Well-intentioned but often thin praise pieces.
Famous writers riff on their favorite short stories.
Dubus III asked 50 working writers to write a brief essay praising two short stories. Joyce Carol Oates selects John Updike’s “A&P” and Ralph Ellison’s “Battle Royal,” and Paul Harding spotlights a pair of John Cheever classics: “The Swimmer” and “The Jewels of the Cabots.” While it’s pleasant enough to read seasoned writers celebrating their inspirations, the project has its shortcomings. Because Dubus invited his contemporaries to contribute, the selections tend to gravitate to writers in the New Yorker mold from the second half of the 20th century. Selections are dominated by the likes of Raymond Carver (cited three times), Russell Banks, Jamaica Kincaid, and so on. Many contributors also have their own stories praised by others—Michael Cunningham, Tobias Wolff, Jayne Anne Philips, Stuart Dybek, Ron Carlson, and more—which exacerbates the insular vibe. The better pieces break free from either effusions of praise or workshop analysis and make more adventurous selections or statements. Lois Lowry’s commentary on Carver’s “A Small, Good Thing” is a pathway for a discussion of her own experience with grief; Dagoberto Gilb’s piece on Juan Rulfo and Tomás Rivera is both an appreciation and a critique of the American literary canon; Phil Klay opens his piece on Dostoyevsky’s “The Grand Inquisitor” by recalling a near-death experience; and Cunningham blends an essay on the limits of teaching fiction writing with a lucid study of James Joyce’s “The Dead” and its iconic ending, “one of the greatest paragraphs produced by human hand.” Some of the authors share writing prompts, suggesting this book is intended as a teaching tool; in most cases here, though, it may be enough to take their recommendations on faith and go directly to the stories themselves. Other contributors include T.C. Boyle, Meg Wolitzer, Richard Russo, Lauren Groff, Ann Beattie, and Junot Díaz.
Well-intentioned but often thin praise pieces.Pub Date: April 25, 2023
ISBN: 9781567927696
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Godine
Review Posted Online: Jan. 30, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2023
A football star’s bracing account of his battle for racial equality—and how powerful forces arrayed against him.
A principled athlete strives for social justice.
Kaepernick forthrightly details the activism that earned him global renown but cost him his NFL career. In 2016, the San Francisco 49ers quarterback “was filled with disgust” after police shootings of fellow Black men in several American cities. Before a preseason game, he made a spontaneous decision: “It hit me in that moment that I should find a seat” during the national anthem. He did the same at two more games before reporters noticed. Kaepernick will forever be associated with “taking a knee” during the anthem, but he credits Eric Reid—a teammate who agreed with Kaepernick’s message—for suggesting that they kneel together during subsequent anthems. The protest changed everything for Kaepernick. President Trump vilified him. Kaepernick and his wife received death threats. And though he’d taken the 49ers to a Super Bowl, no teams would sign him. He will likely make news for his take on Jay-Z, whose lucrative partnership with the NFL was criticized as an attempt to launder the league’s reputation. Visiting Africa, where Kaepernick learns about “African leaders who willingly sold their own people to the enslavers,” he “couldn’t help but to think about Jay-Z and the NFL.” In opening chapters, Kaepernick recalls suffering traumatic racial abuse as a child. Being in “white spaces”—he was adopted by white parents—placed him “under a microscope every minute of every day.” He isn’t always nuanced, depicting some people he disagrees with as cartoonishly clueless. But his writing about how college and pro teams “lied” to him about injuries underlines his “feeling of being a disposable commodity.” A decade has passed since Kaepernick played in the NFL, but he stays fit in case “a team needing a QB” calls.
A football star’s bracing account of his battle for racial equality—and how powerful forces arrayed against him.Pub Date: Sept. 15, 2026
ISBN: 9781538777879
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Legacy Lit/Hachette
Review Posted Online: June 15, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2026
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A virtuoso performance and an ode to an undervalued medium created by two talented artists.
The veteran actor, comedian, and banjo player teams up with the acclaimed illustrator to create a unique book of cartoons that communicates their personalities.
Martin, also a prolific author, has always been intrigued by the cartoons strewn throughout the pages of the New Yorker. So when he was presented with the opportunity to work with Bliss, who has been a staff cartoonist at the magazine since 1997, he seized the moment. “The idea of a one-panel image with or without a caption mystified me,” he writes. “I felt like, yeah, sometimes I’m funny, but there are these other weird freaks who are actually funny.” Once the duo agreed to work together, they established their creative process, which consisted of working forward and backward: “Forwards was me conceiving of several cartoon images and captions, and Harry would select his favorites; backwards was Harry sending me sketched or fully drawn cartoons for dialogue or banners.” Sometimes, he writes, “the perfect joke occurs two seconds before deadline.” There are several cartoons depicting this method, including a humorous multipanel piece highlighting their first meeting called “They Meet,” in which Martin thinks to himself, “He’ll never be able to translate my delicate and finely honed droll notions.” In the next panel, Bliss thinks, “I’m sure he won’t understand that the comic art form is way more subtle than his blunt-force humor.” The team collaborated for a year and created 150 cartoons featuring an array of topics, “from dogs and cats to outer space and art museums.” A witty creation of a bovine family sitting down to a gourmet meal and one of Dumbo getting his comeuppance highlight the duo’s comedic talent. What also makes this project successful is the team’s keen understanding of human behavior as viewed through their unconventional comedic minds.
A virtuoso performance and an ode to an undervalued medium created by two talented artists.Pub Date: Nov. 17, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-250-26289-9
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Celadon Books
Review Posted Online: Aug. 30, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2020
PERSPECTIVES
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