This restless, intentionally unsettling novel establishes Porter as a distinctive, confident literary voice.
Deep in the heart of the Covid-19 lockdown, a pregnant Brooklynite goes missing.
Porter’s sophomore novel again features a large cast of diverse New Yorkers, this time met during the spring of 2020. It opens with a list poem about the Union Square Greenmarket, then moves to a chapter called “Daily Cleanse” that starts with this sentence: “Mr. Harper takes sex in doorways.” Theo Harper, a white man we never like much, works in real estate. He has an open marriage to a pregnant white woman named Darla Jacobson, whose mother is living in Paris and who counsels Theo to get Darla out of the city for “breathing room and fresh air.” Darla’s best friend is Ruby Black, a Black woman who owns a restaurant in Union Square with her husband, Katsumi Fujihara. There’s also Xavier Curtis, “The Teenager in the Cardi B T-Shirt” (this and a number of other images are illustrated with small photographs), whose uncle lives in the same Park Slope building as Theo and Darla. Xavier is isolating in his uncle’s empty apartment. It’s a bit unclear where all this is going until a subordinate clause in the fourth chapter reveals that Darla, on the drive upstate to follow her mother’s advice, “turn[s] off her cell phone, which would remain off until it was found in the woods a month later.” The main plot revolves around Darla’s disappearance after a fight with Theo on a hike during which he discloses that he has a Black ancestor; he becomes the main suspect in the police investigation. At the same time, we explore the back- and side stories of the other characters, finding nuggets of practical information and advice along the way—why dull knives are more dangerous, the use of cream of tartar to remove bathtub rings, a guide to the club scene in Japan, and this advice about loss, offered by a private investigator named Yvonne Tender: “Seek out the living and find little things to love until something or someone worth loving comes along.” Meanwhile, a second mystery plot involving 9/11 surfaces. The novel eventually settles its gaze on matters of race and class, underlined by its breathtaking ending.
This restless, intentionally unsettling novel establishes Porter as a distinctive, confident literary voice.Pub Date: Aug. 6, 2024
ISBN: 9780593241868
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Hogarth
Review Posted Online: June 15, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
A vibrant tale of a remarkable woman.
Who was Shakespeare?
Move over, Earl of Oxford and Francis Bacon: There’s another contender for the true author of plays attributed to the bard of Stratford—Emilia Bassano, a clever, outspoken, educated woman who takes center stage in Picoult’s spirited novel. Of Italian heritage, from a family of court musicians, Emilia was a hidden Jew and the courtesan of a much older nobleman who vetted plays to be performed for Queen Elizabeth. She was well traveled—unlike Shakespeare, she visited Italy and Denmark, where, Picoult imagines, she may have met Rosencrantz and Guildenstern—and was familiar with court intrigue and English law. “Every gap in Shakespeare’s life or knowledge that has had to be explained away by scholars, she somehow fills,” Picoult writes. Encouraged by her lover, Emilia wrote plays and poetry, but 16th-century England was not ready for a female writer. Picoult interweaves Emilia’s story with that of her descendant Melina Green, an aspiring playwright, who encounters the same sexist barriers to making herself heard that Emilia faced. In alternating chapters, Picoult follows Melina’s frustrated efforts to get a play produced—a play about Emilia, who Melina is certain sold her work to Shakespeare. Melina’s play, By Any Other Name, “wasn’t meant to be a fiction; it was meant to be the resurrection of an erasure.” Picoult creates a richly detailed portrait of daily life in Elizabethan England, from sumptuous castles to seedy hovels. Melina’s story is less vivid: Where Emilia found support from the witty Christopher Marlowe, Melina has a fashion-loving gay roommate; where Emilia faces the ravages of repeated outbreaks of plague, for Melina, Covid-19 occurs largely offstage; where Emilia has a passionate affair with the adoring Earl of Southampton, Melina’s lover is an awkward New York Times theater critic. It’s Emilia’s story, and Picoult lovingly brings her to life.
A vibrant tale of a remarkable woman.Pub Date: Aug. 20, 2024
ISBN: 9780593497210
Page Count: 544
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 15, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2024
"Don't go into the woods" takes on unsettling new meaning in Moore's blend of domestic drama and crime novel.
Many years after her older brother, Bear, went missing, Barbara Van Laar vanishes from the same sleepaway camp he did, leading to dark, bitter truths about her wealthy family.
One morning in 1975 at Camp Emerson—an Adirondacks summer camp owned by her family—it's discovered that 13-year-old Barbara isn't in her bed. A problem case whose unhappily married parents disdain her goth appearance and "stormy" temperament, Barbara is secretly known by one bunkmate to have slipped out every night after bedtime. But no one has a clue where's she permanently disappeared to, firing speculation that she was taken by a local serial killer known as Slitter. As Jacob Sluiter, he was convicted of 11 murders in the 1960s and recently broke out of prison. He's the one, people say, who should have been prosecuted for Bear's abduction, not a gardener who was framed. Leave it to the young and unproven assistant investigator, Judy Luptack, to press forward in uncovering the truth, unswayed by her bullying father and male colleagues who question whether women are "cut out for this work." An unsavory group portrait of the Van Laars emerges in which the children's father cruelly abuses their submissive mother, who is so traumatized by the loss of Bear—and the possible role she played in it—that she has no love left for her daughter. Picking up on the themes of families in search of themselves she explored in Long Bright River (2020), Moore draws sympathy to characters who have been subjected to spousal, parental, psychological, and physical abuse. As rich in background detail and secondary mysteries as it is, this ever-expansive, intricate, emotionally engaging novel never seems overplotted. Every piece falls skillfully into place and every character, major and minor, leaves an imprint.
"Don't go into the woods" takes on unsettling new meaning in Moore's blend of domestic drama and crime novel.Pub Date: July 2, 2024
ISBN: 9780593418918
Page Count: 496
Publisher: Riverhead
Review Posted Online: April 13, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2024
PERSPECTIVES
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
© Copyright 2024 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
