his lesbian sister, explore faith, cultural norms, and the ties that bind them together against a backdrop of impending devastation. It offers a refreshing portrayal of diversity within a small Nevada Muslim community. —L.S. Laura Simeon is the young adult editor.
kirkus.com
|
Rather than appealing directly to teen readers, it is likely that this book will be indispensable to educators planning folklore units or teaching storytelling skills. Castle’s (Journeys of Discovery, 2018, etc.) black-and-white digital illustrations call to mind woodblock prints, and their rustic beauty greatly enhances the book. The thorough source notes are a model for works of this type, indicating what is typically the earliest printed version of the story, its geographical origin, particular adaptations Crossley-Holland made, and, quite often, his reason for selecting that individual tale. Encompassing moods from whimsical to awe-inspiring to spooky to fantastical, this is a valuable resource for fans of northern European folklore. A lovely, magical volume that is a must-have for storytelling collections. (pronunciation guide, afterword, sources and notes, biographies) (Folklore. 12-adult)
SHADOWSCENT
Hand, Cynthia HarperTeen (464 pp.) $17.99 | Nov. 5, 2019 978-0-06-269316-7
An adopted teen and her birth mother share their stories. Hand (co-author: My Plain Jane, 2018, etc.) strays from reimagining classics to crafting an intricate contemporary narrative, interweaving 18-year-old Cassandra McMurtrey’s present-day quest to find her birth mother with revealing letters “S” wrote her unborn daughter. Despite being set in sleepy, mostly white Idaho Falls, this fast-paced rollercoaster tale of identity formation includes richly detailed character development and a refreshingly diverse cast of characters, many of whom actively question life choices and what makes you you. Hand is at pains to show that while adoptions are frequently fraught with emotion and deserving of acceptance for
y o u n g a d u lt
Freestone, P. M. Scholastic (368 pp.) $18.99 | Nov. 5, 2019 978-1-338-33544-6
THE HOW & THE WHY
A girl who gets mixed up in politics and the crown prince’s bodyguard must work together to save the prince—and themselves. Rakel has an affinity for scents: She can understand what’s in them and how to re-create them. In a world that runs on fragrances and magic, she should be able to care for herself and her ailing father. But when she goes to the city of Aphorai to find work as a perfumer, she learns that things are not so simple. Despite her best intentions, she is accused of a plot to assassinate the First Prince. Her only hope of survival lies in unraveling the components of the poison and concocting an antidote. Joined by the prince’s Shield, Ash, Rakel sets out on a quest through each of the kingdom’s regions, uncovering secrets about each of their pasts along the way. Following standard plot beats, Rakel and Ash confront corruption and conspiracy within their kingdom while exploring relationships, with each other and with others in their lives, both present and absent. While overdramatic at times, with characters painted in broad strokes, the romance and tension will appeal to readers hungry for adventures set against an intriguing, if underexplored magical world. Few physical descriptions make ethnicity difficult to determine in this desert kingdom; homosexuality is briefly mentioned and not stigmatized. A standard fantasy romp built on lush descriptions of fragrances. (Fantasy. 12-16)
|
kirkus.com
|
y o u n g a d u lt
|
1 september 2019
|
153
INTERVIEWS & PROFILES
David Yoon
THE AUTHOR’S DEBUT YA NOVEL, FRANKLY IN LOVE, CAPTURES BOTH THE HUMOR AND THE DRAMA OF BEING A FIRST-GENERATION KOREAN AMERICAN TEENAGER By Patricia Park Photo courtesy David Zaugh Zaugh Photography
David Yoon was at jury duty during the heated 10-way auction for his debut YA novel, Frankly in Love, about a Korean American teen who falls for a white girl and fake-dates a Korean American classmate to appease their respective strict parents. “My phone was blowing up, and I had to pretend to go to the bathroom,” he tells me over FaceTime. It was a day of mixed emotions: jury duty, then not getting called to duty; the auction and subsequent sale to Putnam; and a devastating call from his mother as he was leaving the courthouse and learned that his father had been diagnosed with cancer. Frankly in Love follows similar highs and lows: the light rom-com premise, but with serious and dramatic implications not just for the eponymous protagonist, Frank Li, 154
|
1 september 2019
|
y o u n g a d u lt
|
but all those involved. When I ask about the origins of the novel, Yoon, who grew up in Orange County, California, shares that his Korean immigrant parents had strict rules about dating: “I had to hide my entire love life from my parents.” He was expected to bring home a Korean girl. Yoon did no such thing. Like Frank, he believes you can’t choose who you fall in love with, that it’s “like getting pulled by gravity.” In 1997, while pursuing an MFA at Emerson College, he met his wife, Nicola Yoon. Nicola, who is of Jamaican descent, would become the bestselling author of the YA novels The Sun Is Also a Star and Everything, Everything, for which David would do the illustrations. In their first workshop together—where, he confesses, he was trying his best to channel his inner Murakami—he admired her work and “felt like I had to step up my writing.” They remain each other’s first readers. Was his family accepting of their union? Yoon says, “It had its really rough years. It was bad for a long time.” But eventually his parents came round, and they grew even closer as a family after the birth of his daughter. “It does have a happy ending.” In a poignant scene in Frankly, Frank goes to a restaurant with his white girlfriend, Brit Means, and her parents. He’s suddenly foisted into the role of “Korean Food Tour Guide,” being asked to order for the table and explain each and every “foreign” dish that arrives. Though uncomfortable, Frank grins and bears it “because I’m still expected to be the Korean expert, whether I know anything or not. In other words, I’m still expected to be Korean first, then plain old generic American second. That damn hyphen in Korean-American just won’t go away.” The scene captures the nuances of racial and cultural expectations as well as microaggressions from even those
kirkus.com
|
Patricia Park, author of the novel Re Jane, is a professor in the MFA Program at American University and writes for the New York Times, the Guardian, and others. Frankly in Love received a starred review in the July 15, 2019, issue.
|
all parties involved, their terms can vary greatly. White Cass was adopted at 6 weeks of age by white, middle-class parents who knew her birth mother only on paper, while Cass’ best friend, Nyla, who is black, was adopted from Liberia at age 3 by white, upper-class parents. Nyla, whose family are Latter-day Saints like many in town, recalls her mother’s name, that her parents were killed in the civil war, and that she had a brother, but little else. While aspects of this half first person/half epistolary novel exhibit melodramatic soap appeal—Cass’ adoptive mother is in desperate need of a heart transplant; there are startling and disturbing revelations about S’s father—Hand explores adoption’s multiple dimensions with great insight and sensitivity. Inclusive and illustrative: an engaging lesson in timeless family values. (Fiction. 12-18)
TAJ MAHAL An Incredible Love Story Hoskin, Rik Illus. by Khan, Aadil Campfire (118 pp.) $12.99 paper | Oct. 8, 2019 978-93-81182-59-8 Series: Campfire Graphic Novels
y o u n g a d u lt
with the best intentions. Being forced to play food tour guide, or any other cultural guide, is not uniquely a Korean American thing; it’s something many of us hyphenated Americans experience. Yoon agrees. “The core of being an immigrant kid, especially one who doesn’t present as white, is that you’re the one who’s always listening and adapting and paying careful attention to context and code-switching when necessary. When you’re in the white majority, you have the privilege of saying, ‘What is all this? Educate me.’ It’s not a good or bad thing. It’s simply a minority/majority thing.” In the novel, Brit comes to Frank’s defense. She calls her father out for being a quarter French but not “knowing every last detail about what goes into making a good chèvre,” and, chastened, he takes the point in stride. It’s the kind of (teachable?) moment that will spark many conversations for readers. And perhaps viewers—Alloy Entertainment and Paramount Players, who acquired the film rights last fall, are developing Frankly in Love for a feature. (Nicola Yoon’s Everything, Everything was an MGM and Alloy feature film released last year.) For Yoon, his “newfound” success—the auction, the movie deal, the rights sold in 14 territories and counting—is “a total dream come true.” But mostly he tries to keep a healthy perspective about it all, an experience he learned after that fateful day at the courthouse. “I’ve been plugging away writing for years,” he says. (Two decades, in fact.) “It’s so amazing. I try to pretend it’s not happening. It was the right place, right time, right subject material.”
Gives readers a glimpse into the story behind one of the world’s most famous monuments and oldest romances—Mumtaz Mahal’s tomb, the Taj Mahal—and the people who built it. A flashback to 1592 reveals a soothsayer informing the empress of the Mughal Empire that a child destined for greatness will be born into the royal family. Shahab-ud-din Muhammad Khurram is raised by his grandfather, the Emperor Jalal-ud-in Akbar, and Akbar’s first wife, the Empress Ruqaiya Sultan Begum. At the age of 15, Khurram meets and falls in love with Arjumand Banu Begum. Following the soothsayer’s words, Khurram—who later becomes the fifth Mughal Emperor, Shah Jahan—waits 5 years to marry his beloved, who comes to be known as Mumtaz Mahal; however, Arjumand becomes his second wife, as Khurram first marries a Persian princess as part of a political alliance. The detailed, full-color illustrations enhance the story with their expressiveness and rich jewel tones, but the narrative itself lacks depth and perspective. More important, the text either ignores or glosses over historic details: Shah Jahan had three wives (the last of whom does not make an appearance), and the laborers, who spend years constructing the Taj Mahal, look upon Shah Jahan as a benevolent ruler. A passable introduction to the life of Shah Jahan for lovers of history. (historical and biographical notes) (Graphic history. 12-14)
kirkus.com
|
y o u n g a d u lt
|
1 september 2019
|
155
Quietly suspenseful, vividly character-driven, and poignant. i have no secrets
REFRACTION
Hughes, Naomi Page Street (320 pp.) $17.99 | Nov. 5, 2019 978-1-62414-890-3 Marty will do anything to get to his brother, even sell deadly, black-market mirrors. A year ago an alien ship appeared above Earth, and when humans destroyed it, the ShatterRing stretched around the planet, and mirrors everywhere released a fog that hid deadly Beings. Now only Cisco Island (off the coast of Florida), London, and Singapore remain. Ty, Marty’s older brother, is in London, and the only way Marty, who suffers from OCD, can think to raise the money to get to him is to sell reflective items like glasses and telescopes, which have been outlawed by repressive Mayor Ackermann. When that gets Marty caught and exiled with Ackermann’s hunky son, Elliott, the two have to set aside their mutual distrust to survive on the fog-shrouded mainland; what they discover there changes their perception of reality and sets them on a new course that may save Earth—or get them killed. Hughes’ (Afterimage, 2018) genre mashup starts with relentless action and then eases up a bit to allow for good character development and some hefty, fun plot twists. Marty’s OCD is integral and well explained and explored. Characters hew to the white default. Reads like an Arthur C. Clarke–Stephen King collaboration set in Silent Hill—fans of dark sci-fi will enjoy. (Sci ence fiction. 12-18)
I HAVE NO SECRETS
Joelson, Penny Sourcebooks Fire (288 pp.) $16.99 | Nov. 5, 2019 978-1-4926-9336-9 A nonverbal teen becomes the “reallife password” to solving a terrible crime in this British import. Sixteen-year-old Jemma has “no secrets of [her] own.” Quadriplegic due to cerebral palsy, she can’t move or speak and depends on her foster parents and her aide, Sarah, for everything from eating to using the bathroom. But people often share their secrets with her. After all, Jemma can never tell—even when Sarah’s sleazy boyfriend, Dan, hints at his involvement in a recent murder just before Sarah goes missing. But when innovative technology offers Jemma a chance to communicate, can she expose Dan’s secret before he silences her? Despite its suspenseful premise, the plot pales against Joelson’s (Girl in the Window, 2018) intimate, unflinching exploration of Jemma’s character; the book’s most powerful tension lies in Jemma’s simple, direct narration of her unrecognized, uncomfortably realistic frustrations and fears, such 156
|
1 september 2019
|
y o u n g a d u lt
|
as patronizing adults who “don’t realize that [she has] a functioning brain” and her worry that her overwhelmed parents will stop fostering. Refreshingly, the author’s detailed depiction of augmentative and alternative communication explores both the joy of self-expression and the physical and mental effort it requires. Jemma’s bond with her chaotic but supportive foster family grounds the story, particularly her touching rapport with her younger foster brother, Finn, who’s autistic and also nonverbal. Most characters appear white. Quietly suspenseful, vividly character-driven, and poignant, with insights into cerebral palsy and the multiple meanings of “family.” (Suspense. 12-15)
THINGS THAT FALL
Joyce, Mere DCB (240 pp.) $15.95 paper | Sep. 24, 2019 978-1-77086-556-3 Seven cousins gather to prepare a family property for sale and to solve the mystery that alienated their five fathers. The death of an uncle reunites the cousins, who haven’t seen each other in a decade due to an inexplicable family feud. Heading to the summer property in Ontario that will now be sold, the teens intend to support their cousin Forrester and solve the added mystery of the identity of a girl in a wheelchair and whether she factored into the brothers’ estrangement. Alternating chapters in the first-person voices of the cousins unfortunately reveal each of them to be selfcentered people readers will struggle to like, much less care about. Additionally, following much buildup, the cause of the brotherly rift is not the surprising, dramatic event readers will have hoped for. Joyce (Shade, 2018, etc.) came up with a great concept, but the result is over 200 pages of unmet potential. There is authenticity in the voices of the teenagers, but none of the characters is particularly endearing, and the not-sosubtle meanness of the girls is disappointing. Hailey and her mother are Cree; the remaining characters are white. The sensitive portrayals of Hailey and the one cousin who is gay are blotted out by too many chapters that have little reason to exist. A good beginning and an OK ending don’t make up for an otherwise uneventful story. (Fiction. 14-adult)
kirkus.com
|
The opposite of magical is not y o u n g a d u lt
ordinary. The opposite of magical is
mankind. Coming
November 5, 2019 Hardcover: 9781338188325 | $19.99
Catch up on The Raven Cycle!
TM/ÂŽ Scholastic Inc.
|
kirkus.com
|
y o u n g a d u lt
|
1 september 2019
|
157
Outstanding. games of deception
MERGED
Kroepfl, Jim & Kroepfl, Stephanie Month9Books (294 pp.) $15.99 paper | Sep. 17, 2019 978-1-948671-34-7 Series: Merged, 1 An experiment in immortality is not what it first appears. The Darwinians, a group of scientists, have selected six gifted teenagers, each representing a Nobel Prize discipline— chemistry, physics, physiology, literature, economics, and peace. The chosen teens will merge their consciousnesses with those of brilliant scientists through a process of brain implantation. At risk of losing their grant, the Darwinians add one last Nobel, as their subjects are called, this one for art. The selected teens seemingly go into the project with the best of intentions, but not everything proceeds as planned. The story focuses on three of the Nobels: Orfyn, the Nobel for art; Stryker, the Nobel for peace; and Lake, the Nobel for chemistry. When Lake is not able to fully merge with her scientist Mentor, the teens start questioning the process and motivation behind the program. This debut by a husband-and-wife team is an enjoyable read that nicely layers science and mystery with teen angst and romance. Although not all the teen Nobels are explored equally in depth, readers learn enough of everyone’s backstories to understand all the pieces while leaving more to be discovered in sequels. The book follows a white default, and although there is some diversity, unfortunately it is handled in a superficial way, and brown-skinned Orfyn is somewhat stereotypically portrayed as an urban graffiti artist living in an orphanage. Recommended. (art and science references) (Science fic tion. 13-adult)
WHY NO GOODBYE?
