A somewhat uneven but enthralling tale of humanity’s origins and cosmic espionage.
In Harvey’s retelling of the creation myth, heavenly agents combat a growing rebellion unfolding on Earth.
Billions of years ago, the Nothingness begins creating a new multiverse. Ultimately adopting the name The Great Being, He makes avatars to which He grants free will. Hardhearted Lucifer uses his free will to rebel, creating his personal line of avatars, who then reproduce on their own. To contend with Lucifer’s mounting forces, The Great Being forms the Agents of Cosmic Intelligence. Agents Layla and Melchizedek’s first mission takes place on Earth: They’re born into human bodies (as twin siblings) with “newly-evolved brains.” As they gradually teach Neanderthals language, they run into a serious problem—the two periodically forget their true identities. This becomes a greater concern on their next mission, which begins 160,000 years later. They return to Earth to take over two recently expired male bodies and become part of a tribe. The mission details aren’t immediately clear, though Layla and “Melchi” encounter a leader who may very well be one of Lucifer’s rebels. As the agents once again lose themselves in their human forms, the rebels (“awakened” in human bodies) can’t be sure if these warriors secretly belong to The Great Being’s intelligence branch. The rebels have “altered” human brains, which are inclined to “[take] over” entirely, and everyone has trouble remembering who they really are. In the book’s final third, yet another Earthbound mission sees five agents mingling with a host of biblical figures, including Abram (Abraham), Nimrod, and Lot.
Much of Harvey’s first installment in this new series is conceptual. That’s perfectly understandable when The Great Being forms ideas and creatures from nothing, but once the agents take on human bodies and interact with others on Earth, the meager character descriptions are much harder to accept. (The two corpses that Layla and Melchi “revive” are simply identified as “one blonde and the other darker of hair and skin.”) In the same vein, certain narrative elements pop up with nary an explanation, such as the rebels’ Planetary Command and the Free Will Zone. There’s a “cosmic smartphone,” which is unquestionably amusing but narratively immaterial; it “[functions] almost as well as” the telepathy that both agents and rebels commonly use to communicate. Still, this story deftly explores human nature—the uplifting qualities and dour traits alike: In the first mission, the often-genial agents nearly succumb to their own egos, merely over a disagreement about who concocted a successful but relatively minor plan. While the two strive to teach the humans compassion, the Earthly tribespeople seem much more interested in battle than in seeking peaceful solutions to problems. The second mission (and the longest, narratively) delightfully zeroes in on the question of identity as Layla and Melchi, on Earth primarily to teach, are sometimes driven to adopt the same behaviors and beliefs as humans. Layla’s personal confusion is particularly intriguing, as developing feelings for Melchi (her former teacher) ostensibly conflict with her male body’s sexual attraction to his wife.
A somewhat uneven but enthralling tale of humanity’s origins and cosmic espionage.Pub Date: March 1, 2024
ISBN: 9780918538215
Page Count: 261
Publisher: The Human Effectiveness Institute
Review Posted Online: April 11, 2024
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
SEEN & HEARD
A welcome literary resurrection that deserves a place alongside Wright’s best-known work.
A falsely accused Black man goes into hiding in this masterful novella by Wright (1908-1960), finally published in full.
Written in 1941 and '42, between Wright’s classics Native Son and Black Boy, this short novel concerns Fred Daniels, a modest laborer who’s arrested by police officers and bullied into signing a false confession that he killed the residents of a house near where he was working. In a brief unsupervised moment, he escapes through a manhole and goes into hiding in a sewer. A series of allegorical, surrealistic set pieces ensues as Fred explores the nether reaches of a church, a real estate firm, and a jewelry store. Each stop is an opportunity for Wright to explore themes of hope, greed, and exploitation; the real estate firm, Wright notes, “collected hundreds of thousands of dollars in rent from poor colored folks.” But Fred’s deepening existential crisis and growing distance from society keep the scenes from feeling like potted commentaries. As he wallpapers his underground warren with cash, mocking and invalidating the currency, he registers a surrealistic but engrossing protest against divisive social norms. The novel, rejected by Wright’s publisher, has only appeared as a substantially truncated short story until now, without the opening setup and with a different ending. Wright's take on racial injustice seems to have unsettled his publisher: A note reveals that an editor found reading about Fred’s treatment by the police “unbearable.” That may explain why Wright, in an essay included here, says its focus on race is “rather muted,” emphasizing broader existential themes. Regardless, as an afterword by Wright’s grandson Malcolm attests, the story now serves as an allegory both of Wright (he moved to France, an “exile beyond the reach of Jim Crow and American bigotry”) and American life. Today, it resonates deeply as a story about race and the struggle to envision a different, better world.
A welcome literary resurrection that deserves a place alongside Wright’s best-known work.Pub Date: April 20, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-59853-676-8
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Library of America
Review Posted Online: March 16, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2021
BOOK TO SCREEN
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