An eye-popping historical curiosity plumbing the depths of domestic dysfunction.
Rage, abuse, and suffering characterize three generations of a Russian family.
Born in 1819, herself the child of neglectful parents, Panaeva was 27 when she wrote this novel, which was suppressed by the censor for its cynicism and “undermining of parental power.” It was published under a pseudonym in a limited edition in 1848, and Panaeva went on to write numerous works of fiction and a memoir. She died in 1893. The novel was finally published under her own name in 1927 and joined what the book’s introduction calls the “canon of domestic violence fiction.” Short, breathless, tinged with humor, the bookis a horror show, a litany of cruelty, anger, and violence inflicted primarily, but not exclusively, on the eight children of a large, turbulent Saint Petersburg family. The father keeps “the same malicious calm whether he was plunging a fork into the dog’s back or throwing a plate at his wife.” The wife seems devoid of any shred of sympathy or love for her offspring, especially her daughters, as they endure beatings and starvations. Yet the narrator, Natasha, regards herself as happy and free until the age of 10. Then things go from bad to even worse, after a sadistic governess is hired and given complete control over her victims. When she finally leaves, the children are scattered among different households and teachers, one to a brute whose physical torment is pure torture. Even changes of scene—with their kindly grandmother, or on a summer trip to a seaside dacha—rarely offer much respite from conflict and shame. As the children grow up, two marry and escape, but tragedy befalls another. The bizarre, comfortless mood of Panaeva’s parable hangs in the air as a farewell is bid to “the house where I had shed so many tears.”
An eye-popping historical curiosity plumbing the depths of domestic dysfunction.Pub Date: Oct. 8, 2024
ISBN: 9780231213196
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Columbia Univ.
Review Posted Online: Aug. 30, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2024
Uneven but fitfully amusing.
Betrayed by her husband, a severely depressed young woman gets drawn into the over-the-top festivities at a lavish wedding.
Phoebe Stone, who teaches English literature at a St. Louis college, is plotting her own demise. Her husband, Matt, has left her for another woman, and Phoebe is taking it hard. Indeed, she's determined just where and how she will end it all: at an oceanfront hotel in Newport, where she will lie on a king-sized canopy bed and take a bottle of her cat’s painkillers. At the hotel, Phoebe meets bride-to-be Lila, a headstrong rich girl presiding over her own extravagant six-day wedding celebration. Lila thought she had booked every room in the hotel, and learning of Phoebe's suicidal intentions, she forbids this stray guest from disrupting the nuptials: “No. You definitely can’t kill yourself. This is my wedding week.” After the punchy opening, a grim flashback to the meltdown of Phoebe's marriage temporarily darkens the mood, but things pick up when spoiled Lila interrupts Phoebe's preparations and sweeps her up in the wedding juggernaut. The slide from earnest drama to broad farce is somewhat jarring, but from this point on, Espach crafts an enjoyable—if overstuffed—comedy of manners. When the original maid of honor drops out, Phoebe is persuaded, against her better judgment, to take her place. There’s some fun to be had here: The wedding party—including groom-to-be Gary, a widower, and his 11-year-old daughter—takes surfing lessons; the women in the group have a session with a Sex Woman. But it all goes on too long, and the humor can seem forced, reaching a low point when someone has sex with the vintage wedding car (you don’t want to know the details). Later, when two characters have a meet-cute in a hot tub, readers will guess exactly how the marriage plot resolves.
Uneven but fitfully amusing.Pub Date: July 30, 2024
ISBN: 9781250899576
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: Sept. 13, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Though not perfect, a clear leap forward for Rooney; her grandmaster status remains intact.
Two brothers—one a lawyer, one a chess prodigy—work through the death of their father, their complicated romantic lives, and their even more tangled relationship with each other.
Ten years separate the Koubek brothers. In his early 30s, Peter has turned his past as a university debating champ into a career as a progressive lawyer in Dublin. Ivan is just out of college, struggling to make ends meet through freelance data analysis and reckoning with his recent free fall in the world chess rankings. When their father dies of cancer, the cracks in the brothers’ relationship widen. “Complete oddball” Ivan falls in love with an older woman, an arts center employee, which freaks Peter out. Peter juggles two women at once: free-spirited college student Naomi and his ex-girlfriend Sylvia, whose life has changed drastically since a car accident left her in chronic pain. Emotional chaos abounds. Rooney has struck a satisfying blend of the things she’s best at—sensitively rendered characters, intimacies, consideration of social and philosophical issues—with newer moves. Having the book’s protagonists navigating a familial rather than romantic relationship seems a natural next step for Rooney, with her astutely empathic perception, and the sections from Peter’s point of view show Rooney pushing her style into new territory with clipped, fragmented, almost impressionistic sentences. (Peter on Sylvia: “Must wonder what he’s really here for: repentance, maybe. Bless me for I have. Not like that, he wants to tell her. Why then. Terror of solitude.”) The risk: Peter comes across as a slightly blurry character, even to himself—he’s no match for the indelible Ivan—so readers may find these sections less propulsive at best or over-stylized at worst. Overall, though, the pages still fly; the characters remain reach-out-and-touch-them real.
Though not perfect, a clear leap forward for Rooney; her grandmaster status remains intact.Pub Date: Sept. 24, 2024
ISBN: 9780374602635
Page Count: 464
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: July 4, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
PERSPECTIVES
PERSPECTIVES
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