Laskin, Pamela L. Leapfrog (180 pp.) $13.00 paper | Nov. 5, 2019 978-1-948585-06-4 A Rohingya boy copes with abandonment. When his family flees the violence affecting their village in Myanmar, 13-year-old Jabair is left behind (the reason why is never clarified). Hungry, exhausted, and dispirited, he is so furious with his mother (his father has died) that he refuses to read the letters she sends from the refugee camp where she now lives with his siblings. A local man nominally watches over him, teaching him how to read and write. Jabair clings to life, filled with rage about his abandonment, until he meets Zahura, a 14-year-old girl whose past is just as haunted as his own. But when Jabair’s mother invites him to join her in Thailand, he must choose between abandoning his friend and reuniting with his family. Written in verse, Laskin’s 158
|
1 september 2019
|
y o u n g a d u lt
|
(Ronit & Jamil, 2017, etc.) book is a quick read that does not shy away from the cruel cost of war. The story is gut wrenching, and the small cast of characters is layered and endearing. Unfortunately, the text at times falls flat, lacking lyricism and a sense of interiority that could truly make the words shine. Furthermore, while the book generally addresses life in a conflict zone, it does not contain enough specific sensory details to create a deep sense of place. Explicit references to sexual violence may be triggering for some. A tool for discussing the challenges of childhood in a conflict zone. (Verse novel. 16-adult)
GAMES OF DECEPTION The True Story of the First U.S. Olympic Basketball Team at the 1936 Olympics in Hitler’s Germany Maraniss, Andrew Philomel (240 pp.) $17.99 | Nov. 5, 2019 978-0-525-51463-3
Political events surrounding the 1936 Olympics intersect with the evolution of basketball in this outstanding history. The first game of basketball was played in 1891 without nets or dribbling. Created by James Naismith as an indoor winter activity that would support Muscular Christianity, early participants from the YMCA training program in Springfield, Massachusetts, soon spread the new game worldwide. When basketball was added as a sport in the 1936 Olympics in Berlin, Hitler saw it as an opportunity to showcase German might and athletic superiority. Meanwhile, American basketball players were holding fundraisers to help with travel costs while many Americans were calling for a boycott of the games altogether. Maraniss (Strong Inside, 2016, etc.) includes little-known facts about basketball, brutal information about Nazi Germany, and the harsh realities of blatant racism in the U.S. and Germany alike. The U.S. basketball team was all white; despite feeling conflicted by rampant anti-Semitism on both sides of the Atlantic, one Jewish player still chose to compete. Written with the captivating voice of a color commentator and the sobriety of a historian, Maraniss peppers readers with anecdotes, statistics, and play-by-play action, shining a spotlight on names found only in the footnotes of history while making it painfully clear that racism affected both politics and sport, tarnishing, a bit, each gold medal and the five Olympic rings. An insightful, gripping account of basketball and bias. (afterword, Olympic basketball data, bibliography, index) (Nonfiction. 12-18)
kirkus.com
|
MY TOTEM CAME CALLING
Musariri, Blessing & Nesch, Thorsten Mawenzi House (176 pp.) $15.00 paper | Sep. 30, 2019 978-1-988449-75-3
GIRLS OF STORM AND SHADOW
Ngan, Natasha Jimmy Patterson/Little, Brown (400 pp.) $18.99 | Nov. 5, 2019 978-0-316-52867-2 Series: Girls of Paper and Fire, 2 War brings out the ugly in people. In the sequel to Girls of Paper and Fire (2018), the Demon King of Ikhara has been hiding away in the depths of the royal palace, licking his wounds and plotting revenge on the Paper caste girl, former concubine, Lei, along with all the other factions who betrayed him. Unaware that he survived the attack, Lei is still haunted by the trauma she experienced at his hands and all she had to do to survive. She and her lover, Wren, now seek to ally themselves with other demon clans to overthrow the kingdom while the power structure is unstable. During their journey, however, as she witnesses brutality and ruthlessness from their own side, Lei begins to question the |
SONGS FROM THE DEEP
Powell, Kelly McElderry (304 pp.) $18.99 | Nov. 5, 2019 978-1-5344-3807-1
A young violinist takes on a murder case on an island surrounded by deadly sirens. Moira Alexander lingers on the cliff ’s edge, playing her violin a safe distance from the sirens who dot the sea. Like her late father, she feels compelled to protect and understand the creatures that lure people to their deaths with their song. Most other islanders don’t feel the same, however, regarding them only as necessary for tourism. Moira worries they’ll turn against the sirens completely and lift the hunting ban introduced by her father. Now, a young boy has turned up on the beach with a slashed throat, and it’s presumed to be the work of the sirens. But Moira believes otherwise. With the help of 19-year-old Jude Osric, the lighthouse keeper, Moira decides to solve the case. As they chase leads, the islanders show their disdain for Moira’s love for the brutal sirens who claimed Jude’s family and countless others. Threatening notes warn them to back off—and then another body turns up. As tensions rise, so do Moira and Jude’s feelings for one another, no longer burdened by secrets. The atmosphere is as immersive as an island fog, with the alienlike sirens curious and sinister figures lying in wait. More time spent on the lore of the sirens could have buoyed this captivating tale into something truly magical. Major characters are presumed white. An intoxicating blend of mystery and enchantment. (Fantasy. 14-18)
kirkus.com
|
y o u n g a d u lt
|
1 september 2019
|
y o u n g a d u lt
Seventeen-year-old Chanda keeps seeing a zebra—her sacred totem that represents her kinship to others who share it. This, combined with her frequent lapses in memory, make her parents consider institutionalization in a hospital. Chanda turns to an aunt who advises her to go back to her family’s village to get the answers and cure she needs. The journey proves more taxing than Chanda anticipated, and going from her privileged urban life in Harare, Zimbabwe, to rural Gumindoga is more than Chanda feels she can bear; she wants to leave almost immediately. However, it seems destiny has plans for her, and she is again reminded of how little she can control when she tries to leave. Chanda’s story touches on the duality of and relationship between modern Western vs. holistic traditional approaches and attitudes to mental health and medical conditions. The novel would have benefited from a better developed plot and characters whose relationships exhibited greater depth, both of which would have made the conclusion feel more climactic. The uneven pacing results in insufficient attention being paid to scenes that bear relevance to Chanda’s problems. The central themes—that we are more connected than we may realize and that unlearned history is bound to repeat itself—do not feel fully fleshed out. Chanda and her family are Shona. Despite a promising hook and some interesting core ingredients, this book fails to deliver on its full potential. (Fiction. 13-adult)
motives and methods of the one she loves. Will she help put into power a Paper caste king if he is just another dictator? The author spends a substantial amount of time delving into Lei and Wren’s relationship in this story, from small scenes of intimacy and laughter to tough talks on dealing with pain and keeping secrets. Although some modern vocabulary is jarring (“fanmail,” “erectile dysfunction”), particularly since the story is set in a feudal Asia, this is a worthy follow-up that will satisfy fans. A solid fantasy pick with a strong LGBTQ pairing. (map, caste guide, author’s note) (Fantasy. 14-18)
159
INTERVIEWS & PROFILES
Elizabeth Keenan
A DEBUT YA NOVELIST FINDS INSPIRATION IN THE ART AND SPIRIT OF THE 1990S RIOT GRRRL MOVEMENT By Alex Heimbach Photo courtesy Havar Espedal
When Elizabeth Keenan was 16, hundreds of protesters from all over the country descended on her hometown of Baton Rouge, Louisiana. They spent a week outside the city’s only abortion clinic, Delta Women’s Care, in hopes of forcing it to close. That 1992 protest sets the scene for Keenan’s debut YA novel, Rebel Girls (Inkyard Press, Sept. 10). Athena and Helen Graves may only be one year apart in age, but they’re about as different as sisters can be. Athena is an aspiring riot grrrl who loves The Clash and Hillary Clinton, while Helen was head of her middle school’s anti-abortion club and dreams of being a model. Nonetheless, when Helen starts acting strangely, Athena is determined to get to the bottom of her sister’s sudden personality change. She eventually discovers that mean girl Leah has been spreading rumors that Helen had an abortion—strictly forbidden at their conservative Catholic school. To fight back, Athena and Helen recruit a team of girls for a guerrilla propaganda campaign. The patches and buttons the girls create were inspired by the riot grrrl movement. Before turning to fiction, Keenan was an academic studying music and feminism in the 1990s and spent a lot of time at the riot grrrl collection in NYU’s library. “There’s all these amazing letters and diary entries and fanzines that are written in this amazing bubbly language that’s really super enthusiastic about music, about life. But then on the other 160
|
1 september 2019
|
y o u n g a d u lt
|
hand, they’re always talking about these really heavy topics,” Keenan says. A dry academic book could never capture that voice, but a YA novel certainly could. Keenan admits that riot grrrl left a lot to be desired as a feminist movement, but it was a perfect fit for Athena’s character. “Its politics are very obvious and really teen-oriented,” she says. “It’s also at times really contradictory.” How do you support other women when they’re determined to make your life miserable? Where’s the line between standing up for yourself and tearing someone else down? “One of the main things in the book that I want people to get out of it is having a sense of empathy for people whose views you don’t agree with—you may never agree with—but you can still feel that that other person who has that very different political view from you is a human,” Keenan says. Basically, it’s much easier to call yourself a feminist than to actually be one—and that’s the heart of Athena’s journey. “You can have ideals,” Keenan says, “but you also have to live them.” Rebel Girls received a starred review in the August 1, 2019, issue.
kirkus.com
|
A THOUSAND FIRES
Price, Shannon Tor Teen (304 pp.) $17.99 | Nov. 5, 2019 978-1-250-30199-4
PLAYLIST The Rebels and Revolutionaries of Sound
Rhodes, James Illus. by O’Neill, Martin Candlewick Studio (72 pp.) $29.99 PLB | Oct. 8, 2019 978-1-5362-1214-3
Pianist Rhodes (Fire on All Sides, 2018, etc.) makes classical music accessible, relatable, and exciting for teen readers who may believe that it’s “dull, irrelevant…and about as interesting as algebra.” The book contains an irreverent introduction (including a lament about the overrepresentation of white men and suggestions of talented women and composers of color), the life stories of Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Chopin, Schubert, Rachmaninoff, and Ravel; descriptions of two works by each; and information about music theory and history. The book is slim (with the dimensions of an LP) but is chock-full of details. It is hard not to be swept up—Rhodes writes with such enthusiasm and thoughtfulness that readers will be dying to listen to the Spotify playlist he shares. He describes Beethoven’s “Emperor” Concerto as sounding “a bit like a conversation between two people who are dear friends but discussing some sad news.” Dies Irae, from Mozart’s “Requiem in D Minor,” combines instruments |
DEMON IN THE WHITELANDS
Richard, Nikki Month9Books (358 pp.) $15.99 paper | Sep. 24, 2019 978-1-948671-41-5 Series: Demon in the Whitelands
As the son of a cleric, 15-year-old Samuel, who was born out of wedlock, is destined for life in the clergy; the appearance of a demon child in his village violently upends his world. Samuel and his father are outcasts in a world of convoluted laws and corrupt politicians. When the mayor asks Samuel to supervise a demon named Zei, Samuel is eager to break free from his proscribed path despite the mayor’s nefarious intentions. Zei has the appearance of a delicate little girl but has reptilian eyes and superhuman strength. For unexplained reasons, she is mute, illiterate, and missing part of an arm. In an unnecessarily lurid reveal, Samuel also discovers that she lacks genitalia. An undercurrent throughout the novel is Samuel’s attempt to disentangle his desire to care for Zei from the sexual attraction and friendship he feels for his peers. By the end of the book Samuel seems to understand his emotions, but readers may not feel equally enlightened. In her debut, Richard has created an original dystopia populated with enigmatic characters. However, the plot is ponderous and feels more like a prologue than the first in a series. Those native to the whitelands are, aptly, white; Samuel’s deceased mother’s bronze skin marked her as coming from the redlands. Readers will be drawn into this fascinating world but may get snagged on the rough edges. (Dystopian. 15-adult)
kirkus.com
|
y o u n g a d u lt
|
1 september 2019
|
y o u n g a d u lt
On the night of her 18th birthday, Valerie Simons accepts an offer to join San Francisco’s Red Bridge Wars. Inspired by the Iliad and the gritty city of San Francisco, this fast-paced debut follows a teen’s quest for vengeance in the gang wars that killed her younger brother, Leo. The wars involve three fighting gangs: the Herons (dynastic families with money in the tech business), the Boars (a violent group of San Francisco natives), and the Stags (the newest and least-known of the three). Val is set on joining the Herons with her ex-boyfriend Matthew Weston, who comes from a Heron family, but a dangerous altercation on the highway leaves her with little choice when enigmatic Jax, the Stag leader, extends her a formal offer to join them along with the knowledge of who killed Leo. Wracked with guilt and fueled by revenge, Val is a likable yet flawed character who is struggling with her inner demons. Vivid descriptions and intricate details bring San Francisco to life, but a lukewarm love triangle and rushed ending leave something to be desired. Val is biracial (Filipina and white); some secondary characters are ethnically diverse and queer, but many are assumed white. A promising debut. (author’s note) (Fiction. 14-18)
and voices “into one hundred seconds of pure magic [that] takes my breath away every time….HE OWNS IT.” Using colloquial language, pop-culture references, and even an emoji, Rhodes makes history and music come alive. Surreal, psychedelic collages by artist O’Neill (Unthinkable, 2018, etc.) reminiscent of Monty Python intros make the book an eye-popping visual experience as well. This dynamic and infectious introduction to classical music is sure to capture a new generation of musicophiles. (glossary, index) (Nonfiction. 12-16)
161
JULIET TAKES A BREATH Rivera, Gabby Dial (320 pp.) $17.99 | Sep. 17, 2019 978-0-593-10817-8
Bronx native Juliet Palante lands her dream internship in Portland, Oregon, the summer after her freshman year of college. In 2003, the 9/11 attacks are a recent memory, mixtapes are in full effect, and Juliet comes out as a lesbian to her Puerto Rican family the night before she leaves town. Bearing the pain of her mother’s disapproval, Juliet bravely moves forward (pa’lante!) in hopes of self-transformation with Harlow Brisbane, author of Raging Flower: Empowering Your Pussy by Empowering Your Mind—Juliet’s beloved “magical labia manifesto.” Curious and open, Juliet plops into Harlow’s white hippie world of polyamorous lesbians and feminism while she questions her purpose as a brownskinned, curvy, asthmatic, Puerto Rican lesbian. When a Raging Flower reading blows up, Juliet flees, seeking refuge with her badass revolutionary cousin and her queer chosen family, further expanding her understanding of personal freedom. Diverse primary and secondary characters reflect believable communities in Portland and Miami, although the portrayal of Filipino tertiary character Phen lacks cultural texture. Rivera (America, Vol. 2: Fast and Fuertona, 2018, etc.) offers up a passionate tribute to the power of one’s voice through Juliet’s savvy and tender narration. Crucial and intense explorations of sexual orientation, gender identity, and race ring true. A white and Korean librarian love interest and a masturbation scene add sweet sensuality to Juliet’s self-discovery. A whirlwind coming-of-age story that leaves one breathless. (Fiction. 14-adult)
PAUL, BIG, AND SMALL
Robb, David Glen Shadow Mountain (384 pp.) $17.99 | Oct. 1, 2019 978-1-62972-602-1
Despite their differences, three teens become friends. Paul’s a short guy. By the time he reaches high school, he’s well aware that his stature puts him in the crosshairs of bullies. When Paul, who is white, meets the Hawaiian newcomer, Kamakanamakamaemaikalani Pohaku—or, Big—a 300-plus-pound, cheerful transfer student, and overcomes his fear of Lily Small, a black Kenyan girl adopted by white parents whose height and race make her stand out in their homogeneous school, he discovers true friendship. An avid rock climber, Paul’s hobby increases his confidence, which becomes important when crises strike. Unfortunately, the interest the book builds through showing a diversity of 162
|
1 september 2019
|
y o u n g a d u lt
|
experiences is negated by two-dimensional, stereotypical characterizations. Though Paul develops a crush on her, descriptions of Lily repeatedly evoke the angry, violent, black woman trope (“It wasn’t hard to imagine her breaking my neck with those arms”; “I had to remind myself she was a vicious predator”) as well as culturally inaccurate depictions of the Maasai. Big’s descriptions recall condescending images of ever smiling plus-sized people and happy-go-lucky Polynesians (“He lumbered down the hall with a big, friendly smile on his face that made me think he was imagining himself on a beach, holding a drink with an umbrella”). A woman with mental illness is portrayed as hysterical and irrational. While attempting to address serious issues, the book fails to reflect real-life complexities or nuances, instead mirroring troubling stereotypes. (Fiction. 14-18)
BEYOND THE BLACK DOOR
Strickland, A.M. Imprint (400 pp.) $18.99 | Oct. 29, 2019 978-1-250-19874-7
A soulwalker opens a forbidden door and lets in a world of danger. When 17-year-old Kamai’s mother is killed and her life upended, Kamai gives in to the temptation to open the black door that always appears whenever she walks through others’ souls. She unleashes Vehyn, a darkly fascinating being who appears as a boy, her age and pale-skinned like herself, who resides in a grand, foreboding fortress that Kamai accesses when she sleeps. Despite warning signs, Kamai ill-advisedly finds herself romantically attracted to Vehyn, who proves himself to be manipulative and threatening. Sometimes in the physical world and sometimes in the sleeping realm of souls, Kamai strives to uncover her mother’s killer and discover Vehyn’s (likely menacing) intentions. The drama, which is at times unnecessarily sprawling, involves a plot to kill the king, two secret societies, and plenty of intrigue as the stakes soar. Strickland (co-author, as AdriAnne Strickland: Shadow Call, 2018, etc.) excels at rich descriptions, painting vivid settings and a patriarchal culture shaped by belief in three gods. The cast, which includes a transgender character, is also diverse in race and sexuality. Crucially, Kamai’s asexuality authentically affects how she moves through the world; her journey to understanding her identity includes a detailed explanation that cleverly ties in modern views of asexuality with in-world terminology. Lovers of dark fantasy and edgy romance will enjoy this tale, which gives the stage to an asexual protagonist. (Fan tasy. 13-18)
kirkus.com
|
Doesn’t shy away from the dark side of young adulthood. fugly
COSMOKNIGHTS
Templer, Hannah Illus. by the author Top Shelf Books (216 pp.) $19.99 paper | Sep. 10, 2019 978-1-60309-454-2 Series: Cosmoknights, 1
ACROSS A BROKEN SHORE
Trueblood, Amy Flux (352 pp.) $14.99 paper | Nov. 5, 2019 978-1-63583-042-2
Under the shadow of San Francisco’s growing Golden Gate Bridge, a girl yearns to become a physician. It’s 1936. Eighteen-year-old Wilhelmina MacCarthy is expected to spend the months between high school graduation and her entry into a Catholic convent learning to sew and volunteering at a soup kitchen. But when her older brother Paddy is injured, Willa discovers that their old doctor has retired and a woman, Dr. Winston, is practicing in his place. Willa’s been reading medical books in secret, and before long, she’s sneaking out to help Dr. Winston at her office, a field hospital near the bridge construction site, and a Hooverville camp. She develops feelings for Sam, a young ironworker, while endlessly pondering whether she dare follow her dreams. In her author’s note, Trueblood (Nothing but Sky, 2018, etc.) writes of |
FUGLY
Waller, Claire Carolrhoda (352 pp.) $18.99 | Nov. 5, 2019 978-1-5415-4499-4 Body image, college life, and online trolling come to a startling head. British university student Beth Soames is, in her own words, “fugly.” She balances class work with an unstable home life that includes a depressed mother, a reclusive younger brother, and cupboards that are often bare. To cope, Beth, who is fat, mainlines chocolate bars and uses sockpuppet accounts to relentlessly bully thinner girls from the safety of her own room. Online, she befriends Tori, who is eager to join forces with Beth in making fun of glamorous young women and to woo Beth with sexy pictures and words of love. Meanwhile, beautiful, bubbly classmate Amy pulls Beth into her world of dorm life, pizza parties, and late-night bonding. When Beth and Tori’s trolling results in serious repercussions for a victim Beth knows personally, Beth must ask herself why she consistently bullies women and reveal the secret she’s been keeping. Though the author sometimes resorts to stereotypes (not all fat people binge on candy every night), Beth is otherwise nuanced—intelligent and witty but struggling with her own self-perception as well as that of the outside world—and her queerness is unapologetic and refreshing. The sheer loneliness that drives Beth to almost unspeakable acts is presented in a way that evokes empathy. Major characters are assumed white. Doesn’t shy away from the dark side of young adulthood and the insecurity that can drive a smart teen to extremes. (Fiction. 14-18)
kirkus.com
|
y o u n g a d u lt
|
1 september 2019
|
y o u n g a d u lt
Princeless meets TV’s Firefly in a feminist webcomic-turned–graphic novel. The night Pan helps Princess Tara evade a forced marriage by escaping the planet, she loses the one friend she ever had. Five years later, she is helping her mechanic father in the shop and groaning as the men watch tournaments on TV—this is outer space, so the jousts happen with high-tech spacesuits, not horses, though the prize is still marriage to the planet’s princess for the cosmoknight’s sponsor. The night after one particularly gruesome battle, a lesbian couple arrives at Pan’s doorstep, asking for her doctor mother’s help. Pan figures out that the wounded woman is a cosmoknight, accompanied by her wife, but what really shocks her is their secret: When they win, they whisk the princess away to freedom. That’s all it takes for Pan to stow away on their spaceship to join them. At first they are angry, but she proves her worth at the next joust. The jewel-toned, full-color illustrations use different palettes to mark flashbacks, fights, and the present day but can still be confusing. Pan’s journey to recognizing her own worth and identity as a feminist is earnest and believable. To say the book ends on a cliffhanger is charitable; the conclusion is incredibly abrupt. Pan and the knight are white; her wife and Princess Tara are black. While the plot feels too unfinished for publication, readers will enjoy the ride. (Graphic science fiction. 15-adult)
being inspired by both the Golden Gate Bridge itself and by an actual female physician who practiced nearby. Unfortunately, her novel fails to inspire. Stereotypical views of Irish immigrants, Catholicism, and medicine combined with cringeworthy dialogue don’t help, but the biggest weakness in the story is Willa’s milquetoast characterization. While everyone around her smooths obstacles out of her way, she dithers for hundreds of pages while performing basic first aid to applause. The romance feels forced and the ending, melodramatic. All characters are white. The interesting setting doesn’t provide nearly enough reason to keep reading. (author’s note, sources) (Historical fiction. 13-18)
163
An ambitious take on Arthurian lore. the guinevere deception
THE GUINEVERE DECEPTION
White, Kiersten Delacorte (352 pp.) $18.99 | Nov. 5, 2019 978-0-525-58167-3 Series: Camelot Rising, 1
An acclaimed master of the femalecentric retelling turns her hand to Arthuriana. Guinevere is a mystery: an impostor princess, daughter of Merlin, and possessor of magical knowledge, she has been sent to Camelot to pose as queen and keep Arthur safe. White (Slayer, 2019, etc.) sets up an ambitious take on Arthurian lore, with many details familiar yet altered—Lancelot is a woman, Mordred is Arthur’s right hand and also very appealing, and Guinevere intends only good, although it seems as if this incarnation may still bring ruin, in this case merely by being magical in a world that has banished magic. The connective tissue of the power women wield despite being overlooked doesn’t always hold together, but the questions Guinevere asks about women and power, and the subtext that chaos is inherently feminine (the defeated Dark Queen, Guinevere, the Lady of the Lake) while Arthur represents masculinity and control, are intriguing—although this volume comes to no conclusions. More diverse than many Camelot representations (Sir Bors has a physical disability, Sir Tristan has brown skin in otherwise white Camelot, and there is a pair of lesbian lovers), this is a retelling designed for a modern audience more interested in people than battles and more intrigued by identity and affection than honor and questing. A promising series opener. (Fantasy. 12-18)
influence and a well-wrought gothic atmosphere all set against the background of a continual Scottish burr, this trilogy closer manages to be expressive in its depiction of Scotland, however rushed in its action and weak in character development. The black-and-white art is downright moody and dark; its visual intricacy vacillates between terrifying renderings of demons and shadowy and indistinct scenes of Scotland, making for an ambiance that seems intentionally disconcerting. All characters appear to be white and, for the most part, male. An ambitious conclusion that does not quite hit its mark. (Graphic historical thriller. 12-adult)
BREAKING OUT THE DEVIL
Yolen, Jane & Stemple, Adam Illus. by Zangara, Orion Graphic Universe (88 pp.) $8.99 paper | Nov. 5, 2019 978-1-5415-7288-1 Series: Stone Man Mysteries, 3
A boy and a gargoyle are pitted against the devil. In 1930s Edinburgh, Scotland, street urchin Craig works with Silex, a fearsome, fanged demon imprisoned in a gargoyle’s form affixed high upon a church ledge. Silex knows that hellions from the underworld walk among humans and, with Craig’s assistance, seeks to keep the mortal world free from their impious intentions. After an argument in which Silex mentions his previous young helper, Craig decides to seek him out to learn about their disunion. He finds the boy in an asylum and, to his surprise, discovers that he is possessed by the Prince of Darkness himself. Soon, Silex and Craig are fighting the ultimate battle between good and evil; will Silex finally be able to triumph over the devil? With a hearty dose of Christian 164
|
1 september 2019
|
y o u n g a d u lt
|
kirkus.com
|
Sh e lf Spac e A Q&A With Laura DeLaney, Co-owner of Rediscovered Books By Karen Schechner
How would you describe Rediscovered Books to the uninitiated?
