Some portions of this tale drag, yet the likable protagonist’s final destination will surprise readers.
A debut novel focuses on the coming-of-age of a cinephile.
If Allan Paul Renner is anything, it’s affable. Renner was born near the end of the 1970s in Ohio, though he later moved with his parents to Florida. He enjoys films, music, and being kind to delivery drivers. The narrative takes place largely around 2016. Both Donald Trump and Hurricane Irma loom large in the present and near future. On a more personal level, Renner is in store for a few pivotal life changes. The book, though, as the title suggests, provides extensive details about Renner’s acquaintances. There is Akhil Das, an amateur astrophysicist who battles alcoholism and enjoys heavy discussions. Sadie Guildwood was once a singer in a semipopular band in Los Angeles and is now in her 40s and resides in Minnesota. Despite their geographic separation, she and Renner still talk. Fred Seelenfreund is a filmmaker and Renner’s former teacher. He helps Renner discover movies the younger cinephile has never heard of. Philip and Alice are Renner’s kindly parents while Ruby the havapoo (a Havanese-poodle mix) rounds out the family as the lovable dog. Carmen Villela is a beauty who exposes Renner to music he has never heard before while her son, Anxo, shows the protagonist a video game he has never previously played. Readers will follow along as such people move in and out of Renner’s personal orbit. It all winds up leading to a place that will throw even this eclectic group a curveball.
In Andrae’s novel, Renner’s relationships take him to some disparate places. After all, his friends are not just a diverse mix, they also have their own complex, engaging background stories. Whether Renner is having a crossbow pointed at him after talking about films or waiting for a potentially dangerous convict to audition for a part in a movie, the sympathetic hero, no matter how kind and good-natured he may be, has the potential to land in some sticky situations. But there are parts of the tale that lack much in the way of conflict. Renner spends a good deal of the book living at his parents’ home in Florida and enjoying the company of Ruby. He goes so far as to purchase a trailer for his bicycle, which also transports the canine. The purchase and subsequent use of a “medium-sized Pet Safe Solvit HoundAbout” could have been played for laughs or at least some turmoil. But it is not. Man and dog going for a bike ride is simply as much a part of Renner’s life as other activities, such as watching movies. In other words, there are times when there is not a whole lot happening to Renner. Nor is he having much of an impact on the world. But things take a decidedly odd turn in the final pages. Renner’s seemingly tranquil existence ultimately becomes upended in a way that neither he nor his friends could have ever imagined. For the audience, this is the intriguing part. Renner can’t simply enjoy an easy life in Florida forever. What shall disrupt it? The big reveal comes only at the end.
Some portions of this tale drag, yet the likable protagonist’s final destination will surprise readers.Pub Date: Nov. 11, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-64970-128-2
Page Count: 306
Publisher: Kaji-Pup Press
Review Posted Online: Dec. 16, 2020
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
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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