This sprightly, witty collection reveals the gamut of emotions inherent in our closest connections.
Tales of family entanglements that often find absurd undertones in domestic scenarios.
Sneed could teach a master class in opening sentences. Many of these witty stories open with a line that establishes the slightly off-kilter circumstances Sneed’s characters find themselves in. The opener, “The Swami Buchu Trungpa,” begins this way: “Her mother had been sober for seven months when Nora moved to Paris with her employer, a man from Queens who had changed his name from Jim Schwartz to Swami Buchu Trungpa twenty years earlier.” Not only is the line admirably economical, establishing characters and hinting at the story’s conflict (Nora’s mother comes to visit in Paris, and Nora is caught in the middle of the mutual dislike between her mother and her guru-boyfriend), but it tantalizingly reveals the wrench Sneed loves to throws into family and romantic relationships. “The Monkey’s Uncle Louis” features history professor Louis, whose childless sister adopts a capuchin monkey. (“Here are the names we’re thinking about for our monkey. Can you rank them from 1 to 5, with 1 being your first choice, and send them back to me?” Louis’ sister writes to him in an email.) Not all of Sneed’s stories feature comical complications; some are complex, bittersweet swerves into the unexpected. In the title story, 20-something siblings whose father died in the World Trade Center on 9/11 learn long after his death that he had a second family who now wants to get to know them. “Mega Millions” is about a family torn apart after winning an astronomical sum playing the lottery. At their best, these narratives are both piercing and wry, somewhere near a less-acerbic Lorrie Moore—though some stories feel cut off just as they sink their teeth into the drama.
This sprightly, witty collection reveals the gamut of emotions inherent in our closest connections.Pub Date: June 15, 2023
ISBN: 9780810146174
Page Count: 244
Publisher: TriQuarterly/Northwestern Univ.
Review Posted Online: April 24, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2023
"Don't go into the woods" takes on unsettling new meaning in Moore's blend of domestic drama and crime novel.
Many years after her older brother, Bear, went missing, Barbara Van Laar vanishes from the same sleepaway camp he did, leading to dark, bitter truths about her wealthy family.
One morning in 1975 at Camp Emerson—an Adirondacks summer camp owned by her family—it's discovered that 13-year-old Barbara isn't in her bed. A problem case whose unhappily married parents disdain her goth appearance and "stormy" temperament, Barbara is secretly known by one bunkmate to have slipped out every night after bedtime. But no one has a clue where's she permanently disappeared to, firing speculation that she was taken by a local serial killer known as Slitter. As Jacob Sluiter, he was convicted of 11 murders in the 1960s and recently broke out of prison. He's the one, people say, who should have been prosecuted for Bear's abduction, not a gardener who was framed. Leave it to the young and unproven assistant investigator, Judy Luptack, to press forward in uncovering the truth, unswayed by her bullying father and male colleagues who question whether women are "cut out for this work." An unsavory group portrait of the Van Laars emerges in which the children's father cruelly abuses their submissive mother, who is so traumatized by the loss of Bear—and the possible role she played in it—that she has no love left for her daughter. Picking up on the themes of families in search of themselves she explored in Long Bright River (2020), Moore draws sympathy to characters who have been subjected to spousal, parental, psychological, and physical abuse. As rich in background detail and secondary mysteries as it is, this ever-expansive, intricate, emotionally engaging novel never seems overplotted. Every piece falls skillfully into place and every character, major and minor, leaves an imprint.
"Don't go into the woods" takes on unsettling new meaning in Moore's blend of domestic drama and crime novel.Pub Date: July 2, 2024
ISBN: 9780593418918
Page Count: 496
Publisher: Riverhead
Review Posted Online: April 13, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2024
PERSPECTIVES
SEEN & HEARD
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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