Warm, friendly, and knowledgeable. Rediscovered Books is where you can discover a new adventure or an old friend and strike up a conversation about your favorite characters with a bookseller or another customer. If you come in regularly, we’ll greet you by name and contact you when a book you might be interested in comes into our shop. We are a real place with people who care about books and stories and try to make the world a little more connected at the end of the day than it was at the beginning.
If Rediscovered Books were a religion, what would be its icons and tenets?
What a fun question, and without a doubt the symbol of our religion would be a book crafted into a body of a ship with sails rising out of its pages, taking readers to lands unknown. The tenet of our religion is that there is space for everyone on this ship regardless of where your interest lies. There is a book for every person, and when more people read more books, our world is a better place. Happily enough, this is our logo for our store, and we have a great time learning from our customers and one another about the books that can be found and shared with others.
|
What was your favorite event and/or most memorable disaster?
We create many events at Rediscovered Books, and we have many favorites. One that stands out is the Halloween event with Nick Bruel, creator of the Bad Kitty books. We worked with our local donut shop, Guru Donuts, to make paw print donuts with huckleberry frosting.
How does the bookstore reflect the interests of your community?
We are thoroughly invested in it through our daily conversations, partnerships, and extension of our bookstore outside of our walls. We work with groups both large and small, ranging from Shine Yoga, for an author visit, to The Cabin [a literary arts organization], to bring authors like Ta-Nehisi Coates to Boise.
y o u n g a d u lt
Rediscovered Books opened in 2006 and has become integral to downtown Boise, Idaho, partnering with the Wassmuth Center for Human Rights, which hosts a Human Rights Book Club; Guru Donuts, the location for Tasty Tales Storytime ($2.50 for a donut, milk, and entertained if oversugared child); and other local businesses. In 2015, Rediscovered Books launched its own publishing arm, which produces two to three hyperlocal history books a year. “Truly, our store is a hub of connections among many groups and kinds of people,” says Laura DeLaney, who co-owns the general bookstore with her husband, Bruce. “And the more we work to create connections, the more…we can have an impact.”
What are your favorite handsells?
My favorite handsell right now is Operatic by Kyo Maclear. This incredible story shows the emotional impact of music through its illustrations [by Byron Eggenschwiler] and connects the story of Maria Callas, opera singer, to the lives of the teens in the book. It also shares a path for being a great friend. Those are all of the adult reasons why I love the book. The kid in me was taken on a journey and saw old things in new Bruce & Laura DeLaney ways, and that is always what I want to read. Bruce’s favorite handsell is The Three-Body Problem by Cixin Liu. This is science fiction at its finest, with inscrutable alien races interacting with humanity through MMO [massively multiplayer online] video games and multiple viewpoint characters with their own agendas. Karen Schechner is the vice president of Kirkus Indie.
kirkus.com
| shelf space
|
1 september 2019
|
165
indie I AM NOT OLD ENOUGH! The Twenty-Seven Stages of Adjustment to Living in a Retirement Community
These titles earned the Kirkus Star: THE BANKER WHO DIED by Matthew A. Carter..........................167
Adler, Hilde BookBaby (72 pp.) $7.99 paper | Apr. 19, 2019 978-1-5439-6619-0
FROM DREAM TO DELIVERY by Don L. Daglow...........................169 SICK KIDS IN LOVE by Hannah Moskowitz....................................182 MISS LUCY by William Orem............................................................ 183
A memoir combined with a selfhelp book explores adjusting to life in a retirement community. This brief work is a noble effort to expose the emotions surrounding a life-changing relocation. In conversational style, Adler (The Way It Was, 2012) relates her experience of deciding with her husband to move from her longtime home to an apartment in a retirement community. An effective technique in the volume is the use of “two voices,” the author’s “everyday voice… declaring this and that with abandon” and “an inner, more sensible, more informed voice which surfaces now and then.” The work is divided into 27 abbreviated “stages of adjustment,” expressed from Adler’s point of view. The stages help reveal her internal conflict about moving, deftly illustrating that making such a choice is neither easy nor uncomplicated. Contrasting statements such as “I don’t want to live with all those old people” and “Some of these people have led amazingly interesting lives” bring out the author’s complex feelings with refreshing candor. Adler’s reflections on her previous life are filled with poignancy. About her relationships, she writes: “But what I really miss are the neighbors. My friends. These new people are perfectly pleasant, but they’re not my real neighbors, my old good friends.” Her account of what life is like at the retirement community is endearing. For example, she had a wonderful experience taking part in a play: “I met some kindred spirits, and the best part was that I felt like I was part of the gang.” Other descriptions are amusing. At one point, she claims, “I am never going to take the bus,” but later she laments, “Why did it take me so long to discover this bus?…I totally love this bus.” The seesaw nature of the author’s tale continues throughout the volume, but she cleverly keeps the story moving toward a positive conclusion. The audience for this book—individuals who are facing the potentially scary prospect of moving to a retirement community—should find solace in Adler’s insightful observations. A witty, charming, and revealing retirement account that lacks pretenses.
MY TODDLER’S FIRST WORDS by Kimberly O. Scanlon................ 187 THE WOMAN IN THE PARK by Teresa Sorkin & Tullan Holmqvist................................................................................189
SICK KIDS IN LOVE
Moskowitz, Hannah Entangled: Teen (300 pp.) $17.99 | Nov. 5, 2019 978-1-64063-732-0
166
|
1 september 2019
|
indie
|
kirkus.com
|
THE BANKER WHO DIED
Carter, Matthew A. Garin Ray Publishing House (450 pp.) $12.99 paper | $9.99 e-book May 27, 2019 978-1-73305-002-9 A young American international banker is seduced by high financial stakes—and multiple women—in this debut thriller. Despite the fact that his marriage is collapsing, Zurich-based investment adviser Stanley McKnight leaves his wife, Christine, to fly to Moscow with Frenchman Pierre Lagrange, the senior managing director of the private Swiss bank Laville & Cie. “Be careful in Russia,” Christine warns him, before he goes. “I’ve heard it can be dangerous. Especially for such a handsome Yankee.” Soon, McKnight takes over the Russian clients of another banker, whose Maserati mysteriously flew off a mountain highway with him in it. Viktor Gagarin, one of the new clients, has an estimated worth of more than $12 billion and, in Lagrange’s words, “a definite tendency towards violence.” Gagarin wants to buy a new megayacht, and he wants Laville & Cie to conduct the deal, provide the loan, afford him anonymity in the transaction, and determine how to minimize his taxes on the purchase. Gagarin’s wife, Mila, meanwhile, sets her sights on McKnight. Although he’s had flings with Russian women, he knows that Gagarin’s wife could mean the death of him. Nonetheless, an adventure involving fast cars, gold bars, betrayal, and torture lies ahead. Lust, intrigue, glamour, and danger fill the pages of Carter’s well-written book. The California-born author’s experience in the Swiss private-banking industry, his many years living in Russia as an investment banker, and his fluency in Russian lend the novel a sense of authenticity. Amid all the banking maneuvering, this rich story offers plenty of shady characters. There are also vivid descriptions (“The tie wagged its tail, briefly flashing a Hermès label to the world”) and attention-grabbing dialogue (“Sweaty is good,” says Mila at one point). It’s a testament to the author’s skill that even as McKnight descends into debauchery and deceit, readers will still root for him. An engaging read that’s right on the money.
YOU MIGHT FORGET THE SKY WAS EVER BLUE Short Stories
y o u n g a d u lt
possibility of a zombie apocalypse. A gay couple keep their love secret while hosting a morning radio show in upstate New York. A woman leaves her husband and goes with her daughter to her mother’s house, where she must contend with her parent’s new habit of yelling at people who aren’t there. In this collection, Chin tackles the difficulties of close human relationships: the sorts of tensions that exist between relatives, friends, and lovers that are rarely discussed but that can come to define the parties involved. In “The End of the World,” a high schooler’s crush on his allegedly straight best friend comes to a head during a Fourth of July party. In the title story, the same two boys deal with the aftermath of the incident, attempting to grapple with feelings of confusion, identity, and betrayal. Between the longer stories, the author includes a number of flash pieces that cut even more directly at these themes, as in “Interrogation,” about a disturbing game played by two siblings: “When we started, you were five, I was seven. Back when two years spelled a difference and I could still tell you what we’d play, and in the absence of Mom or Dad, I might as well have been Mom or Dad, might as well have been God, because who were you to question my instruction?” In its own way, each tale seems to ask: How can the characters continue after all the hurt that they have done to one another? After all the damage they have done to themselves? Chin’s prose is sparse and plainspoken, recalling any number of American fiction’s working-class minimalists. Here he describes the protagonist in “Better”: “Joel wrote bullet point descriptions for a company that sold traffic cones, hard hats, safety glasses, and harnesses. Selling durability. Selling comfort. He never slept enough. Started each day with a Centrum and a cigarette. The combination of the two on an empty stomach made him nauseous.” The writing occasionally flowers into a chatty descriptiveness, particularly when the author discusses the physical environs of Shermantown, New York, the fictional place in which a number of the stories are set: “Tonight, it’s an older crew. Not his friend’s parents’ place, but a house of their own. Out in the Podunk-est outskirts of Shermantown. Rundown as it is, the house is big, I’ll give them that, with flat eaves and segments of roof already set up with lawn chairs.” His characters—mostly dissatisfied young men and older boys groping for meaning—are well drawn and sympathetic, though the pieces vary in terms of their emotional impact. The best are the Shermantown tales, which better access the confusion of youth and the tragedy of small cities, but every story is compelling enough to carry readers through to the gritty end. A moving collection from a promising talent who has a lot to say.
Chin, Michael Duck Lake Books (136 pp.) $16.99 paper | Sep. 3, 2019 978-1-943900-16-9
A debut volume of short fiction explores the ways that people can hurt and heal one another. A third grade teacher contemplates the rise of Donald Trump while his girlfriend obsesses about the |
kirkus.com
|
indie
|
1 september 2019
|
167
kid rock CHROMATOPHOBIA
Many parents in the 1950s and ’60s simply couldn’t understand youngsters’ love of rockers such as Chuck Berry, Little Richard, Elvis Presley, the Beatles, and others, who collectively shook up American popular culture. Now, of course, rock music is solidly in the mainstream, and parents introduce their kids to it early on. It’s no wonder that there have been 39 Kidz Bop records featuring child-friendly versions of popular songs—and kids’ book authors have kept pace. Here are a few Kirkus Indie highlights: Marty Funcell’s The Tiger Beetle Band, reviewed in 2017, tells of four tiger beetles—John, Paul, George, and Buggy Bingo—who are inspired to form a band after John hears the music of the Beach Boys. Our reviewer found the “charmingly illustrated” story “a bit light on plot” but also deemed it an “entertaining choice for parents wanting to introduce favorite bands to their lap readers.” Rock music can be loud to little ears, of course. Last year’s Rock & Roll Woods, written by Sherry Howard and illustrated by Anika A. Wolf, presents the story of a shy bear who initially has trouble adjusting to the cacophony of a nearby “ROCK & ROLL celebration,” in which other animals play noisy instruments (“BOOM whappa whappa”). Kirkus’ review notes that Howard’s “sensitivity in portraying Kuda’s difficulty in trying something new will resonate” with young readers. Ippy the Centipede (2017), by author Mary MacKinnon and illustrator Chuck McIntosh, takes things in a lower-key direction. Although the protagonist “can rock and roll,” as shown in an illustration of him dancing to music, he also likes calmer activities, such as quietly reading. The author includes sheet music so that kids can do some singing of their own. The book’s “repeating lyrics and cartoonish illustrations will appeal to its preschooler audience,” according to our reviewer. —D.R.
County, W.D. Self (339 pp.) $12.99 paper | $3.99 e-book | Jul. 23, 2019 978-1-07-617931-9 A mysterious color covers the lone survivor of a party that encountered an extradimensional entity—and drastically affects the group investigating the enigma. In this sci-fi novel, an Antarctic expedition faces an incredible, shimmering four-dimensional cube (a “tesseract,” as readers of A Wrinkle in Time may remember) with disastrous results. Three explorers vanish in a void while devoutly religious photojournalist Barry Fletcher survives with a weird, growing colored patch on his body that drains hues from everything as it increases. At the behest of the U.S. military (which senses weaponization potential), Fletcher is placed in a high-tech quarantine lab. He is under the potentially deadly watch of tough Sgt. Miles Reardon, a veteran Marine sniper who, being colorblind, is assumed (correctly) to be somewhat immune to whatever entity possesses Fletcher. Eventually, the syndrome is labeled “the taint” by the rest of the study team, a diverse bunch that includes a bereaved psychiatrist, a professional magician/skeptic secretly hoping for a supernatural event, and a doctor (already turned gray by the phenomenon) imagining medical breakthroughs. As Fletcher’s Christianity grows more fanatical with the belief that he is literally a new messiah, the group’s grip on reality falls prey to the force behind the taint. County (The Scent of Distant Worlds, 2019, etc.) neatly plays with reader expectations about whether the thing represents good or evil—or just reflects the failings, lusts, and yearnings of its badly flawed human hosts. The author delivers a weighty, intricate, and intriguing thriller, mostly set in a claustrophobic isolation lab. While very much its own animal, the novel may recall for many sci-fi readers elements of Michael Crichton (especially The Andromeda Strain and Sphere) mated with H.P. Lovecraft cosmic awe (The taint is pretty much a literal “Colour Out of Space,” after all). But County lacks Lovecraft’s penchant for eldritch horror and philosophical pessimism and blissfully avoids Crichton’s tendency toward silicon wafer–thin characterizations. County even pulls off a satisfying ending from a situation that would have painted most writers into a corner (fourth-dimensional or otherwise). A tricky, dense, and suspenseful first-contact tale that successfully works a mind-expanding premise in a confined setting.
David Rapp is the senior Indie editor.
168
|
1 september 2019
|
indie
|
kirkus.com
|
CHOIRMASTER A Mister Puss Mystery
FROM DREAM TO DELIVERY How To Do Work You Love, Love What You Do and Launch Your Dream Project
Craft, Michael Questover Press (288 pp.) $24.95 | Oct. 10, 2019 978-0-578-52330-9
Daglow, Don L. Sausalito Media (523 pp.) $24.99 paper | $9.99 e-book Feb. 18, 2018 978-0-9967815-4-1
This second installment of a series offers another adventure for a crime-solving architect and his friend’s talented cat. Mary Questman—a wealthy widow, noted philanthropist, and owner of Mister Puss, the beautiful Abyssinian cat who just might have the ability to speak—receives a letter from the new rector at St. Alban’s Episcopal Church in her hometown of Dumont, Wisconsin. When Joyce Hibbard requests that Mary fund a project to either restore or rebuild the soon-to-be-condemned St. Alban’s church building, the philanthropist insists that she will only participate if her friend and noted local architect Marson Miles is involved. While Joyce is walking Marson and his husband, Brody Norris—who is also the partner in his architectural firm, Miles & Norris, as well as something of an amateur sleuth—around the property, they come across the body of their new friend, David Lowell, the choir director and organist of St. Alban’s. But who would want the choir director dead? Could it be one of the new people in town: Joyce or her husband-ofconvenience, Curtis—a wealthy gay lawyer whom Marson knew in college and who recently asked David on a date? Or Curtis’ friend and former lover, the famous ballet dancer Yevgeny Krymov? With the help of the local sheriff, Thomas Simms, and the preternatural Mister Puss, Brody will have to don his detective coat once again to catch the killer before anyone else drops dead. Craft’s (FlabberGassed, 2018, etc.) prose, with its affectionate digs at gossipy Episcopal parishes and affluent gay culture, is cheery in a way that keeps the novel from ever getting too dark, even with the murderous subject matter. After Joyce, who came to religion late in life (and perhaps not because of God), quotes Philippians at a dinner party, her husband says, “You’re laying it on a bit thick, aren’t you, Poopsie?” The characters are all compellingly odd, operating in a gray area between noble and self-serving that will keep readers guessing at their underlying motives. While the author hardly reinvents the wheel, this cozy setting with its nosy inhabitants makes for a lovely place to spend a few hours trying to figure out whodunit and why. A satisfying mystery pleasantly told.
|
kirkus.com
|
indie
|
1 september 2019
|
y o u n g a d u lt
A Silicon Valley CEO–turned–company adviser uses the Socratic method to help readers clarify their ambitions, circumstances, and capabilities. Daglow begins each of six major sections in this debut business book with questions that address such topics as defining projects, building teams, locating work sites, securing funding, managing risks, and thinking long-term. He asks readers to write thoughtful answers to these queries before reading his commentary, which is filled with anecdotes, observations, and tips drawn from his experience leading video game makers Electronic Arts and Broderbund, founding game developer Stormfront Studios, and advising new and established companies. The format mirrors his previous volume for video game designers, but the questions and comments here are designed to apply broadly to anyone with a “Dream Project.” That said, they’re particularly relevant for tech-based startups. He explores issues related to new products and services, retail shops, home-based solo operations, and new initiatives within large organizations. But although Daglow addresses readers’ dreams, he’s no Pollyanna; he also warns readers to conserve cash, avoid foolish risks, and not neglect family, and his watchwords are “balance and common sense.” He calls his approach “The PassionProcess-Product Method,” which considers an entrepreneur’s motivating passion to be foundational, and he offers practical steps toward achieving a profitable product. No single guide for entrepreneurs can cover everything, but Daglow’s touches on many essential startup challenges. The author also excels at probing internal issues in a company, discussing how one assesses commitment and prepares for failure. His prose shows a clarity of thought and authority borne of experience. Daglow suggests that readers “Think of this book as a private discussion between you and me.” Then he adds, “Wait, check that. Think of this book as a private discussion between you and you.” Those who combine introspection with his seasoned counsel will gain not only a tutorial on business realities, but also insight into themselves. A comprehensive, easy-to-read manual for people launching new ventures.
