A trippy tale packed with high-tech inventions and old-school mystery that feels like a wildly captivating video game.
In Mathison’s novel, a man endeavors to secure his inheritance from a mysterious uncle while exploring the old man’s sprawling English estate and questioning the very nature of reality.
Kris Robinson embarks on an epic journey when, in an effort to explore his alternative selves, he consumes high-tech drugs that cause temporary amnesia. As the voices in his head (which call themselves the “Storytellers” and guide him on his psychedelic journey) say, “Imagine—a sip, a swallow, and voilà! A tabula rasa!” After this brief glimpse into the perhaps not-too-distant future, the book switches to a second-person perspective, and the rest of the novel takes on a distinct video-game aspect as readers navigate the strange proceedings from Kris’ vantage point. Kris receives a letter from a mysterious uncle, Arthur Hanover, asking him to come to his English estate to claim his inheritance, but readers will feel as though they’re the ones going through the motions: “Standing there is a courier asking you to sign for a packet. What in the world? The packet has come from ‘Allensby, Bixby, Crosby & Sons & Daughters, Barristers and Solicitors’ from a town in England you’ve never heard of.” From there, readers are launched into an intriguing mansion-set mystery as Kris travels to England and meets a cast of colorful characters (including a devious head butler and the housekeeper’s friendly grandson) while trying to uncover the mystery of his long lost “uncle”…and the meaning of existence itself. The “Storyteller” voices occasionally pop in to hint at solutions for both Kris and readers as the protagonist is repeatedly pulled out of one reality and into another. Mind-bending scenes (such as lavish dinner parties that devolve into intense competitions and an impromptu disco party) ultimately make the narrative feel like the literary version of a Black Mirror TV episode. The novel is based on a DVD adventure game that the author made in the late 1990s, which perhaps accounts for its immersive feel. Occasionally confusing, always entertaining, and undeniably fun, Mathison’s yarn is a truly unique reading experience.
A trippy tale packed with high-tech inventions and old-school mystery that feels like a wildly captivating video game.Pub Date: Jan. 23, 2024
ISBN: 9798886451238
Page Count: 472
Publisher: Greenleaf Book Group Press
Review Posted Online: Dec. 12, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2024
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A dramatic, vividly detailed reconstruction of a little-known aspect of the Vietnam War.
A young woman’s experience as a nurse in Vietnam casts a deep shadow over her life.
When we learn that the farewell party in the opening scene is for Frances “Frankie” McGrath’s older brother—“a golden boy, a wild child who could make the hardest heart soften”—who is leaving to serve in Vietnam in 1966, we feel pretty certain that poor Finley McGrath is marked for death. Still, it’s a surprise when the fateful doorbell rings less than 20 pages later. His death inspires his sister to enlist as an Army nurse, and this turn of events is just the beginning of a roller coaster of a plot that’s impressive and engrossing if at times a bit formulaic. Hannah renders the experiences of the young women who served in Vietnam in all-encompassing detail. The first half of the book, set in gore-drenched hospital wards, mildewed dorm rooms, and boozy officers’ clubs, is an exciting read, tracking the transformation of virginal, uptight Frankie into a crack surgical nurse and woman of the world. Her tensely platonic romance with a married surgeon ends when his broken, unbreathing body is airlifted out by helicopter; she throws her pent-up passion into a wild affair with a soldier who happens to be her dead brother’s best friend. In the second part of the book, after the war, Frankie seems to experience every possible bad break. A drawback of the story is that none of the secondary characters in her life are fully three-dimensional: Her dismissive, chauvinistic father and tight-lipped, pill-popping mother, her fellow nurses, and her various love interests are more plot devices than people. You’ll wish you could have gone to Vegas and placed a bet on the ending—while it’s against all the odds, you’ll see it coming from a mile away.
A dramatic, vividly detailed reconstruction of a little-known aspect of the Vietnam War.Pub Date: Feb. 6, 2024
ISBN: 9781250178633
Page Count: 480
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Nov. 4, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2023
PERSPECTIVES
BOOK TO SCREEN
SEEN & HEARD
Heartfelt, yes, but pretty routine.
Life lessons.
Angie Malone, the youngest of a big, warm Italian-American family, returns to her Pacific Northwest hometown to wrestle with various midlife disappointments: her divorce, Papa’s death, a downturn in business at the family restaurant, and, above all, her childlessness. After several miscarriages, she, a successful ad exec, and husband Conlan, a reporter, befriended a pregnant young girl and planned to adopt her baby—and then the birth mother changed her mind. Angie and Conlan drifted apart and soon found they just didn’t love each other anymore. Metaphorically speaking, “her need for a child had been a high tide, an overwhelming force that drowned them. A year ago, she could have kicked to the surface but not now.” Sadder but wiser, Angie goes to work in the struggling family restaurant, bickering with Mama over updating the menu and replacing the ancient waitress. Soon, Angie befriends another young girl, Lauren Ribido, who’s eager to learn and desperately needs a job. Lauren’s family lives on the wrong side of the tracks, and her mother is a promiscuous alcoholic, but Angie knows nothing of this sad story and welcomes Lauren into the DeSaria family circle. The girl listens in, wide-eyed, as the sisters argue and make wisecracks and—gee-whiz—are actually nice to each other. Nothing at all like her relationship with her sluttish mother, who throws Lauren out when boyfriend David, en route to Stanford, gets her pregnant. Will Lauren, who’s just been accepted to USC, let Angie adopt her baby? Well, a bit of a twist at the end keeps things from becoming too predictable.
Heartfelt, yes, but pretty routine.Pub Date: July 1, 2004
ISBN: 0-345-46750-7
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2004
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