Reality bites in these odd portraits of people unmoored by their own sense of how things work.
A disastrous film festival paired with an all-encompassing virtual reality game offers more philosophical gymnastics from Aira.
This slim volume by the ever-prolific Aira collects two novellas, distinct in style and character, that lean into the author’s dark humor a little more than usual. The opener, Festival, is an uncomfortably cringe-laden comedy of errors. It concerns an independent film festival in an unnamed country, focused on its guest of honor and the mundane chaos introduced by his decidedly unwelcome guest. Readers are meant to think the Belgian film director Alec Steryx is Aira’s main subject—he’s come by invitation to chair the contest’s Grand Jury, premiere his latest esoteric science fiction film, and celebrate his body of work. But Aira cleverly slips in two wrenches: the first and most divisive is the director’s elderly, half-blind, and bad-tempered mother, who proceeds to turn the carefully curated event into a rolling logistical disaster; the second is where the story lives, in the head of Perla Sobietsky, the festival’s fiercely competitive organizer and author of a book about Steryx. While the dichotomy between Perla’s snobbishness and her charge’s unapologetically bad behavior is jarring, it’s also a funny and unpredictable way for Aira to talk about fame and perception. Meanwhile, in Game of the Worlds, a different kind of alienation comes via a virtual reality game in which children vaporize intelligent civilizations on a daily basis. Aira claims with a straight face that these are real worlds, in the manner of Ender’s Game, facing down “a gaggle of brats—whose prey surely didn’t suspect as much—with nothing better or more constructive to do with their afternoons.” Parenthood and generational angst often catalyze cliches, but here they enable Aira to talk about technology and disconnection in a way that’s both biting yet somehow full of affection for our confusing, complicated world.
Reality bites in these odd portraits of people unmoored by their own sense of how things work.Pub Date: June 11, 2024
ISBN: 9780811237307
Page Count: 192
Publisher: New Directions
Review Posted Online: April 5, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2024
Through palpable tension balanced with glimmers of hope, Hoover beautifully captures the heartbreak and joy of starting over.
The sequel to It Ends With Us (2016) shows the aftermath of domestic violence through the eyes of a single mother.
Lily Bloom is still running a flower shop; her abusive ex-husband, Ryle Kincaid, is still a surgeon. But now they’re co-parenting a daughter, Emerson, who's almost a year old. Lily won’t send Emerson to her father’s house overnight until she’s old enough to talk—“So she can tell me if something happens”—but she doesn’t want to fight for full custody lest it become an expensive legal drama or, worse, a physical fight. When Lily runs into Atlas Corrigan, a childhood friend who also came from an abusive family, she hopes their friendship can blossom into love. (For new readers, their history unfolds in heartfelt diary entries that Lily addresses to Finding Nemo star Ellen DeGeneres as she considers how Atlas was a calming presence during her turbulent childhood.) Atlas, who is single and running a restaurant, feels the same way. But even though she’s divorced, Lily isn’t exactly free. Behind Ryle’s veneer of civility are his jealousy and resentment. Lily has to plan her dates carefully to avoid a confrontation. Meanwhile, Atlas’ mother returns with shocking news. In between, Lily and Atlas steal away for romantic moments that are even sweeter for their authenticity as Lily struggles with child care, breastfeeding, and running a business while trying to find time for herself.
Through palpable tension balanced with glimmers of hope, Hoover beautifully captures the heartbreak and joy of starting over.Pub Date: Oct. 18, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-668-00122-6
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Atria
Review Posted Online: July 26, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2022
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
A fresh, funny, ambitious, and nuanced take on some of our oldest existential questions. Cannot wait for the TV series.
What would you do if you knew when you were going to die?
In the first page and a half of her latest page-turner, bestselling Australian author Moriarty introduces a large cast of fascinating characters, all seated on a flight to Sydney that’s delayed on the tarmac. There’s the “bespectacled hipster” with his arm in a cast; a very pregnant woman; a young mom with a screaming infant and a sweaty toddler; a bride and groom, still in their wedding clothes; a surly 6-year-old forced to miss a laser-tag party; a darling elderly couple; a chatty tourist pair; several others. No one even notices the woman who will later become a household name as the “Death Lady” until she hops up from her seat and begins to deliver predictions to each of them about the age they’ll be when they die and the cause of their deaths. Age 30, assault, for the hipster. Age 7, drowning, for the baby in arms. Age 43, workplace accident, for a 42-year-old civil engineer. Self-harm, age 28, for the lovely flight attendant, who is that day celebrating her 28th birthday. Over the next 126 chapters (some just a paragraph), you will get to know all these people, and their reactions to the news of their demise, very well. Best of all, you will get to know Cherry Lockwood, the Death Lady, and the life that brought her to this day. Is it true, as she repeatedly intones on the plane, that “fate won’t be fought”? Does this novel support the idea that clairvoyance is real? Does it find a means to logically dismiss the whole thing? Or is it some complex amalgam of these possibilities? Sorry, you won’t find that out here, and in fact not until you’ve turned all 500-plus pages. The story is a brilliant, charming, and invigorating illustration of its closing quote from Elisabeth Kübler-Ross (we’re not going to spill that either).
A fresh, funny, ambitious, and nuanced take on some of our oldest existential questions. Cannot wait for the TV series.Pub Date: Sept. 10, 2024
ISBN: 9780593798607
Page Count: 512
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: June 15, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2024
PERSPECTIVES
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