169
26 Great Indie B ooks Wo r t h D i s c o v e r i n g [Sponsored] JUSTICE BY THE POUND
WORLD, INCORPORATED
by Ivan Weinberg
by Tom Gariffo
“A public defender’s first case concerns a fairly routine burglary until the prosecutor adds murder charges in this legal thriller.”
“In Gariffo’s sci-fi debut, a mysterious agent handles covert, sometimes-lethal jobs for one of the world-dominating corporations in the mid-21st century.”
Consistently riveting—whether the protagonist contends with baddies or hones his skills in the courtroom.
GITA
A NIGHT IN OCTOBER
by J. Joseph Kazden “Kazden’s (TotIs, 2015) novel imagines a conversation between a Greek philosopher and a selfdoubting military leader.” Imaginative stimulating.
and
thoroughly
by Kathi Koll “In this debut memoir, the wife of a wealthy entrepreneur cares for him after his debilitating stroke and reflects with pride on a life of service.” An engaging, warts-and-all telling of the ups and downs of a fulltime caregiver.
|
1 september 2019
|
kirkus.com
by Robert J. Illo “In this debut novel, the devastation in New York and New Jersey resulting from Superstorm Sandy forever alters one family.” A compassionate and beautifully crafted cautionary tale with memorable protagonists; cold seawater practically drips from the pages.
KICK-ASS KINDA GIRL
170
A dystopian tale both engaging and conceivable.
|
THE GOSPEL OF CATHERINE DEARE by Mike Colahan “After the 9/11 terrorist attacks, a woman leaves her family to follow a man she believes is Jesus.” An original religious plot buoyed by philosophical depth.
MORE THAN ONE TRUTH
FINDING THE EXIT by Lea A. Ellermeier
by Matt Benson “An attorney defends a childhood friend on a murder charge while receiving guidance from his mentor’s ghost in this debut legal thriller.”
“A high school dropout from a small town in Nebraska creates a successful, multimilliondollar startup in this debut autobiography.”
Well-written, insightful, and spooky—an entertaining courtroom tale.
An absorbing, thoughtful, and joyful account of a business executive’s remarkable rise.
by Jennifer Mason
y o u n g a d u lt
A DREAM TO DIE FOR
VALEDICTORIAN
by Susan Z. Ritz
“Another series installment that chronicles the adventures of a San Francisco Bay Area dominatrix detective.”
“A debut novel tells the story of a woman with strange dreams attempting to solve her therapist’s murder.”
An enjoyable, sometimes-challenging work for those who like contemplative, simmering mysteries.
A fun crime tale with some creepy cult elements.
STORM SEASON by Susan Wingate
DEAD RECKONING IN FREDERICK
“A couple’s misery over their drugaddicted daughter’s overdose soon sparks retribution against the men they blame for her death in this thriller.”
“A paranormal team’s investigation into spirits in Maryland exposes nefarious deeds that come with a human threat in this suspense novel.”
by P.J. Allen
A bleak but undeniably affecting family tale.
Taut, riveting story in which apparitions and corporeal baddies remain comparably terrifying.
|
kirkus.com
|
1 september 2019
|
171
26 Great Indie B ooks Wo r t h D i s c o v e r i n g [Sponsored] WARRIORS AND FOOLS
THE ENIGMA SOURCE
by Harry Rothmann
by Charles V. Breakfield & Roxanne E. Burkey
“A military history book analyzes the sources of America’s failures in the Vietnam War.” A thought-provoking, wellresearched diagnosis of the Vietnam War.
“Various organizations find that using new digital currency is a surprisingly dangerous endeavor in the 10th outing in Breakfield and Burkey’s (The Enigma Dragon, 2017, etc.) technothriller series.” Another top-tier installment that showcases exemplary recurring characters and tech subplots.
FIRE MASTER by Rhonda Denise Johnson “A journeyman, ill-equipped to be the new fire mage, will need strength and skills to save an increasingly unstable world in this second installment of a YA series.” A thoroughly enjoyable fantasy sequel that should make readers crave yet another visit to Nanosia.
THE WINNER MAKER by Jeff Bond “When a popular high school teacher suddenly vanishes, a pack of his most devoted former students starts looking for him in this debut novel.” An exhilarating and emotionally astute mystery.
172
|
1 september 2019
|
kirkus.com
|
THE WOLF AND THE RAIN by Tanya Lee “This post-apocalyptic debut sees a young woman with a past on the trail of a missing person.” A slow-burning, palpably grim dystopian tale.
GEHENNA RISES
WORDSTRUCK!
by Julian Boote
by Susanna Janssen
“Following a worldwide zombie plague, a survivor relates his personal account of a new menace more terrifying than swarms of the undead in Boote’s (EXIT, 2015, etc.) horror yarn.”
“A collection of newspaper columns muses on the eccentricities of English and other languages.” A language enthusiast offers a compilation of amusing and singular columns.
Smart, invigorating, and, like the best zombie stories, relentlessly creepy.
SEVEN FULL DAYS y o u n g a d u lt
LIFE IS ALL ABOUT RELATIONSHIPS
by Ferris Shelton
by Rod Strohl
“A debut novel tells the story of a rising Atlanta businessman visited by disturbing dreams of the slavery era.”
“A combination of autobiography and motivation manual explores relationships at the heart of life and business.”
An engrossing Christmas Carol–esque parable of modern racism.
A worthy personal guide that calls for healthier and more mindful relationships in all areas of life.
SHORT ROUNDS by Paul Gore “Life presents unexpected changes and romantic entanglements for characters populating this short story collection.” An impressive assortment of lithe, charming tales.
|
kirkus.com
|
1 september 2019
|
173
26 Great Indie B ooks Wo r t h D i s c o v e r i n g [Sponsored] THE IMAGINATION WARRIORS
MAGIC MOON
by Marc Romanelli illus. by Odessa Sawyer
“Magic Moon deals with bullies in his world, and camp counselors do the same on Earth in this fourth installment of a series.”
“In Romanelli’s debut children’s novel, a young New Mexican and a talking feline go on a spiritual adventure.” A curious, freewheeling read for inquiring young minds.
IT’S NOT TOO LATE BABY
by Darren Dash
by Eva G. Kane
“In this fantasy novel, a disastrous theater troupe specializes in Shakespeare.”
“A debut memoir tells how a woman put her marriage back together after her husband’s infidelity.”
THE CHAOS TRILOGY by Jim Hamilton “In this sci-fi series, an alien species secretly on Earth tries to prevent humanity’s extinction.” A trilogy of exuberant and lucid tales that exhibits a fear of the future, regardless of the time period.
|
1 september 2019
...an imaginative illustration of emotional intelligence.
MIDSUMMER’S BOTTOM
A clever and kinky theatrical romp with a big heart.
174
by Shirley Moulton
|
kirkus.com
|
A vulnerable and illuminating account of a wife attempting to save her marriage.
FRICTION The Untapped Force That Can Be Your Most Powerful Advantage
DOES THE QUR’AN (KORAN) REALLY SAY THAT? Truths and Misconceptions About Islam
Dooley, Roger McGraw-Hill Education (320 pp.) $28.00 | $28.00 e-book | May 9, 2019 978-1-260-13569-5
Elmi, Naqi Archway Publishing (264 pp.) $35.95 | $17.99 paper | $7.99 e-book May 3, 2019 978-1-4808-7383-4 978-1-4808-7385-8 paper
A writer offers an exploration of “friction” that should vault the term into the business lexicon. Friction, a relatively simple scientific concept to understand, takes on far deeper meaning in the capable hands of the forward-thinking Dooley (The Persuasion Slide, 2016, etc.). In fast-paced prose, the author examines scores of examples to make a compelling case for friction, or the lack thereof, as a conceptual force that affects business. The book is nothing if not comprehensive; it covers friction in the retail, transportation, digital, technology, and nonprofit worlds as well as generally in business and interpersonal relationships. At times, the notion seems overdone, but the volume’s illustrations of increased or diminished friction are intriguing enough to sustain interest. One illuminating, extravagant example is the case study of how Disney decided to “eliminate friction at every touch point” at its Disney World theme park. Disney’s board approved a nearly $1 billion investment in “MyMagic+” technology, which employs digital wristbands to identify guests, act as hotel room keys, allow park entry, and even connect people with their photographs. The “largest single capital investment ever made in a theme park,” MyMagic+ could have been risky, but its implementation dramatically improved satisfaction rates and also increased in-park spending. Another example, less elaborate but just as impactful, concerns the management modifications made by Jack Welch when he was in charge at General Electric: “Welch’s delayering efforts had the desired effect of bringing senior managers closer to GE’s front lines and reducing waste from managerial roles with no operating responsibility.” One could easily label this leadership tactic something other than “friction,” but Dooley deftly relates the reorganization to his core concept. Throughout the thoroughly engaging book are “Friction Takeaways” that appropriately highlight pearls of wisdom. The examples used are clearly designed to turn doubters into believers that friction is a legitimate barrier in business. In the volume’s conclusion, the author advises readers to “put on your goggles” to “see friction everywhere” and “eliminate it at every chance you get.” The writing is lively and the enthusiasm for the topic evident. A novel, refreshing way of characterizing business challenges.
|
kirkus.com
|
indie
|
1 september 2019
|
y o u n g a d u lt
A defense of Islam that challenges Western myths and stereotypes. In his debut book, Elmi hopes to provide skeptics and critics of the Muslim faith with a scholarly and faithfully Islamic defense. One can argue that Western perceptions of Christianity as a religion of peace and democracy and of Islam as a religion of violence and war will inevitably only lead to future conflict. For this reason, Elmi focuses on Islamic beliefs regarding violence, war, and peace. Central to his argument is the notion that Westerners often “confuse Islamic teachings with the social and cultural practices within Muslim communities” and unjustly blame a religion of peace for the warlike actions of its worst adherents. He points out that Islam’s history features the acts of virtuous men and women, the forging of a sacred community, and the formation of organizations that promote social justice as well as warfare, persecutions, and violence— just as Christianity does. And just as contemporary Christians believe the Crusades to be counter to the message of Jesus Christ, Elmi notes, so too should the West distinguish between true, peaceful Islamic ideology and those who falsely act in its name. The author is cleareyed about the violence of history, but he’s also careful to emphasize the fair treatment of Christians and Jews in the early history of Islam. Elmi is at his best in later chapters, in which he defends verses from the Quran that seemingly endorse violence—and which are often cherry-picked by critics of the faith. By providing historical context and scholarly analysis, the author convincingly shows Islam to be a religion that “promotes peaceful coexistence with non-Muslims.” The book is written with a general Western audience in mind, so Islamic scholars will not find much that’s new here. However, non-Muslims will find an accessible, reasoned case against Western stereotypes. A concise and effective work about Islam as a religion of peace.
175
THE SCI-FI STORY WITH THE CAT IN IT Short Stories
author’s prose reflects, as her unadorned writing conveys complexities in straightforward terms. Carl’s immense popularity, for example, stems from various factors, including his delivery: “He was speaking from a low register, but not too low, and his voice was pure and crisp, not too treble.” Short, futuristic tales bubbling with enticing characters and details.
Fondakowski, Melissa Self (121 pp.)
In this collection of four stories set in dystopian worlds, people endure diseases and furtive government control. Although the tales in this volume don’t all take place in the same world or time, there are similarities among them. In the opening story, “The Sight Mask,” it’s been three-quarters of a century since the epidemic The Eye Death surfaced. People were suddenly going blind and dying a few months later. Fortunately, Dr. Ayumi Amador created Sight Masks that protected the populace and eventually became everyone’s sole technical device. But Amador, who’s spent her life searching for a cure with no success, soon learns a telling secret about the Governing Council. The subsequent two tales, “Two Schools” and “Two Roads,” are companion pieces. In their shared world, global legislation has banned the written word, and people communicate via speech, videos, and pictures. Governments believed writings, primarily on “the Network,” were rife with mendacity and ultimately precipitated confrontation and mass murder. But viruses have split people into two groups: water-level and air-level. The former has access to superior tech, but water folk are immune to the viruses that plague air folk. “The Lottery”—the longest story and the one starring the cat—is the tale of a future America, now a Republic, and its popular television show The Lottery. Citizens have a chance to win $100 million, at first annually but eventually on a weekly basis. Unfortunately, this reputed utopian nation, free of crime and unemployment, has an unsavory underbelly involving more than just the feline-transmitted Epsilon-A virus. Fondakowski (Out, 2017, etc.) simplifies her futuristic stories with minimal characters and concise histories of her worlds. Two tales have plot turns that, while dramatically sound, are predictable. But the author truly excels at shaping each story’s dystopia through marked characterization. “The Sight Mask,” for example, begins with a mother whose newborn may already be doomed, as a nurse is unable to affix a mask on the infant before she opens her eyes. The governments in “Schools” and “Roads” have vanquished sexism and homophobia by eliminating gender tags. But it seems discrimination still exists, with the water-level people a literal interpretation of the lower class. Fondakowski also uses nongender pronouns for every character in the two tales and deftly demonstrates other ways that players can have distinction (like the “smart-ass” student in “Schools”). This nevertheless makes the occasional slips into masculine or feminine pronouns in both stories glaringly apparent. “The Lottery” spotlights prospective winners as well as the show’s host, Carl Kent, who has a “crisis of conscience” when he becomes fed up with what the program is withholding from the audience. But the governing body, as in the other tales, seems on the verge of totalitarianism even if citizens are unaware. It’s a subtlety the 176
|
1 september 2019
|
indie
|
kirkus.com
SCATTERED PETALS
Ghose Chotani, Shibani PartridgeIndia (362 pp.) $27.99 | $14.99 paper | $4.99 e-book Apr. 2, 2019 978-1-5437-0510-2 978-1-5437-0509-6 paper In this short story collection, women from different countries and walks of life undergo transformative experiences through family and culture. The female characters in the six stories in this volume have diverse backgrounds but also numerous similarities. For example, Uma is a married woman living in Calcutta in “Conscience,” and Mia of “Change” is a widowed Californian. But both women are teachers. And while Mia has lost her husband, Glen, Uma’s marriage to Lalit is strained, as he’s rarely home. All the women dauntlessly face significant changes, which often entail traveling to or living in other countries. In the opening tale, “From the Heart,” Min-Seo is a South Korean wife who moves to France with her husband, Ji Hoon. She’s a sociable individual who now feels withdrawn, as she struggles to communicate with people in an unfamiliar tongue. Likewise, in “Fourteen Days,” Indian American Julie takes a trip to Calcutta, where her parents are from. She’s shocked when she realizes that her 14-year-old maid, Saras, in India doesn’t attend school. Julie is determined to help her despite indifference from the girl’s employer. The female characters furthermore overcome the burden of other people’s expectations. Saras, for one, ran away from home to evade an arranged marriage when she was a mere 11 years old. In the same vein, both Mia’s mother and her son, Pierce, believe she should date eligible Kyle, Glen’s former tennis partner. But Mia asserts that she’s not lonely. Ghose Chotani (Pictures Through the Rearview Mirror, 2018) uses various cultures to enrich her tales. Whether they’re persevering in their own culture or immersed in an entirely new one, the women continually learn from their experiences, which makes for dynamic characters and more robust stories. The author’s detail-laden prose is expressive, though occasionally verbose, like the description of a train that passes “the platform and buildings, then, swiftly, picked up speed, fast.” But she also infuses her stories with profundity: “Life is about constant readjustment,” and anticipating that things will stay the same “is placing oneself in the puddle of ignorance.” Six admirable female protagonists lead heartfelt and fulfilling tales. |
Readers are furnished with a remarkable look at the political and cultural milieu of the ancient time. song of songs
SONG OF SONGS A Novel of the Queen of Sheba
of both the fable and the details of the temple’s construction is as historically creative as it is fictionally sweeping, a true saga however flawed. A notably original reinterpretation of an ancient legend ensconced within an epic tale of political power and romantic longing.
Graham, Marc Amphorae Publishing Group (400 pp.) $17.95 paper | $12.95 e-book Apr. 16, 2019 978-1-943075-57-7
DEFENDER OF THE TEXAS FRONTIER A Historical Novel
A historical novel reimagines the story of the Queen of Sheba as well as the construction of the First Temple of Jerusalem. Makeda, later known as the Queen of Sheba, is born of a union both lowly and regal: Her mother is a slave and her father, Karibil, is chieftain of Maryaba and mukarrib of all Saba. An illegitimate child, she sees her half sister, Bilkis, overtaken by a fierce flood. Karibil then marries Makeda’s mother, leaving the girl as his only child and the sole heir of her father’s authority. Years later, ruling over a peaceful Saba, Makeda learns of a project underway in Yisrael to construct a temple out of stone, an engineering feat that could be replicated in her realm to build a much-needed dam. She travels to Yisrael in order to learn more and discovers that Bilkis, presumed dead, is the queen there, and her son, Yahtadua, is the king, an accomplishment won through a series of machinations as cruel as they were strategically brilliant, chillingly depicted by Graham (Of Ashes and Dust, 2017). Bilkis sees an opportunity in her sibling’s fortuitous arrival. If Makeda would marry Yahtadua and bear him a son, Bilkis could arrange to hoard all the power for herself and her descendants: “You will not be queen here. Once you give Yahtadua a son, you may go back to that sand pit you love so much. The boy will remain here, and when he comes of age he shall rule over Yisrael and Saba and all the lands between.” But Makeda has no interest in Yahtadua and has developed feelings for Yetzer, the mason chiefly responsible for the building of the temple and a man loathed by Bilkis. Graham acknowledges in an authorial note that he’s “taken generous liberties with the source material.” But that artistic license never undermines the novel’s impressive historical authenticity—readers are furnished with a remarkable look at the political and cultural milieu of the ancient time. And even some of the more conspicuous historical departures—the author imagines a polytheistic Yisrael—are both captivating and defensible on scholarly grounds. The story itself is brimming with intrigue and ingeniously conjured, although its soap-operatic entanglements can become densely complex and tedious to follow. In addition, Graham’s prose can reach powerfully poetic heights, but it can also be ponderously melodramatic and would have benefited from a measure of lighthearted leavening. Sometimes the dialogue reads like it should be sonorously bellowed from a mountaintop or engraved in stone: “ ‘We may be forgotten,’ Yetzer said, ‘forsaken by men, unnamed before the gods. But if only we know, if only we remember we are more than beasts, we will truly have been men and our ka will speak for us before the scales of Mayat.’ ” Nevertheless, the author’s revisionist interpretation
Gross, David R. iUniverse (242 pp.) $13.99 paper | $3.99 e-book Apr. 4, 2019 978-1-5320-7156-0
|
kirkus.com
|
indie
|
1 september 2019
|
y o u n g a d u lt
Gross’ (A Mexican Adventure, 2017, etc.) latest historical novel traces the formation and adventures of the Texas Rangers during the Mexican War under the leadership of a bold young man from Tennessee. The narrative opens in 1836 with John Caperton and John Coffee “Jack” Hays, two adventure-seeking 19-year-olds, having drinks at a bar in Nacogdoches in the Republic of Texas. They’ve been friends since they were young boys learning how to “live rough” in Tennessee; now they’ve joined a volunteer force to fight the Mexican Army. Before they go, Big Al Cranston, the town bully, threatens to punch Jack for smiling, and Jack shoots the man dead before he can even throw a punch. Caperton acts as a narrator as Gross stitches together the events leading up to the Mexican War, highlighting Jack and an ensemble of real and imaginary characters. Readers tag along on a mission to Goliad to scout for enemy soldiers in advance of Gen. Thomas Jefferson Rusk’s army and get an account of the Battle of Coleto, in which more than 400 Texan soldiers, after surrendering, are massacred by the Mexican army. Similar vignettes offer detailed descriptions of Comanche culture, military aggression, and diplomacy with other Native American nations. By 1845, when Texas applies for statehood, Jack’s regiment of scouts is known as Hays’ Texas Rangers and plays an important role in securing the Texas border during the battles at Painted Rock and Monterrey. Gross’ novel is loaded with intriguing period detail, such as how Comanche hunters use every part of a slain buffalo except the heart, which, as war chief Buffalo Hump explains, “is left to show the Creator of all things that our people are not greedy.” The plethora of names and locations detracts from the action and may occasionally leave readers confused about the time and place of particular events. Although the character development is minimal, except for Hays’, Gross’ descriptions consistently offer vivid imagery: “Our silent, measured, advance frustrated the war chief. He rode back and forth in front of his warriors, shouting at us.” An engaging fictionalized review of the fight for Texas that should resonate with history buffs.
