An undeniably unique metaphysical adventure.
The latest installment in Porter’s series continues the adventures of a schizophrenic man who, along with a group of misfit friends, embarks on missions of environmental activism.
In Florida, 2002, Aubrey Shallcross and company have scuttled an old tugboat in front of the St. Lucie Locks, making the lock system temporarily inoperable to prevent the “dirty water” from Lake Okeechobee from contaminating pristine estuaries. Fearing capture after their daring deed, the 58-year-old Shallcross takes his family and friends—some of whom are “voice hearers” like himself—to the coast of Massachusetts for the summer to stay at an old friend’s farm. The eclectic group includes a wild array of characters: Yuchee, a teenage Seminole boy whose mother has recently died; two giant alligators and their “slippers” (spirits of the dead that can inhabit the brains of animals and humans); Aubrey’s 14-year-old son, Drayton; Half Track, an autistic man; Speedy, a motorcycle stuntman, and his wife, Roberta, “the Woman With No Legs,” who charms snakes; and A. M. Sermon, a former land developer turned eco-warrior, who travels with his best friend, a giant chimpanzee named Kong. Once there, the group becomes entangled in another looming environmental crisis: Criminals plan to steal a recently orphaned baby humpback whale with albinism in an attempt to sell it on the black market. This fast-paced and intricately plotted storyline, involving the crooked captain of a Russian fishing fleet named Sean Iponovitch, is where the author really shows his storytelling chops. As Iponovitch schemes between alcoholic binges, Porter weaves Moby Dick references throughout to add a literary thread to the narrative tapestry. This literary aspect is strengthened by the almost Kerouacian travelogue passages following the characters’ travels up and down the East Coast: “They crossed the southeast Georgia tidal rivers with green-brown wire grass islands out in the middle, until it was over the Savannah River into the state of South Carolina.”
Themes from Kerouac’s On the Road are evident throughout, including the search for meaning in life, the glorious pursuit of freedom, and finding profound significance in the connections between people and places. The author leavens the road novel experience with humor in places; Aubrey calls food purchased from gas stations and roadside convenience stores “shit cakes” (but after his son buys an assortment of junk food, Aubrey says, “Give me one a those Moon Pies, Drayton.” While the cast of over-the-top characters is well-developed and the storyline involving the white whale is certainly entertaining (especially the stand-up-and-applaud plot twist at novel’s end), it’s the way in which the author explores living with schizophrenia (specifically hearing voices) that makes this story unique. The perception of schizophrenia as an affliction is turned on its head: “…that’s what makes you different than a lot of other people, Aubrey. You can look at and hear your subconscious, you are a bloody schizophrenic; a beautifully perfected schizophrenic.” The narrative is complemented by dozens of illustrations throughout that exemplify the strange and wondrous tone of the story perfectly.
An undeniably unique metaphysical adventure.Pub Date: Jan. 8, 2024
ISBN: 9780989425681
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Self
Review Posted Online: Oct. 2, 2023
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Fans of Stockett’s bestselling debut will love this engaging follow-up.
Stockett heads to Mississippi for another historical novel about feisty women.
This time, perhaps recalling criticisms of cultural appropriation in The Help (2009), she sticks to feisty white women, with one exception. The setting is Oxford in 1933. For two miserable years, 11-year-old Meg has lived in “the Orphan,” a county asylum for parentless girls. Chairlady Garnett—a villain so one-note she’d twirl a mustache if she had one—makes it her mission to ostracize the older girls she deems unadoptable, stigmatizing them as offspring of the “feebleminded” mothers who abandoned them. She particularly has it in for smart, sassy Meg, who refuses to believe her mother’s mysterious disappearance was deliberate. Elsewhere in Oxford, Birdie Calhoun comes to visit her sister Frances, who married a wealthy banker, to ask for money on behalf of their mother and grandmother back in Footely. Frances isn’t thrilled by this reminder of her impoverished small-town origins. But she’s trying to climb up in Oxford society by volunteering at the Orphan, the asylum’s books need to be done before the state inspector shows up in a few weeks, and Birdie is a bookkeeper. Having neatly arranged to keep Birdie in town and draw these two storylines together, Stockett goes on to spin a compulsively readable yarn with enough plot for a half-dozen novels. Birdie and Meg become friends, Meg is adopted despite Garnett’s best efforts, Meg’s mother turns up at the Orphan demanding to know where her child is—and that’s less than a quarter of the way through a long, winding narrative that keeps piling on more dramatic developments until all loose ends are neatly, if hastily, wrapped up in the final pages. Stockett might be making a point about Southern women facing facts and standing up for themselves, but mostly this is just a satisfyingly twisty tale that should make a great miniseries.
Fans of Stockett’s bestselling debut will love this engaging follow-up.Pub Date: May 5, 2026
ISBN: 9781954118812
Page Count: 656
Publisher: Spiegel & Grau
Review Posted Online: Feb. 2, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2026
BOOK REVIEW
Mostly charming, sometimes twee, with some really lovely things to say about poetry.
And now for some lessons in poetry and typesetting.
After Lessons in Chemistry (2022), a debut that became one of the most popular books of recent years, Garmus applies her unique comic sensibility to the story of Batter Gray, a man named after a family dog of mythic talents. A poetry maven who was reading Auden as a fourth grader, he was raised by a type-designer mother and historian father who dearly hoped he would choose some more viable profession than poetry. But via an amazing stroke of luck, he lands a job after college at Peck & Peck, an illustrious literary journal located in a beautiful building in New York City. He’s at the very bottom of the complex and dysfunctional totem pole, making copies in the basement, struggling not to run afoul of the cantankerous editor-in-chief, Salton Peck, or his smarmy assistant, Dexter York, both of whom have taken an instant dislike to our hero (and can never get his name right. Few people can). And to be honest, Batter is not without his flaws. The novel bogs down a bit in the middle, with Salton constantly excoriating his staff in ALL CAPS and much ado over the possibility that submissions have been taken outside the building, which is forbidden. Along the way, many, many famous poets are name-checked, as are many typefaces, since Batter has been raised to instantly identify a font in the wild. The best example of this occurs during his brief sojourn in jail: “The thing I kind of admired about Motherfucker II, besides his manners, was this huge tattoo he had on his neck that read I will fuck you up in ITC Bolt. Call me my mother’s son, but whoever inked it nailed the kerning.” The narrative picks up steam toward the end, as bad guys become good guys, mysteries are solved, and Batter throws one hell of a party.
Mostly charming, sometimes twee, with some really lovely things to say about poetry.Pub Date: Oct. 13, 2026
ISBN: 9781668251065
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Scribner
Review Posted Online: July 6, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2026
BOOK REVIEW
PERSPECTIVES
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