177
INTERVIEWS & PROFILES
Kristen Ashley
READ, WRITE, GIVE: THIS WRITER’S EVOLUTION IN ROMANCE NOVELS By Rhett Morgan When did you start writing, and what drew you to the romance genre? I started writing in my early 20s (that being nearly three decades ago). But I wanted to be a romance novelist from about the time I was 12 years old. As it happens, there were some bumps in my childhood. Things could get… unpredictable. I think, looking back, knowing that there was going to be an HEA (Happily Ever After), this was what drew me to the romance genre. It took hold and never let go. For you, what makes a romance novel that really stands out? Voice, mindful writing, and, in many cases, taking risks. If someone has a unique voice, takes a chance with how they tell their story, really owns it, I’ll fall into their cadence and fall in love with their story. What was the first book you released on your own? Rock Chick. I’d written or started and stopped a number of novels before that book. But the Rock Chick series was where I fully found my voice.
As a young girl, Kristen Ashley took advantage of her mother’s Harlequin Club membership, devouring romances delivered each month. As an adult, Ashley started to pen her own love stories to include women of different sizes, ages, and backgrounds. After self-publishing her first book in 2008, Ashley soon found herself with several bestsellers in the Rock Chick series, a Romantic Times Book Reviews Reviewer’s Choice Award for Best Romantic Suspense, and a hybrid publishing deal with the Hachette imprint Forever to start releasing certain titles traditionally. In her success and in her devoted online following, Ashley saw the opportunity to give back to the female readers who love the genre as much as she does. She founded the Rock Chick programs to foster a sense of sisterhood among her fans and women in need while also supporting various women’s charities.
178
|
1 september 2019
|
indie
|
kirkus.com
What have been the advantages to hybrid publishing? I get the best of all worlds. I have my projects that I have total control over, from content to cover design to marketing. I have my projects where I get to work with people who have huge amounts of experience in the business. In this business, as in any, things change and they do it rapidly. You cannot be an island in the publishing industry. That said, my babies [books] are my babies….This is probably why I’m mostly independently published. What inspired you to create the Rock Chick programs? From the beginning, I had a variety of goals I wanted to achieve with my books. To use my novels to guide wom-
|
en to see the beauty and worthiness in themselves. And more, to see around them the sisters who might be struggling with these issues and who might need support. After years of rejections, having a readership was something I didn’t expect. It’s a vast understatement to say it was meaningful. These aren’t my readers, they’re my sisters. Thus, I built the Rock Chick Nation, which has three programs [Rock Chick Rendezvous, Recharges, and Rewards], all designed to further strengthen the sisterhood. Rock Chick Rendezvous are essentially weekendlong parties. Rock Chick Recharges are intimate evenings for women who have been nominated and deserve a night to be spoiled. And lastly, there is Rock Chick Rewards, which are donations I give to charities my readers nominate.
HEALTHCARE IS MAKING ME SICK Learn the Rules To Regain Control and Fight for Your Healthcare Heiser, Scott R. Lioncrest Publishing (262 pp.) $14.99 paper | $6.99 e-book Jun. 15, 2019 978-1-5445-1197-9
What is the main goal behind these programs? Sisters supporting sisters. The mission statement reads: To live your best life, be true to your true self, recognize your beauty, and last, take your sister’s back whether she’s at your side or if she’s thousands of miles away and you don’t know who she is. What are you working on next? I’m back with Forever Romance at Grand Central Publishing to launch the Dream series, which is a mashup of my Rock Chick and Dream Men series. It feels like a homecoming! Rhett Morgan is a writer and translator living in Paris.
|
kirkus.com
|
indie
|
1 september 2019
|
y o u n g a d u lt
A former health care industry insider offers tips for securing quality care without paying top dollar. As a consultant, debut author Heiser advised corporations on how to cut their health care costs. In this book, he makes that service available to laypeople who may be perplexed by their health insurance choices. The author notes that, due to confusion and a sense of helplessness, today’s “consumers are… disenfranchised by the healthcare complex.” His aim is to show them how to take their power back and become proactive about their health. The book provides a brief history of thirdparty health payments, beginning in the 1920s, and a useful rundown of the pros and cons of the Affordable Care Act. Heiser tallies the average lifetime costs of medical treatment for men and women, itemizing health care spending per year (which, combined, works out to be 17.9% of the U.S. gross domestic product), and lays out the expected prices of routine exams and catastrophic illnesses. It’s sobering to see these numbers set out so plainly; a premature birth, for example could set you back $235,245, while the high-end cost of leukemia treatment is $2.3 million. The best way to avoid astronomical medical bills is to avoid getting sick, the author observes; to that end, he discusses the cornerstones of a healthy lifestyle—good diet, adequate exercise, not smoking, and reducing stress. However, he acknowledges that even the healthy and well prepared can fall victim to random illnesses, so it’s essential to have solid coverage. His invaluable comparison of health insurance plans includes clear definitions of jargon, and he also explains hospital markups, medical tourism, and alternative or supplemental insurance plans. He gives advice on how to choose a medical provider, what questions to ask before a procedure, and how to access lower-cost prescription drugs. Along the way, the pace is snappy, with short sentences, charts, bullet points, and rhetorical questions that make all the information easily digestible and never overwhelming. The informal, no-nonsense tone occasionally verges on impolite (“Get my point?”), but ultimately, this makes sense, as Heiser wants the reader to be a wise shopper rather than a “passive participant in the system.” A conversational guide that simplifies complex health care options.
179
THE FORGETTING FLOWER
WHAT UNDERWEAR DOES A ZEBRA WEAR? Jokes for Kids
Hugg, Karen Magnolia Press (296 pp.) $12.99 paper | $4.99 e-book Jun. 18, 2019 978-0-578-48407-5
Johnson, Henley Belle Illus. by Dalbuz, Anna Ed. by Johnson, Elle Muliarchyk Self (34 pp.) $17.99 | $1.99 e-book | Jul. 10, 2018 978-0-692-12425-3
In Hugg’s (Song of the Tree Hollow, 2018) novel, a Polish-born Parisian in financial distress sells an unusual plant’s blooms to very dangerous people. The death of Alain Tolbert, a possible suicide, greatly saddens his neighbor Renia Baranczka, as he’d been her only friend in Paris. He was also the best customer at Le Sanctuaire, the flower shop that Renia manages. Its owner, Valentina Palomer, regularly dips into the shop’s emergency funds, and the business is perpetually in debt. To solve her problems, Renia turns to an enigmatic plant that her twin sister, Estera, calls “Violet Smoke.” Inhaling the fragrance from its flowers can make a person forget certain events; Estera calls it a “memory trim.” Indeed, the Violet Smoke may be the reason for the siblings’ current estrangement. The plant can be addictive, and Renia fears that it may somehow have led to Alain’s death. But Estera’s unsavory ex-boyfriend, Zbigniew “Zbiggy” Wójcik, is willing to pay handsomely for the flowers. This affords Renia some muchneeded funds, but it becomes clear that Zbiggy wants the entire plant for himself. Hugg’s absorbing tale features understated traits from multiple genres. A mystery, for example, plays in the background as periodic flashbacks involving Renia and Estera, who’s not in Paris, gradually explain the twins’ falling-out. In similar fashion, Renia’s increasing involvement with Zbiggy’s unnerving comrades slowly escalates the suspense. The characters are as bold as the flowers adorning Le Sanctuaire; police officer Kateb is oddly elusive on specifics regarding Alain’s death while Valentina’s impudence is almost comical. The author’s sublime descriptions further enrich the story: Despite the supernatural Violet Smoke’s apparent unattractiveness, Hugg endearingly notes its “velvety petals” and how its leaves make the mature plant “seem newly born”; at another point, she equates its twisty branches with “a lanky teenager dancing, bending its arms this way and that.” Superb characters and alluring prose make for a truly exceptional read.
A debut picture book delivers jokes for the preschool crowd. Finding jokes that are both funny and make sense to younger readers can be a challenge. But Henley Belle Johnson— with help from her mother and editor, Elle Muliarchyk Johnson, and debut illustrator Dalbuz—captures that balance perfectly here. The title joke uses a pun on the animal’s name, linking it to a sound-alike article of clothing (“A Z-BRA!”). The majority of the jokes in the collection begin with an animal, using the creature’s name (or the sound it makes) to complete a pun in the punchline. The clever way of playing with sounds makes the jokes accessible to younger readers. Helpful, color-printed portions of dinosaur names are especially useful in offering pronunciation clues to young listeners trying to guess the answers to the questions posed. One Spanish joke—“What does grass say to the gardener who waters it? GRASS-ias!”—shows readers that plays on words are not limited to English. Dalbuz’s brightly colored cartoon images are silly fun and will keep youngsters who can’t yet read giggling even if they don’t guess the punchlines. While the majority of the humans featured in the book have pale skin, one young joke teller and another background character are people of color. The animals, particularly the dinosaurs, are far more diverse. This illustrated collection gives novice joke tellers— and their parents—some excellent puns to draw from.
WORTHY HUMAN Because You Are the Problem…and the Solution
Litt, Tracy Lioncrest Publishing (250 pp.) $15.99 paper | $6.99 e-book | Jul. 5, 2019 978-1-5445-0400-1 A self-help work that offers a lively discourse on freedom of choice. Hypnotherapist Litt makes a compelling case for self-determination in this debut work, suggesting that “you can change yourself and anything in your life that you want to.” In prose that’s both conversational and forceful, she asks such provocative questions as “Are you ready to wake up and become your own observer?” and “Are you ready to give yourself permission to be happy?” Answering these and similar queries requires self-assessment and introspection, but the author aims to assist readers by offering examples from her own life and practice, tendering
180
|
1 september 2019
|
indie
|
kirkus.com
|
One of the most strikingly original aspects of the work is the priority assigned to management philosophy over technology. it strategy
compassionate, useful advice. Although much of the subject matter here is common in self-improvement books, the manner in which Litt packages the material is intriguingly different. She organizes the work into eight chapters, each representing a life choice. In a chapter on human thought, for instance, she discusses the concept of “mastering your mind,” and she includes helpful visuals of “thought loops,” depicting the decision-making thought process and demonstrating the difference between “an imprisoned mind and an empowered mind.” Another chapter details “Life Suckers”—behaviors that “suck your energy…and keep you away from the profound happiness, joy, and success that you deserve.” Each chapter contains a helpful section titled “The Work,” featuring exercises that often encourage readers to come to terms with their fears and perceived inadequacies. Some of the book’s concepts particularly stand out, such as the notion of “Radical Personal Responsibility,” about which Litt writes, “You are the problem and the solution, the obstacle and the answer, the pain and the relief.” Throughout the work, she engagingly uses such abstract phrases to grab attention and then slyly explains their intended meaning. Overall, Litt shows herself to be an expressive, thoughtful, and candid writer. Her observations on human behavior are penetrating and insightful, and her belief in the human spirit is almost palpable. Inspirational, life-affirming, and infectiously exuberant.
IT STRATEGY A 3-Dimensional Framework To Plan Your Digital Transformation and Deliver Value to Your Enterprise Maholic, Jim Self (608 pp.) $26.95 paper | May 12, 2019 978-1-09-798324-7
A manual presents a comprehensive strategy that situates information technology within the broader context of the business it serves. According to Maholic (Business Cases That Mean Business, 2013), this is simultaneously a thrilling and harrowing time to be a chief information officer in charge of IT strategy since the executive can be both “the beneficiary and besieged warrior of rapidly advancing technology.” A wide-ranging strategy is absolutely necessary, but a universally effective one that accommodates all circumstances doesn’t exist—“different current states, different desired future states and different organizational structures” render that impossible in principle. Instead, the author articulates with astonishingly impressive thoroughness and clarity the general framework within which such a scheme should be constructed. Maholic argues that an IT division’s purpose is to serve the greater mission of the organization that houses it, and so a CIO must think like a CEO, always understanding technology in light of the demands of business. The author uses an acronym to capture this orientation, SEAR, which represents the four pillars of any business strategy: sales, expenses, assets, and risks. “The SEAR imperative states that
y o u n g a d u lt
every proposal for significant, material projects or programs must define success by showing how the proposed initiative increases sales, reduces expenses, optimizes assets or mitigates risk,” Maholic asserts. That bottom-line orientation undergirds the overall IT scheme, which the author envisions as a three-dimensional cube, with its primary parts Foundations; Deliberations regarding technical, philosophical, and practical concerns; and Vexations, the “forces opposing your strategy.” Maholic has twice served as a CIO at different organizations and has worked for years as a management consultant, a depth of experience that radiates from this analytically rigorous and encyclopedic study. The book is written from the perspective of a manager of an IT division versus a technologist. One of the most strikingly original aspects of the work is the priority assigned to management philosophy over technology: “Technology is among the least critical aspects in driving the success of an IT Strategy. Technology is certainly relevant and holds a central place in the strategy. But the success of your IT Strategy is more dependent on the other Deliberation considerations than it is on technology.” Maholic doesn’t just provide philosophically broad counsel—he also furnishes helpfully detailed, immediately actionable instructions regarding a dizzying array of subjects, often accompanied by diagrams. Unfortunately, the volume can lose focus, and as a result it’s bloated to well over 500 pages—he could have dispensed with establishing analogies between IT strategy and the machinations of chess and military planning. But his prose is consistently accessible and mercifully unburdened by gratuitously technical, business, or IT jargon. And besides the work’s expansive scope, its principal strength is the relentless way it emphasizes the significance of “value velocity,” or the urgent need for a CIO to deliver measurable business results in a timely fashion. Maholic’s contribution is a standout in a crowded field and should become the authoritative source on the subject. A consistently clear and notably thorough guide to IT strategy that should be on every chief information officer’s desk.
THE WORK OF ART
Matthews, Mimi Perfectly Proper Press (390 pp.) $16.99 paper | $3.99 e-book Jul. 23, 2019 978-1-73305-691-5 In this romance set in the early 19th century, a young woman finds herself pursued by an uncouth and relentless duke who’ll stop at nothing to possess her. Once her grandfather dies, Phyllida Satterthwaite is left alone in the world as well as virtually penniless—both of her parents died shortly after she was born. She’s taken into the care of her uncle, Edgar Townsend, who lets her modest estate in the country and brings her to London to pair her with a husband. Unfortunately, the duke of Moreland takes an avid interest in her, a |
kirkus.com
|
indie
|
1 september 2019
|
181
man so notorious for his maniacal pursuit of objects of beauty he’s nicknamed “the Collector.” Phyllida, now his quarry, becomes known as the “Work of Art.” The duke is an unreservedly unsavory human being—he beats dogs and is suspected of murdering his wife. Phyllida refuses his hand in marriage, but the duke makes it clear he never asked for it in the first place. Edgar likewise views their union as a financial transaction, one for which the duke paid handsomely. She turns to Capt. Arthur Heywood, a friendly acquaintance, for help, and he chivalrously offers to wed her, a “marriage in name only” that rescues her from the duke’s salacious attention. But the duke is not so easily defeated, and the new pair is threatened by the prospect of his “swift and brutal retaliation.” The duke remains a hyperbolically unsubtle caricature in an otherwise intelligently nuanced novel by Matthews (A Modest Independence, 2019). The author seamlessly combines a suspenseful tale and a soaring romance, the plot by turns sweetly moving and dramatically stirring. The relationship between Phyllida and Arthur is especially well crafted—what was initially a partnership borne out of practicality and mutual respect slowly shows promise of blossoming into something more transcendent. Occasionally, Matthews can be a bit heavy-handed with her narrative commentary; for example, she feels the need, after repeatedly making the point that the duke sees Phyllida as a trophy rather than a person, to tell readers that she really isn’t: “But she was no painting. She was a human being.” Nevertheless, the story as a whole is filled with tenderness and intrigue and is sure to delight lovers of the genre. A thoughtfully executed tale that perceptively dramatizes the tension between the demands of love and commerce.
named Sal-Beth, and he now cherishes an iridescent stone she left to him. When the boys find a magically defended cave in the forest, will they begin unraveling the world’s secrets or merely become two more victims in a war spanning generations? Though Leisa Maxwell and Elora Maxwell’s debut features numerous time-tested fantasy elements—talking animals; a shadowy, immortal evil; copious traveling—these tropes retain a winsome fervor that’ll delight readers new to the genre. A keen sense of drama introduces a cloaked figure as Lana Dorsen, aka Dragon Girl. Likewise, the story’s true villain, once revealed, is “a predator blooded with a power so terrifying” that the heroes feel “it pulsing against their skin.” Central to the narrative is the bond that forms between Alton and Lana, two orphans whose tragic pasts never extinguish their spirits. The final third provides a murderous kick, and though it’s reversed in the end, it proves that the authors are willing to play rough with their creations. The novel’s final line sweetly echoes its first. Packed with tropes exuberantly executed.
SICK KIDS IN LOVE
Moskowitz, Hannah Entangled: Teen (300 pp.) $17.99 | Nov. 5, 2019 978-1-64063-732-0
Two chronically ill teens navigate the joys and pitfalls of a relationship in this YA contemporary romance. Of all the places where 16-year-old Isabel Garfinkel could meet a cute boy, the Ambulatory Medical Unit at Linefield and West Memorial Hospital in the Queens borough of New York City, wouldn’t seem the most likely. It’s her second time in the “drip room,” as it’s called, where she gets monthly infusions to treat the rheumatoid arthritis that she’s had for 11 years. This time, though, she can’t help staring at a new patient there—a boy her age named Sasha Sverdlov-Deckler. She likes his quirky, appealing looks and wry sense of humor, and they bond over the fact that they’re both Jewish. Sasha has a rare genetic disorder called Gaucher disease, which isn’t fatal, in his case, but causes severe anemia, weak bones, and other problems. Although Isabel has several close and well-meaning friends, she doesn’t have anyone who really understands what it’s like “to deal with the everyday slog of being sick.” She and Sasha hit it off, but she’s emotionally guarded and dislikes risks, and as a result, she doesn’t date. Sasha is patient and sweet, and their romance grows; amid a few arguments and setbacks, they forge a bond that gets them through their problems. As the advice columnist for her high school paper, Isabel asks questions and gathers others’ responses; by the end of the novel, she’s comfortable with not having all the answers. Moskowitz (Salt, 2018, etc.) does a splendid job of showing what the world looks like to the chronically but invisibly ill. For example, Isabel is often tired and aching, and she fears the judgment of others; she notes
NEVERLASTING Once Upon a Time
Maxwell, Leisa & Maxwell, Elora Manuscript In this YA fantasy debut, a quartet of heroes confronts an evil that has pitted two kingdoms against each other. In the kingdom of Hestia, 15-yearold Alton Krishnac works as a farmhand for the cruel Reswan family. He and Tristan, his 10-year-old brother, used to live in the Cursed Forest until a fire killed their parents. Alton watches King Ardesribe’s men return the body of the Reswans’ son, James, from fighting in Rothilion. Hestia battles a centuries-old enemy in the Aydar, a race of magic wielders who live in the north. More horrifying, James’ corpse bears the brand of the Dragon Girl, an elusive witch whom King Ardesribe blames for everything from earthquakes to the potato blight. He sends his daughter, Princess Elspeth, to the Reswan farm with a command for Alton and Tristan to set a trap for the Dragon Girl. Despite his nation’s hatred of the Aydar, Alton believes some of them must be good. His mother had been friends with an Aydarian 182
|
1 september 2019
|
indie
|
kirkus.com
|
In lyrical and sometimes-unsettling third-person narration, Orem offers dark speculations on the life and mind of Bram Stoker. miss lucy
MISS LUCY
that even her physician father would question her getting a cab to go 15 blocks, a walkable distance for many, including people who are old or pregnant and “people with arthritis who are just better than me.” Overall, the excellent character development lends depth and sweetness to the romance. Isabel’s relationship with Sasha helps her fight self-doubt and stand up for herself with laudable vigor, yet the novel never feels didactic. A highly recommended work that’s thoughtful, funny, wise, and tender.
Orem, William Gival Press (232 pp.)
WHAT DOG IS THAT?
Nicholls, Lois Illus. by Nicholls, Lara bee kind press (24 pp.) May 2, 2019 978-0-9804868-6-5
Australian author Lois Nicholls (Bye-bye Bikini, 2018, etc.) and illustrator Lara Nicholls (Aussie, Actually, 2012), a motherdaughter team, celebrate lovable canines in rhyme in their picture book. Tarna, a golden retriever, pals around with her human friend until he realizes that the dog’s gotten “quite smelly”— possibly from being in the paddock past the pond. Kane, a Great Dane, is “Not a pony...that’s BALONEY!” In nine rhyming poems with full-color paintings, the Nichollses introduce readers to a range of different dogs. The pups are of varied breeds, including apparent daisy-dog mutts and a goldendoodle (aka a groodle) as well as a more common Jack Russell terrier and a beagle. They all have diverse personalities and expressions: French bulldog Philippe loves cafes and “bling”; beagle Bonny is an adventurous traveler. The paintings are realistic and endearing, and each features a tiny bee for hidden-object searchers. The poems have intriguingly offbeat rhyme schemes; they may require practice for proper emphasis when read aloud. Some words are italicized, boldfaced, or capitalized, a distracting device that may confuse some newly independent readers. Vocabulary terms such as “torte” are defined in footnotes while other potentially unfamiliar words, such as the aforementioned “paddock,” are left unexplained. The book’s charming paintings will draw in animal lovers, and the poems’ catchy, irregular rhythms will encourage recitation.
y o u n g a d u lt
Orem (Killer of Crying Deer, 2010, etc.) delivers a fictionalized account of the life of Dracula author Bram Stoker and the incidents that led him to create one of literature’s greatest monsters. How does a single story command the high and low, the beautiful and the ghastly, the sacred and the profane? Or, as this novel asks, how does a single man contain these multitudes? In flowing, lyrical, and sometimes-unsettling third-person narration, Orem offers dark speculations on the life and mind of Abraham “Bram” Stoker. As the novel tells it, Bram is haunted from a young age—first by his own childhood illness and then, possibly, by literal ghosts. Despite the fact that his father seemed to give up on the possibility that he’d thrive or succeed in life, Stoker eventually joins the Lyceum Theatre as an aide to renowned actor Henry Irving. But life behind the footlights is not all well, and although Bram gets the opportunity to mix with high society and literary idols such as Arthur Conan Doyle, Walt Whitman, and Oscar Wilde, he remains very much in Irving’s shadow. The book is at its most powerful when the distant narration combines with Bram’s psychology to create a feverish, even horrifying landscape of thought; on the one hand, Bram idolizes Irving and treasures his own proximity to greatness, but on the other, he’s sickened by his own lack of literary success and seems overcome by envy. He’s also shown to be torn between his wife, Florence—a beautiful, aristocratic woman who’s emblematic of the society he wishes to join—and Lujzi Sido, a sweatshop worker who lives in squalid conditions but who makes him feel more alive than anyone else does. Personal and historical parallels later appear in Stoker’s greatest work, as faith, class differences, violence, beauty, and death coalesce in the figure of Dracula. But intriguingly, where Bram sees himself in that tale remains a constantly moving target. A brilliant and imaginative tale of love, death, and literature.
THE ROGUE KING Inferno Rising
Owen, Abigail Entangled: Amara (400 pp.) $7.99 paper | $3.99 e-book | Jul. 30, 2019 978-1-64063-531-9 A dragon shifter and exiled king gets more than he bargained for when he discovers a fiery and passionate phoenix in this paranormal romance. Brand Astarot, a dragon shifter and rightful heir to his family’s gold throne, is driven by a single goal. He seeks revenge against Uther Hagan, the man responsible for the murders of his parents and siblings and the loss of his |
kirkus.com
|
indie
|
1 september 2019
|
183
clan’s throne. For centuries, Brand has worked as a mercenary for King Ladon Ormarr, accepting the toughest assignments while developing a plan to avenge the killings. His latest mission takes him to a medical facility in Cheyenne, Wyoming, and a young woman described as a “supernova” by a staff member. The patient is Kasia Amon, a rare phoenix whose powers include prophetic visions. If Brand brings Kasia to Ladon, he will secure the support of the king’s clan and have the leverage he needs to defeat Uther. But Kasia is accustomed to life on the run, and she escapes from the facility. Undeterred, Brand pursues her, and they embark on a harrowing journey to Ladon’s clan in Ben Nevis, Scotland. Along the way, they discover they share a powerful and profound physical and emotional connection. Although Brand promised Kasia to Ladon, his desire to claim her as his mate leads him to reconsider this scheme. When Uther discovers Kasia is a phoenix, Brand is locked in a race to protect the woman he loves. This first installment of Owen’s (The Rookie, 2019, etc.) Inferno Rising series is an engaging and compulsively readable love story with the right mix of action and eroticism. Kasia and Brand are appealing protagonists whose slow-burn romance is punctuated by passionate chemistry and spirited and witty dialogue (“Who put you in charge?” “I’m your mate.” “That doesn’t mean a damn thing, lizard boy”). They are surrounded by a large and well-developed cast of supporting characters and a panoply of supernatural beings, including Brand’s friend and protector Ladon; Hershel, a demon who runs a very unusual biker bar; and Pytheios Chandali, a king who wanted Kasia’s mother, Serefina, and ultimately murdered her father. The sprawling narrative takes Kasia and Brand on a long journey from Wyoming to Scotland, but the author’s confident storytelling keeps the narrative moving at a brisk clip. The novel is perfect for fans of Sherrilyn Kenyon and Kelley Armstrong. An irresistibly sexy suspense tale.
with a representation of a different element—water, light, and earth—and they soon discover that lifting the respective lids causes those elements to pour forth. The trio consults Grandpa Stone, who has helped them in the past. In medieval Albion, meanwhile, the sorceress Hextilda wreaks havoc in Camelot as revenge for her parents’ murders by the king. The wizard Azahti plans to recover the three pieces of the magical artifact called The Treskelion to defeat Hextilda. He has help from Sophokles, an owl, and Bianor, a dragon, but he also envisions the arrival of three children from “another existence” who will be instrumental to his cause. In this installment, Procopio’s heroes are hardly any older but quite a bit wiser when it comes to dealing with magical objects and situations. Still, the kids finish their homework and chores and get practical advice from Grandpa Stone (“Never start smoking and you’ll avoid health issues later in life”). The suspense of when and how the crew will travel to Camelot is amplified by the presence of Tory’s eccentric Aunt Flossy. Procopio’s prose is a vocabulary builder, as when Chelzy uses the word “concomitant,” to Matthew’s surprise. Later, in the Forest of Desperate Souls, Azahti eloquently tells the children about peace, saying, “Many living people have it right before them but do not recognize it or cherish it.” A crisp finale—and the hint of summer vacation shenanigans—prepares readers for a potential future volume. Intellectually curious preteens model heroism in this engaging fantasy tale.
ACCORDION STORIES FROM THE HEART
Ramunni, Angelo Paul Photos by Homolka, Jerry Self (170 pp.) $39.95 | Sep. 1, 2018 978-0-9761766-1-9
CHELZY STONE’S MEDIEVAL QUEST
A coffee-table book pays tribute to the accordion and the people who have been enchanted by its “calming and
Procopio, Lucille RoseLamp Publications (260 pp.) $14.95 paper | $7.99 e-book Nov. 18, 2015 978-0-9860607-1-7
happy voice.” This beautifully designed work by Ramunni (Left Turn, Right Turn, U-Turn, 2011) chronicles his efforts—in conjunction with the New England Accordion Connection & Museum in Canaan, Connecticut—to amass a large collection of accordions. An unexpected but moving byproduct of this project is a large assemblage of stories about the people who sold or donated those instruments to the museum. The author is a life-long accordion aficionado himself, here remembering the teasing he got for playing “the squeezebox” while growing up on Long Island in the 1950s and ’60s. The museum offers visitors a chance to play accordions. In the course of those encounters, Ramunni has often seen people awash in sentimental memories of embracing the instruments when they were younger: “It is often like seeing two people, who were the best of friends in their childhood, suddenly meet again by chance after being apart for many years. It can be an emotional time.” Those heightened feelings of recognition and nostalgia run through
Procopio’s (Chelzy Stone’s Mystical Quest in the Lost and Found Game, 2013) middle-grade sequel brings the trio of adventurers to a medieval Camelot
under threat. Sixth-grader Tory Herold has an uncle who collects antiques. Uncle Tony’s latest find is a game stored in a beautiful chest. The seller tells him that it “will only open for a young person or someone on a quest for something extraordinary.” Tory and her friends Chelzy and Matthew Stone (who are in the 5th and 7th grades, respectively) wait a few weeks until spring break before opening it, expecting another otherworldly adventure. The chest reveals three smaller boxes, each engraved 184
|
1 september 2019
|
indie
|
kirkus.com
|
Rana does a fine job of capturing the emotions of the characters, making the novel a satisfying, if bleak, read. wild boar in the cane field
many of the tales the author relates. A woman named Carol tells him about her Uncle Vinnie, who only knew how to perform three songs on the accordion he was eventually buried with. There’s a story of a man who taught himself to play the instrument while sitting in a coal shed; a heartwarming reminiscence revolves around a survivor of Russia’s Communist regime who was left virtually nothing by the state except his accordion. Readers also learn about a valuable accordion presented to Pope Pius XII in 1943. The author clearly doesn’t intend his book to be a history of the accordion. He makes passing reference to its surprising antiquity, dating back to ancient China, but his focus is on far more recent and mostly American conceptions of the instrument. In addition, he doesn’t see this slim volume as any kind of study of accordion music or the mechanics of the instrument. This is an entirely inviting, beginner-friendly work, one that seeks to spread the word rather than instruct specialists. “Just as we have a heart beat as generated by our hearts,” Ramunni writes, “the accordion has a tempo that we give it every time we play a song.” The gallery of short, richly impressionistic stories the author has heard in his quest to add accordions to his enormous collection serves to stress the strong communal aspect of both the music and the instruments. The sheer love and passion involved are easily visible in the lavish book’s dozens of color images by debut photographer Homolka of gorgeous accordions, some of them as intricately exquisite as any prized violin or piano. And that enthusiasm is mirrored in the vibrant vignettes the owners shared with Ramunni—tales of family, wine, celebration, and love. A vivid and surprisingly involving work about accordions and the stories they inspire.
from the bodies and disappeared behind the bushes.” Rana is a vivid writer with a talent for evocative metaphors (“Tea stains are nothing compared with how my life has been marked”), and her prose is full of intimate, detailed descriptions that make the book’s rural setting come to life. The story isn’t a happy one, so readers should expect to encounter a constant stream of malaise throughout the book, which takes place in the somewhat recent past; there are televisions but no computers. Tara’s arrogance (“She looked old, and I felt even more beautiful. But I didn’t have enough feelings to feel sorry for her”) makes her both compelling and unsympathetic as a protagonist, and her frequent complaints may wear on the reader. Still, Rana does a fine job of capturing the emotions of the characters, making it a satisfying, if bleak, read. A coming-of-age story that blends excellent prose with a downbeat plot.
HINDSIGHT Coming of Age on the Streets of Hollywood
y o u n g a d u lt
Recinos, Sheryl Self (388 pp.) $18.00 paper | $9.99 e-book Oct. 3, 2018 978-1-73285-000-2
A writer recounts her experiences of adolescent homelessness in this comingof-age memoir. At the age of 5, Recinos (Haiku, 2019, etc.) already knew she wanted new parents. Her father’s frequent rages and her mother’s erratic behavior stemming from bipolar disorder had already driven three of her older siblings from the house. When she was 8, her mother took her and her remaining brother to a trailer to hide out from their father. A few weeks later, after the heater broke, her mother left the two children alone on the side of a mountain road. Her parents divorced; her mother was in and out of hospitals; and her father soon remarried. Her father had the author hospitalized at 11, where she met other troubled youth in group therapy: “I’d quizzed the older kids on foster care, group homes, running away. I was learning about alcohol, marijuana, and harder drugs. I didn’t want to try drugs, but alcohol sounded like it might be a nice change from feeling trapped. I wanted to feel free.” As her life became increasingly unbearable, Recinos began routinely running away from home. At 13, while hitchhiking to California, she was raped by an ex-convict. She was soon placed in the care of the state, bouncing between juvenile detention, foster parents, and group residences before becoming homeless at 16. Drifting across the country and developing a drinking problem, she befriended other girls with similar lives and backgrounds as her own, one of whom was later brutally murdered by her boyfriend. At 17, the author found herself pregnant with few options. She needed to figure out a way to get sober and off the street, if not for her, then for her unborn child. Recinos’ prose is haunting and oftentimes surreal, as in this
WILD BOAR IN THE CANE FIELD
Rana, Anniqua She Writes Press (238 pp.) $16.95 paper | Sep. 17, 2019 978-1-63152-668-8 An orphaned girl lives an eventful life in rural Punjab in Rana’s debut novel. Tara lives in a Punjabi village with Bibi Saffiya and Saffiya’s servant Amman Bhaggan, who found the infant Tara abandoned on a train. The girl grows up in a position that’s part daughter and part servant, raised alongside Bhaggan’s three sons and Maria, the daughter of laborers who work for Saffiya. Tara is convinced that she deserves the best in life, like the attention of Sultan, Bhaggan’s eldest son, even though he has no interest in her. Her pursuit of him ends in tragedy—one of many in the book. In an effort to avoid becoming the second wife of an abusive man, Tara sleeps with Bhaggan’s second son, Taaj, and ends up marrying the third, Malik, but further losses await the characters, and the book’s final section is narrated by the swarms of flies that have been observing Tara and the other characters throughout their lives: “We, the flies, disentangled ourselves |
kirkus.com
|
indie
|
1 september 2019
|
185
account of her pet rat and an attempted rape by a truck driver: “I woke up in the early morning hours to find the truck driver trying to unbutton my pants. My eyes flew open, and my knee kicked him hard in the groin. My rat was standing up on top of me, staring at him. He mumbled those unforgettable words; ‘I was going to rape you, but then I saw your rat.’ ” The volume gives a highly detailed picture of the experience of homelessness among teenage girls in all its horrid complexities. It also demonstrates the ways that youthful traumas, when unaddressed, can fester and cause increasingly severe problems as children age. The author’s portraits of her family, friends, and the many people she met along the way are rich and often heartrending, as is the frankness with which she discusses their misfortunes. It’s a long book (over 370 pages), but it is never boring, and readers will leave it feeling that they have lived every year right along with Recinos. The fact that her story has a surprisingly happy ending (as the initials “MD” after her name on the memoir’s cover attest) does little to blunt the sting that this gritty narrative of homelessness and young womanhood leaves in its wake. A perceptive and moving account of growing up fast in harsh conditions.
and features moments of unexpected beauty, as here when he describes being stationed across the border from Basra, Iraq: “Under blackout conditions, from our highest perimeter wall, I still couldn’t see the lights of Basra, just a lime-green smudge in a sky punctured by hard stars that made it look like a nebula.” As much an account of America’s involvement in Kuwait and Iraq as it is a personal narrative, the book provides a humanizing insight into the individuals who fight the nation’s wars and the deeper motivations that explain why they do so. A compelling and well-crafted combination of history and autobiography.
MICROSOFT WORD IN 30 MINUTES Make a Bigger Impact With Your Documents and Master the Writing, Formatting, and Collaboration Tools in Word 2019 and Word Online
Rose, Angela i30 Media (104 pp.) $19.99 | $12.99 paper | $8.99 e-book Apr. 2, 2018 978-1-64188-030-5 978-1-64188-029-9 paper
BAGHDADDY How Saddam Hussein Taught Me To Be a Better Father
Part of a series on computer programs and social media platforms, this guide teaches the basics of Microsoft Word and gives tips for making the most of it. Rose (PowerPoint Basics in 30 Minutes, 2017, etc.) is devoted to Microsoft Word. “I cannot imagine working as a freelance writer without it,” she maintains. Anticipating anxiety about upgrading to Word 2019, she reassures readers that it’s familiar from the 2013 and 2016 versions: “The interface is super intuitive and a snap to learn.” Throughout this second edition of her manual, she helpfully notes the differences between the Windows and Mac versions and discusses the particulars of Word Online, which is free to access but has “reduced functionality.” From the Backstage view through the customizable Ribbon to document protection options, the book covers everything that beginners need to know while peppering in “Protips” that will help intermediate users employ Word more effectively. Acknowledging that the software may be used in academic, office, and personal settings, the work highlights a wide range of features, such as utilizing citation tools, applying styles and themes to a whole document, converting text to a table, inserting photos and videos, and operating the new Draw feature. Screenshots serve as apt illustrations. At times, the volume appears a little too basic (like a “For Dummies” guide), as in “press the Word 2019 icon on your desktop,” and “check to see if your printer is turned on.” Certain tasks, such as applying bold or italics, are so self-explanatory they hardly warrant a mention. Rose doesn’t always seem attuned to contemporary computer use patterns—“You will eventually want to print the document” isn’t true in an increasingly paperless society. Some readers may find her persistent cat stories annoying, too. Such authorial
Riley, Bill Brown Books Publishing Group (456 pp.) $26.95 | $9.99 e-book | May 7, 2019 978-1-61254-292-8
A kid with a difficult childhood learns to be a capable Air Force officer and father in this debut military memoir. Saddam Hussein is not often cited as an influence in childrearing tactics, but retired Lt. Col. Riley learned some relevant lessons during the decade-plus he spent serving as part of the bulwark against the dictator’s rule. “I saw firsthand what Saddam Hussein did to Kuwait by traveling it from end to end, and I touched the scars he left behind,” recalls the author of the tour he spent in Kuwait in 1999, right before his son was born. “I also spent time with survivors of the invasion who were building a good life for themselves and a better Kuwait.” This mission— cleaning up the destruction left behind by a figure of authority— mirrored, to some extent, the work Riley had been doing since his own childhood, and it gave him the confidence he needed for his own impending fatherhood. With this memoir, he tells of his formative years with his violent, mentally ill mother and often absent father and how their combustive household led him to seek the structure of the Air Force. During his career as an intelligence analyst—a job that was largely defined by America’s wars against the Iraqi strongman—the author evolved from a kid out of high school seeking validation to an expert in his field. More importantly, he grew to be the kind of man who did not pass on the sins of his parents. Riley’s prose is exact 186
|
1 september 2019
|
indie
|
kirkus.com
|
The guide’s tone is consistently positive and encouraging even when the author discusses touchy topics. my toddler’s first words
GLOWFLIES ON THE FACE OF GOD
presence (including “I personally…” usage notes) is unnecessary in a software guide, though it makes for a conversational tone. The end matter—including an index and an appendix of keyboard shortcuts—is particularly helpful, as is the advice on document recovery. Despite the title, plan on needing closer to an hour to work through the book. Microsoft Word made simple in this valuable, userfriendly manual.
Sidanius, Miriam Manuscript
MY TODDLER’S FIRST WORDS A Step-by-Step Guide to Jump-Start, Track, and Expand Your Toddler’s Language Scanlon, Kimberly O. CreateSpace (146 pp.) $12.95 paper | May 24, 2019 978-1-978371-90-3
Scanlon (Gratitude Journal for Kids, 2019, etc.), a pediatric speechlanguage pathologist, presents a guide to help parents understand, analyze, and enhance their children’s language development. Learning one’s native tongue is an integral part of childhood—and one that often worries parents. Scanlon has created a rich handbook and workbook to give parents “competence and confidence” in language instruction. She begins by educating readers about early childhood language in order to show parents what to expect from their children and thus select appropriate “target words” for them. The author also provides four work sheets, designed to quickly analyze a toddler’s current level of language learning and determine directions for future growth. The next section is vital, as it lays out eight techniques to elicit first words (such as “Pause in Anticipation” and “Imitate, imitate, imitate”) as well as tips on creating a language-rich environment. Parents may already be employing some of these techniques on their own, but Scanlon effectively demonstrates each one to give readers clear notions of her language-enriching tools. The ideas for creating a language-rich environment, such as “hanging interesting pictures, postcards, maps, or photographs on walls…and chatting about them,” seem particularly beneficial. Finally, Scanlon provides a 30-day workbook that includes weekly planning sections and reviews and simple, repeated questions for each day, such as “What three things did I do today to encourage my toddler’s first words?” and “What will I do tomorrow to stimulate or further develop my toddler’s first words?” Throughout, the author draws heavily on peerreviewed research, yet she always makes the material easy to comprehend. The tone is consistently positive and encouraging even when the author discusses touchy topics, such as limiting screen time. Lastly, the work’s intuitive organization and creative formatting make it a comfortable reading experience. An exceptional parenting book with clear-cut applications.
|
kirkus.com
|
indie
|
1 september 2019
|
y o u n g a d u lt
A spacegoing researcher who studies the religious folklore of aliens dangerously violates noninterference protocols. Sidanius’ (Five Blocks Down, 2016) sci-fi novel introduces Li, part of a nomadic race called Spacefarers. Eons ago, their king refused a god’s harsh command to sacrifice a child. As punishment, their home world became engulfed by their sun, with the Spacefarers taking to the stars. Now, with evolved bodies granting them translucent forms that allow chameleonlike camouflage, they travel the cosmos as secret recorders of traditions and folktales of alien species—especially recurring “sacrifice narratives.” It turns out that many species hear deities demanding the ritualistic killings of animals or their own kind. Li is more sensitive than most Spacefarers after witnessing numerous slaughters. On the drought-stricken world of Plena, she monitors a “holy man” called Bram about to kill his own son to appease the heavens. Unable to stand by impartially, Li calls from her hiding place and prevents the sacrifice. Subsequently, she is tormented by her action and whether to tell her superiors that she violated a prime directive of noninterference. Moreover, Li receives visions of lives and mores on Plena drastically altered by her meddling. This novel is, of course, an adaptation of the Old Testament tale of Abraham (Bram) and Isaac. But the book never becomes a hoary, sci-fi shaggy god story with rocket-ship versions of Adam, Eve, or Noah as the punchlines. Sidanius’ prose is limpid and unhurried (perhaps a trifle too unhurried) and suffused with melancholy as Spacefarers gather centuries of ethnographic data. This is apparently a bid to come to existential terms with their own expelled-from-Eden condition (nobody discusses investigating the mysterious holy spirits). There’s an ever-so-metaphorical detail that to survive space, the Spacefarers’ adapted anatomy eliminated hearts—though consciencestricken Li continually feels twinges from her “phantom” one. Her empathetic qualities make her shed the cold impartiality of a detached field researcher. While traditional sci-fi notions— Einsteinian relativity and quantum entanglement—figure into the plot, there seems to be a deliberate attempt to steer clear of the white-lab-coat exposition of hard sci-fi and technology and render the material fablelike. Even when Li takes desperate action, it’s far from zap guns and straining warp engines. Fans of Ursula K. Le Guin, Doris Lessing, and other humanist, anthropology-minded sci-fi masters are the ideal readership. An intriguing, introspective, and parablelike sci-fi/ fantasy tale with moralistic edgings, more idea-based than thrill-oriented.
187
WRITING IS ESSENTIAL Use the Skills You’ve Got To Get the Job Done
CONCESSION STREET SECRETS
Smith, Ralph F. FriesenPress (300 pp.) $22.99 | $13.99 paper | $4.99 e-book Apr. 17, 2019 978-1-5255-4754-6 978-1-5255-4755-3 paper
Ed. by Slaughter, Judine United Black Writers Association (100 pp.) $17.95 paper | $7.99 e-book Sep. 30, 2019 978-1-73397-670-1
In this historical mystery, an intersex detective attempts to save her unrequited love from execution. Canada, 1868. Alex O’Shea really wants to be a detective but instead works as a journalist and novelist, authoring mysteries to satisfy his crime-solving urges. While on assignment in Ottawa, he encounters a woman dressed in black who seems not to know where she is despite having lived all her life in the town. Mary Baker is kept as a veritable prisoner in her house by her own relatives, and the smitten Alex feels compelled to discover more about her. Eliza Malkins works as a printer for a Kingston newspaper, where her male co-workers ridicule her large size and resent her for doing “a job that rightfully belonged to a man.” She has feelings for Alex but fears to act on them due to her secret: She has both male and female sexual organs. When the death of her mother finally allows her the opportunity to try something new, Eliza decides to live as a man named Timothy Fairlight. As Tim, she aids Alex in his ever-more-obsessive investigation into the lives of the Bakers until, in an ironic twist of events, Alex becomes the suspect in a murder. Now Eliza—or rather, Tim—must assume the role of sleuth to prove Alex’s innocence. Smith’s (Deep Bright, 2013) prose is delightfully ominous, creating a gothic atmosphere that adeptly recalls the novel’s Victorian setting: “The street was deserted. The tall houses seemed to be leaning over to conspire with each other. He stepped in horse manure and used a pocket handkerchief to wipe it off. He risked walking under a streetlight to read his pocket watch, 11:58.” The identity-shifting Eliza makes for an intriguing hero with desires that are simultaneously familiar and complex. While the other characters mostly hew closely to their archetypes, the story is satisfying in the heightened way of a good whodunit. In the author’s capable hands, Ottawa and Kingston have never seemed so mysterious. A moody gothic tale that deftly explores gender fluidity in a genre setting.
The founder of a nonprofit group for African American writers interviews diverse authors about their journeys to publication. Slaughter (Clear Skinned, 2002) founded the United Black Writers Association after realizing that she “didn’t see many people of color presenting at writer’s conferences.” In this inspiring book—the organization’s first publication—she sits down with a half-dozen authors in a range of genres to talk about their backgrounds, processes, paths to getting published, and suggestions for novices. The core message: “just write!” Each interview is presented in a Q-and-A format, with Slaughter quizzing participants about the writing life. One woman wrote a picture book inspired by stories her father told her. Another turned to producing fiction after a layoff, and a third explains that his books were born from his experiences as a minister. Every author has a different history, but the overarching theme is the same—that some tales need to be told and that with persistence and concentration, writers can see their words come to life on the page. This urge to share stories is particularly acute for black authors, who are wrestling with a long legacy of being silenced. “This work has to be done. Our history is in the social landscape. We have to write about it,” says Angela Puryear-McDuffie, who collected tales from people in her Washington, D.C., neighborhood in order to craft a narrative history of the community. Several writers are self-published while others opted for a more traditional route. But all have sage counsel for beginners about the importance of discipline and the value of a good editor. They also share tips on marketing a work and balancing writing with a 9-to-5 career. While those seeking nuts-and-bolts advice might not find what they’re looking for here, Slaughter provides a beneficial service by showing how authors turned their ideas into books. Though focused specifically on African American writers, any reader dreaming about becoming an author will find support here. Everyone has a story and anyone can become an author according to this encouraging and worthy book.
188
|
1 september 2019
|
indie
|
kirkus.com
|
The protagonist’s emotional responses are raw and convincing, as when she cries alone in a parking lot. the woman in the park
THE 100 GREATEST COMPOSERS & THEIR MUSICAL WORKS An Introduction to the Fascinating World of Classical Music
THE WOMAN IN THE PARK
Sorkin, Teresa & Holmqvist, Tullan Beaufort Books (224 pp.) $24.95 | Aug. 26, 2019 978-0-8253-0899-4
Smook, Gary A. FriesenPress (379 pp.) $33.99 | $28.99 paper | Jun. 10, 2019 978-1-5255-3785-1 978-1-5255-3786-8 paper
A comprehensive introduction to the world of classical music makes a case for the 100 greatest composers. Intended as an entry point for those interested in the subject but who lack knowledge, this debut book offers an overview of the history of classical music and Smook’s list of the greatest composers, beginning in the Baroque period and ending with 20th-century giants. The volume’s ranking relies on a six-tier rating system for composers based on “the aesthetic importance of their major musical works; the overall substance of their musical legacy; their innovations in musical form and style; their influence on other composers.” In the first and highest tier, the author lists Bach, Mozart, and Beethoven. Unsurprisingly, German and Austrian composers are the most represented in Smook’s conservative list. Each composer entry delivers a brief biography and includes a section on the artist’s musical legacy. The author offers this description of Chopin’s legacy (the Polish composer is in Tier 3 of Smook’s rating): “Chopin created or developed a number of new forms of solo piano music to exploit his poetic use of the instrument.” The legacy sections include samplings of the composers’ popular works. There are also miniprofiles of artists who almost made the top 100 list (among them, Anton Webern—musical cousin to Schoenberg—and the Estonian minimalist composer Arvo Pärt). The author’s descriptions are a bit dry though the book is intended for neophyte listeners. The brief overview of classical music history effectively avoids jargon and includes clear definitions of musical terms (for example, “cantata” and “recitative music”). In the introduction, the author admits to no formal musical training and confesses that he doesn’t play an instrument. The work adds nothing new to interpretations of classical music (“I am not presenting new information,” Smook asserts). The volume also suffers from a bizarre insistence on categorization—“Remember that music falls into four basic categories,” he tells readers, which he identifies as Orchestral, Chamber, Keyboard, and Vocal. Still, the book should serve as a helpful and handy guide to those new to the genre. This compendium of musical biographies offers useful insights and accessible descriptions of various styles, composers, and periods.
|
kirkus.com
|
indie
|
1 september 2019
|
y o u n g a d u lt
In Sorkin and Holmqvist’s debut thriller, a married woman meets an alluring stranger and later becomes a criminal suspect. Manhattanite Sarah Rock is certain that her husband, Eric, has been having an affair with his co-worker Juliette. Sarah, who has suffered from depression in the past, is experiencing “blackout periods” and having nightmares about her spouse and his suspected mistress. As a result, she’s been seeing therapist Helena Robin for months. With her two children away at boarding school, Sarah feels like she’s lost her sense of purpose. Then, one day in Central Park, she meets a handsome, charming man named Lawrence. Despite the brevity of their initial, platonic encounter, Sarah can’t get the stranger off her mind, and subsequent park-bench rendezvous quickly lead to an affair. Weeks later, the police visit Sarah to ask her questions about a missing person case. They’re looking for a woman whom Sarah has seen at the park; it turns out that Lawrence may have a connection to her, so Sarah is reluctant to tell the cops anything. More bombshells follow, and after the cops accuse Sarah of a very serious crime, she starts to realize that her sense of reality may be distorted. The authors’ sharply written and persistently tense tale is divided into two parts: The first follows Sarah’s growing relationship with Lawrence, and the latter offers a series of shocking revelations. Throughout, Sarah is an enigmatic, continually evolving protagonist. Readers are privy to Dr. Robin’s periodic notes, for example, which make it clear that Sarah has something buried in her past. Still, Sarah remains sympathetic, as her candid perspective makes her eventual paranoia seem reasonable. Her emotional responses are raw and convincing, as when she cries alone in a parking lot or examines her body for presumed flaws. Some readers will likely foresee a major plot turn before Sarah does, but her valiant attempts to make sense of what’s happening spark unexpected twists. A delightfully complex mystery with a compelling protagonist.
189
BEYOND THE MOON
truth about their fate, she races to find Lovett before they are separated forever. Taylor’s accomplished, genre-bending book succeeds as a historical novel and a beguiling timetravel romance. Casson and Lovett are appealing protagonists whose relationship is the story’s emotional center. They are surrounded by a well-developed supporting cast, including Kerry, Casson’s confidante, and gallery owner Edgar Brocklebank, Lovett’s friend and mentor. The sharply written narrative deftly moves back and forth between the past and present as Casson tries to learn more about the circumstances that led her to Lovett. Their realities are vividly rendered, and their individual tales could stand alone as separate narratives. In particular, Taylor’s depiction of Lovett’s and Casson’s wartime experiences is unflinching but never gratuitous (“If the war didn’t want you, that didn’t mean you’d struck lucky: it meant you had missing limbs or eyes, were paralysed by spinal injuries, or mentally ill with shell shock—or permanently disabled from the inhalation of poison gas. What sort of future awaited men like that?”). A poignant and stirring love story that should appeal to fans of historical and fantasy fiction.
Taylor, Catherine The Cameo Press (494 pp.) $14.99 paper | $4.99 e-book Jun. 26, 2019 978-1-916093-21-8 An unlikely twist of fate connects a British World War I soldier and a young woman living in modern-day England in this debut novel. Lt. Robert Lovett is a dedicated British officer fighting in World War I. He is also a talented artist; his paintings depicting the realities of war are selected for a major exhibition. But by August 1916, his future as a soldier and artist is in doubt. While recovering in Coldbrook Hall Military Hospital in Sussex from injuries sustained during the Somme campaign, he is diagnosed with hysterical blindness. More than a century later, in 2017, Louisa Casson is admitted to Coldbrook after a drunken mishap on the Sussex Downs cliffs is mistaken for a suicide attempt. While exploring an abandoned wing of the building, Casson hears a man crying for help and enters Lovett’s room. At first, she believes he may be a patient who thinks he is a World War I soldier or that he is “a product of her anxious, agitated mind.” Eventually, Casson discovers the deserted wing is a portal to the past. Lovett regains his sight and they fall in love, but they are separated when he rejoins his regiment. Desperate to find him, Casson returns to the past as a nurse. When she learns the shocking
THE WISDOM OF THE COVENANTS AND THEIR RELEVANCE TO OUR TIMES
Watt, John AuthorHouse (396 pp.) $42.99 | $28.99 paper | $0.99 e-book Jan. 4, 2019 978-1-5462-7397-4 978-1-5462-7396-7 paper
This Issue’s Contributors #
A tour of the Bible proposes an antidote to today’s spiritual crisis. According to Watt (Saving Lives in Wartime China, 2015), readers live in morally challenged times, and their spiritual despair, accentuated by the experience of war and genocide, cannot be ameliorated by the secular materialism that helped establish it. And yet the “world at the beginning of the 21st century is itself in bondage to materialism.” But a proper response to this loss of moral direction can be found in the teachings of the Bible, specifically its articulation of the covenant that exists between God and humankind that is based on love, mercy, and justice. In order to illuminate the nature of that covenant, the author first provides an overview of the structure of the Bible and, with impressive erudition and lucidity, furnishes guidance regarding its interpretation. Then he examines the character of the covenant as expressed in the Bible, the exemplar of which is God’s promise to Moses and the Israelites, a story that illustrates the manner in which a people came to fully acknowledge the nature of the divine as it expresses itself in mortal life. Finally, Watt astutely applies that theological worldview to the contemporary problems that plague humanity, including the dissolution of marriage, the rise of inequality, and the degradation of the environment. At the heart of the author’s ingeniously original thesis
ADULT Colleen Abel • Maude Adjarian • Jeff Alford • Paul Allen • Poornima Apte • Mark Athitakis • Joseph Barbato • Gerald Bartell • Adam benShea • Sarah Blackman • Amy Boaz • Lee E. Cart • Kristin Centorcelli • Carin Clevidence • Perry Crowe • Dave DeChristopher • Kathleen Devereaux • Amanda Diehl • Bobbi Dumas • Daniel Dyer • Lisa Elliott • Kristen Evans • Mia Franz • Harvey Freedenberg Amy Goldschlager • Michael Griffith • Janice Harayda • Peter Heck • Katrina Niidas Holm • Natalia Holtzman • Laura Jenkins • Jessica Jernigan • Skip Johnson • Jayashree Kambel • Damini Kulkarni Tom Lavoie • Louise Leetch • Judith Leitch • Peter Lewis • Elsbeth Lindner • Karen Long • Michael Magras • Don McLeese • Gregory McNamee • Clayton Moore • Karen Montgomery Moore • Sarah Morgan • Jennifer Nabers • Christopher Navratil • Sarah Neilson • Liza Nelson • Mike Newirth Mike Oppenheim • Sarah Parker-Lee • Jim Piechota • Steve Potter • Margaret Quamme • Carolyn Quimby • Stephanie Reents • Karen Rigby • Michele Ross • Lloyd Sachs • Leslie Safford • Bob Sanchez • Rosanne Simeone • Linda Simon • Clay Smith • Wendy Smith • Kirby Sokolow • Margot E. Spangenberg • Charles Taylor • Bill Thompson • Claire Trazenfeld • Jessica Miller • Steve Weinberg Joan Wilentz • Kerry Winfrey • Marion Winik • Bean Yogi CHILDREN’S & TEEN Lucia Acosta • Autumn Allen • Alison Anholt-White • Elizabeth Bird • Jessica Anne Bratt Christopher A. Brown • Timothy Capehart • Lisa Dennis • Eiyana Favers • Amy Seto Forrester • Ayn Reyes Frazee • Laurel Gardner • Carol Goldman • Hannah Gomez • Gerry Himmelreich • Ariana Hussain • Kathleen T. Isaacs • Elizabeth Leanne Johnson • Deborah Kaplan • K. Lesley Knieriem • Jan LaBonty PhD • Megan Dowd Lambert • Angela Leeper • Pooja Makhijani • Joan Malewitz • Michelle H. Martin PhD • J. Alejandro Mazariegos • Mary Margaret Mercado • J. Elizabeth Mills • Tori Ann Ogawa • Hal Patnott • Deb Paulson • John Edward Peters • Susan Pine • Rebecca Rabinowitz • Amy B. Reyes • Nancy Thalia Reynolds • Erika Rohrbach • Katie Scherrer • John W. Shannon • Edward T. Sullivan • Deborah Taffa • Christina Vortia • Angela Wiley • S.D. Winston INDIE Alana Abbott • Rebecca Leigh Anthony • Kent Armstrong • Charles Cassady • Michael Deagler Stephanie Dobler Cerra • Steve Donoghue • Megan Elliott • Joshua Farrington • Eric F. Frazier • Justin Hickey • Elizabeth Kazandzhi • Ivan Kenneally • Maureen Liebenson • Barbara London • Mandy Malone • Joshua T. Pederson • Jamison Pfeifer • Alicia Power • Sarah Rettger • Barry Silverstein
190
|
1 september 2019
|
indie
|
kirkus.com
|
in memoriam: anne larsen
SURGE
Whittaker, Michelle Great Weather for Media (100 pp.) $17.00 paper | Jul. 1, 2017 978-0-9981440-1-6 A debut poetry collection documents what comes after trauma. Life, in a sense, is lived in the aftermath. The pivotal incident (or events) varies, but anyone who has lived for a while can mark the spot that divides before from after. Whittaker examines the after in this volume, with poems like “After the Funeral,” “In the Afterlife,” “After the Emergency,” and “In the Afterlight.” The poem “Identification,” which begins “After being attacked,” laments an ended love even as it examines its gruesome remainders: “I don’t / want to forget what we were / when it’s time for matters / of the brain studied on a tray, / or seen from dental decay / or like a four-handed duet folded / into an embalming fluid.” There are images of childhood trauma, as in this one from “A Mirror of a Mirror,” which is representative of the poet’s musical ear and playful use of white space: “I used to take red crayon / and scribble on homemade nail polish / and my would find out / and take that raw sienna belt / that whip, whip, whip / spoke with a witty rip / and by nightfall my hands / blossomed into numb and dumb.” Sparse and lyrical, these poems blur the lines between memory, dream, and the present, as in “Five Transient Moments,” which includes three visions of the seashore followed by a description of dehydration and then this startling scene: “During the dream: / A streetlight flickers. / Four men pass me. / They are English, bloody tired. / In an alley, / children stone each other / killing time. / I need to tell you / that I miscarried. / I can’t find your street.” In this thematically cohesive collection, Whittaker does not offer much for readers who are seeking a narrative. But the lines are good enough and the visions haunting enough that they will pull the audience deep into their fugue. Replete with the imagery of coasts and vanished loves, the pieces feel fragmentary and half-whispered, as though the poet knows they will inevitably be washed away in the next storm surge. Stark, effective, and often enigmatic poems of betrayals and laments.
Thomas Leitch is the mystery editor. |
kirkus.com
|
indie
|
1 september 2019
|
191
y o u n g a d u lt
At a time when the nation is ricocheting from the news of one mass shooting after another, it seems almost quaint to mourn the passing of a single friend and mentor who died at 78 from lung cancer. Yet the death of Anne Larsen, who, from 1985 to 2005, served as fiction editor and then editor-in-chief of Kirkus Reviews, must sadden anyone who cares about the business of book reviewing. Recruited by Jim Kobak when Redbook, where she’d served as fiction editor, decided to move away from publishing short stories, Anne was a natural for Kirkus. Diminutive and soft-spoken, she rarely had harsh words for anyone and never lost her temper. Yet she was passionately committed to Anne Larsen the proposition that by writing without fear or favor, an independent journal could provide its readers with book reviews that, if they weren’t unbiased—for what is reviewing but the institutionally sanctioned expression of bias in favor of good books over bad?— were well informed, disinterested, economical, and bracingly direct in description and judgment. Anne, who like Grover Cleveland served two nonconsecutive terms (she took a brief break in 1994-95), ran a tight ship. She cast a wide net for prospective reviewers but held them to high standards and had no hesitation about disciplining or dismissing reviewers who slipped up. Although she had no particular appetite for puncturing inflated reputations, she presided over the annual MOBY Award for the most overrated book of the year with magisterial detachment. Her success as an editor depended on her ability to attract a group of reviewers she deeply trusted and then get out of their way. For two decades, she maintained Kirkus in her own exacting image by inspiring dozens of reviewers to follow her example. In an era of fake news and anything-goes online reviewing, her conviction that holding both books and reviews to the highest standards could make a difference in the world has never been more treasurable. —T.L.
is the notion that the world suffers from “androcentrism,” the unchecked rise of the “obstinacy of male hubris.” This imbalance in the earthly kingdom can be fixed only by a profound “transformation of consciousness,” from a “patriarchal world of phallocentric domination” to loving service to others. Watt’s mastery of the Bible is as remarkable as his explanations are transparent—if nothing else, this is a wonderful primer. And while he acknowledges that the book is primarily written for those who accept the main premises of the JudeoChristian tradition, its philosophically ambitious diagnosis of modernity should interest even the more secularly minded. A deeply meditative Bible introduction and a philosophically captivating account of how its wisdom could cure the world’s ailments.
22 THINGS
WHAT ARE YOU THINKING? How To Become More Intentional, Deliberate and Conscious With Your Thoughts
Widick, Jet North Coast Post (46 pp.) $11.95 paper | Mar. 22, 2019 978-0-578-48979-7
Wise, Darius “The Professor” WiseDecisions (176 pp.) $19.95 paper | $9.99 e-book Sep. 1, 2018 978-1-73262-590-7
Widick’s (Gluten Free Soul Pilot, 2017, etc.) latest poetry collection highlights the magic in the mundane. One of the key themes of this collection is that moments of wonder and miraculousness are hidden in the everyday. The author focuses on such details with energy and aplomb in her strongest pieces. One of the best is “destiny,” which tells of the simple joys of a summer evening outside one’s house: “In your backyard / Take a brain break / Free floating on the Alucia, / A vanguard / You don’t have to go far / Starry skies, mind tricks, pink sand / Jazzy sounds.” The author wonderfully shows how quickly little things like starry skies and jazz can give way to moments of rapture. Here and elsewhere, Widick writes in short bursts, but she pulls off the neat trick of maintaining a smooth flow even when her lines are brief. Less effective are the volume’s occasional monorhymes, particularly in the opening poem “collage”: “Words from many places / Reaching out and touching bases / Greetings, messages with traces / Of love filled warm embraces / Poems with smiling faces / What we are is Lucky Aces.” The unrelenting singsong manner here feels a bit too precious, and it may distract readers from the poet’s evident skill. But this small weakness is more than offset by the volume’s simple, effective design, directed by Kristen Alden, who works in a palette of black and white with poem titles that run vertically up the side of each page. This layout is arresting and has the happy effect of putting Widick’s titles and verses into a closer and more productive conversation than they might otherwise have. Mostly fun and energetic poems that also have a striking appearance.
A punchy, motivational exhortation to think deeply about life. Wise, a trainer/coach who hosted an online radio show, says his goal for this debut is “to infuse success principles with neuroscience in an easy to understand conversation.” For the most part, he succeeds. Much of the material falls into the power-ofpositive-thinking genre; the book boils down to the notion that one can accomplish almost anything with the right mindset. While this is a familiar self-improvement theme, the content is well packaged. There are 21 short chapters; each addresses a particular situation and concludes with specific action steps. This structure allows readers to isolate small, definable areas and resolve them individually rather than feel bulldozed by multifaceted problems that demand complex solutions. There is a great deal of flexibility; chapters stand alone and can be read in any order. The topics are intriguing; “You Have Been Misdiagnosed,” for example, notes how others’ perceptions can skew one’s judgment of oneself. The effect becomes clear in the questions the author asks: “Is there a decision that you made that was not truly what you wanted to do? Was that decision based on what someone else thought you should be doing or would be good at doing?” Some of Wise’s salient observations are eyeopening; e.g.: “When your beliefs are limiting beliefs, you will fight just as hard for them,” and “If you are only doing enough to get what you think you can have, you will never get what you actually want.” The writing style here is engaging and intimate. Wise’s voice is consultative yet friendly; his prose is constructed in “me-to-you” fashion, making it personal and nonthreatening, and he uses examples taken from his own life experience to drive home his points. He is relentlessly positive and encouraging yet has the ability to tell it like it is. Inspiring, infectious, and at times exhilarating; especially uplifting for anyone tormented by self-doubt.
K I R K US M E DI A L L C # Chairman H E R B E RT S I M O N President & Publisher M A RC W I N K E L M A N Chief Executive Officer M E G L A B O R D E KU E H N # Copyright 2019 by Kirkus Media LLC. KIRKUS REVIEWS (ISSN 1948- 7428) is published semimonthly by Kirkus Media LLC, 2600Via Fortuna, Suite 130, Austin, TX 78746. Subscription prices are: Digital & Print Subscription (U.S.) - 12 Months ($199.00) Digital & Print Subscription (International) - 12 Months ($229.00) Digital Only Subscription - 12 Months ($169.00) Single copy: $25.00. All other rates on request. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to Kirkus Reviews, PO Box 3601, Northbrook, IL 60065-3601. Periodicals Postage Paid at Austin, TX 78710 and at additional mailing offices.
192
|
1 september 2019
|
indie
|
kirkus.com
|
By the end, the reader is left with that wonderful sense of having truly been somewhere else for a while. jerkwater
180 DAYS TO NOVEMBER
JERKWATER
Wyn, Chase AuthorHouse (300 pp.) $33.95 | $19.95 paper | $4.99 e-book Apr. 17, 2019 978-1-5462-7802-3 978-1-72830-755-8 paper
Zerndt, Jamie Self (244 pp.) $11.95 paper | $6.99 e-book Jun. 16, 2019 978-1-07-284247-7
In Zerndt’s (The Roadrunner Cafe, 2016, etc.) literary novel, three lost souls cling together in an angry Wisconsin town. Orphaned Shawna Reynolds, who is Ojibwa, is a few years out of high school and desperate to get out of her hometown of Mercer, Wisconsin. She resents most white people, who’ve exhibited no shortage of racism. “The poor kid didn’t stand a chance,” thinks Shawna as she watches a young white boy fish with his father. “Whether he wanted to be or not, he was a racist-in-training. Half the kid’s heart was probably already polluted, and by the time he reached high school, his insides would be entirely black.” She gets on OK with her next-door neighbor Kay O’Brien, at least. Kay is mourning her recently deceased husband and worrying about her Alzheimer’s diagnosis. She mostly worries about what will happen to her son, who doesn’t yet know about the disease. That son, Douglas O’Brien, is doing his best to keep the family auto repair shop from going under, feeling responsible for the death of his father, hanging out with Shawna, and making drawings that nobody ever sees in his sketchbook. The three form a moody family unit of sorts, attempting to protect one another from the rest of the world, but when a local dispute over fishing rights turns into a larger conflict about race, the wounds that each of them has been nursing threaten to rupture. Zerndt’s prose is smooth and matter-of-fact: “As they waited at a stoplight in town, Shawna found herself staring at a fire hydrant. It resembled a little girl in a red coat, and, for some reason, this little girl looked to Shawna like she was about to jump off the sidewalk into traffic.” Kay and Douglas are compelling characters, but Shawna steals the show with her frank declarations and hard-bitten worldview. Engaging from the first chapter, the trio propels the reader through a meandering plot that neither shies away from timely issues nor drifts too far into despair. By the end of it, the reader is left with that wonderful sense of having truly been somewhere else for a little while. A moving, character-driven tale of the limits of bitterness and regret.
A mission to retrieve two incriminating recordings turns violent in Wyn’s debut historical thriller. At first, U.S. President Jake Stryker’s meeting with Ohio Gov. Ed Thomas seems perfectly ordinary, as both are running for reelection in 1987. But Thomas’ receptionist, Suzi Saito, inadvertently hears the first few lines of their conversation over her intercom. In those opening remarks, the politicians refer to their connection to Chicago Mafia boss Angelo Donetti. Suzi realizes that exchange was automatically recorded on tape and takes her concerns to her lover, Deke Marshall, a newly minted lawyer and licensed private investigator. But Thomas, suspicious about what Suzi overheard, taps her home phone. On this second tape, Deke relays his suspicions of insider trading involving the Ohio employee pension fund. This trading would involve ties to the governor’s son-in-law and would be damaging to the politician’s career. Word of the tapes’ existence eventually gets to Thomas’ opponent, Ohio state Sen. Sam Chalmers, which results in multiple parties vying for the recordings. Soon, tragedy ensues, and Deke becomes determined to find the people responsible. Wyn’s gleefully frenetic novel offers unexpected plot turns and devious characters. One standout is Thomas’ chief of staff, Cate Jameson, who spearheads the insider trading by using intelligence, manipulation, and seduction. The endless double-dealings can feel soap-operatic, and there’s also explicit sex and brutality against men and women. Still, Wyn’s prose remains sharp and concise amid the chaos; at one point, for instance, the author elucidates stockmarket jargon for novices without decelerating the narrative. Deke, however, is an improbable collection of character traits; the lawyer/PI is also an independently wealthy, genius playboy and a skilled marksman, and he has a black belt in karate. Still, readers will likely look forward to a teased sequel. A sometimes-savage but entertaining tale of the dangerous side of politics.
|
kirkus.com
|
indie
|
1 september 2019
|
193
Fi e l d No t e s “With every piece I’ve done, I try to discover what makes a person who they are and why.”
Photo courtesy Micheline Pelletier Sygma via Getty Images
Photo courtesy Jamie McCarthy via Getty Images
By Megan Labrise
—entertainment journalist Keah Brown, author of The Pretty One: On Life, Pop Culture, Disability, and Other Reasons to Fall in Love with Me, in Parade
“I was writing this history as someone critical of racist ideas. And one of the more prevailing racist ideas within scholarship was this idea that black people do not write definitive texts.”
—Ibram X. Kendi, author of How To Be an Antiracist, in the New York Times
|
1 september 2019
|
—New Yorker staff writer Jia Tolentino, author of Trick Mirror: Reflections on Self Delusion, in appreciation of editor-in-chief David Remnick, at Jezebel
Submissions for Field Notes? Email fieldnotes@kirkus.com.
—editor-in-chief Radhika Jones remembers Morrison in Vanity Fair
—on love as a metaphor in her novels, in conversation with Bill Moyers in 1990
194
“In my acknowledgements, a thing I thank Remnick for is not firing me for tweeting about my bong.”
Photo courtesy Ilan Harel
In memoriam, Toni Morrison, 19312019: “Some of it’s very fierce. Powerful. Distorted, even, because the duress they work under is so overwhelming. But I think they believed, as I do, while it may be true that, you know, people say, ‘I didn’t ask to be born,’ I think we did, and that’s why we’re here. We are here, and we have to do something nurturing that we respect before we go. We must. It is more interesting, more complicated, more intellectually demanding and more morally demanding to love somebody, to take care of somebody, to make one other person feel good. Now the dangers of that are the dangers of setting oneself up as a martyr or as, you know, the one without whom it would not be done.”
“I woke up before dawn this morning and thought about Toni Morrison in the dark, about all the work that she brought into being. And what I realized is that she did not only watch for the light to come. She was the light before the light arrived. She was the light who enabled so many other voices, she was their conduit, and then she crossed over, with all her genius and confidence and grace, and she brought the light herself.”
field notes
“I’ve always been drawn to the small, personally meaningful stories that support a life, the kinds of stories people tell themselves about themselves, and the way place makes us who we are— often at great cost.” —Téa Obreht, author of Inland, in Enter tainment Weekly
|
kirkus.com
|
Appreciations: Toni Morrison (1931-2019) B Y G RE G O RY MC NA MEE
Photo courtesy Deborah Feingold_Corbis via Getty Images
Born Chloe Ardelia Wofford on Feb. 18, 1931, the eminent novelist Toni Morrison grew up a child of the diaspora that, in the era of Jim Crow, had sent millions of African Americans from the rural South into the industrial North. She grew up in a working-class, integrated steel town on the shores of Lake Erie, a town that afforded a view of Canada when the weather was clear. But her great subject as a writer—beginning as a single mother who worked as an editor during the day and wrote in the quiet hours when her children were sleeping—was the African American experience of the distant South and the flight from it. That great theme, anchored in history, figures in many of her novels, from Song of Solomon (1977) to the ironically titled Home (2012); as its protagonist says, “You could be inside, living in your own house for years, and still, men with or without badges but always with guns could force you, your family, your neighbors to pack up and move.” Even when it could be found, home was full of unforeseeable dangers, as Morrison’s first book, The Bluest Eye (1970), makes plain. In her best-known novel, Beloved (1987), Morrison writes of those men with guns and the constant violence that they bring. Its protagonist, a slave named Sethe, has escaped from a Kentucky plantation and made her way to the safety of the free state of Ohio. But even there, in the days of the Fugitive Slave Act, the “pater-rollers” catch up to her—careful, ever careful, lest “you ended up killing what you were paid to bring back alive.” Sethe does the killing instead; rather than see her enslaved, she cuts the throat of her 2-year-old daughter, then escapes again, only to be tormented by the little girl’s restless ghost. “Who would have thought,” Sethe marvels, “that a little old baby could harbor so much rage?” But so it is: All of American history, Morrison seems to suggest, is haunted by the evil of slavery and its unhealable scars. An exorcist tries to placate the baby buried underneath a gravestone marked “Dearly Beloved,” but to little avail; the ghost is implacable. The two remaining books of Morrison’s Beloved Trilogy move forward in time, with Jazz (1992) set in the 1920s and Paradise (1997) a half-century later, but both are anchored in human frailties and loss. And those men with guns are never far out of view, no matter where in the country the stories move, with women so often the first victims, “subject to purchase, hire, assault, abduction, exile,” as Morrison writes in her 2008 novella, A Mercy. Six years after Beloved appeared, the Swedish Academy awarded Morrison the Nobel Prize in literature. It was an honor much deserved on her own merits, but moreover, it offered an unveiled repudiation of an American society still lost in the depths of racism more than a century after Sethe crossed the wide Ohio, the ghosts still clamoring. Toni Morrison died August 5 at the age of 88, having spent a life in letters documenting the enmity and division that racism creates. They have only grown, making her work all the more enduring, all the more pressing, and all the more necessary. Gregory McNamee is a contributing editor. kirkus.com
|
appreciations
|
1 september 2019
|
y o u n g a d u lt
|
195
“AHDIEH
BRINGS NEW ORLEANS VIBRANTLY TO LIFE,
particularly when exploring the complicated racial and gender restrictions of high society through main and supporting characters of mixed-race origin. Sure to please fans.” 9781524738174 | $18.99
—Kirkus Reviews
PenguinClassroom.com
PenguinClassroom
@PenguinClass
@PenguinClassroom