An entertaining satire about a musical genre not typically known for its humor.
A faux oral history of a sui generis performer in New York’s avant-garde music world.
In books like Positively Fourth Street (2001) and The Ten-Cent Plague (2008), Hajdu explored how countercultural folkies and comic-book artists rattled conformists in the 1950s and '60s. For his first novel, he attempts to do much the same for 1980s experimental music. Adrianne Geffel, we’re told early, is a household name thanks to her passionate and defiant nature, possessed of a prodigious talent and impatience for musical strictures. Plus, a mysterious disappearance established a mystique that got her name-checked by the likes of Cardi B and George Saunders. The oral historian doesn’t have access to Geffel herself, instead piecing her life together through interviews with family members, teachers, critics, and participants in New York’s downtown scene who prized intellectualism and a certain abrasiveness. (Susan Sontag and Twyla Tharp were eager to witness this “doyenne of downtown music.”) Despite (and thanks to) Geffel’s idiosyncrasies, she was accepted into the Juilliard School, caught the ears of highfalutin Village Voice and SoHo Weekly News writers, and seemed destined to rise to the semifame of a Steve Reich or Philip Glass. In truth, though, Geffel is something of a MacGuffin, a way for Hajdu to satirize the kinds of people who can’t appreciate genius when it’s right in front of them or who wish to exploit it: the critics, the Oliver Sacks–like neurologist, the sketchy self-declared manager, the record-label executive. It’s funny stuff, even if the targets are easy, though more of Geffel’s presence would’ve been welcome. Writing fiction whose central character is a cipher presents a challenge to even the most accomplished novelists (see Myla Goldberg’s Feast Your Eyes and Alan Hollinghurst’s The Sparsholt Affair), and Geffel’s own voice would’ve bolstered Hajdu’s mythmaking.
An entertaining satire about a musical genre not typically known for its humor.Pub Date: Sept. 22, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-393-63422-8
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Norton
Review Posted Online: June 30, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2020
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
A sweet bedtime story.
A boy and his stuffed bear head into the woods.
Having captured readers’ attention with Born a Crime (2016), his bestselling memoir of growing up in South Africa, comedian and television host Noah has written a parable about decision-making. As he puts it in a brief prologue, “It’s about disagreements and difference—but it’s also about how we bridge those gaps and find what matters most, whether we’re parents or kids, neighbors, gnomes, or political adversaries. It’s a picture book, but it’s not a children’s book. Rather, it is a book for kids to share with parents and for parents to share with kids.” With plentiful illustrations by Hahn and in language aimed at young listeners, it tells the story of a small boy so impatient to start his Saturday adventures that he rebels against the rules of his household and heads out without brushing his teeth or making his bed, despite the reminders of his stuffed bear, Walter. “We can’t just run away,” protests the bear. “Your mother will miss you. And where will we sleep? And who will make us waffles?” “We’ll build our own house,” the boy responds. “And we’ll grow our own waffles!” From there, the pair go on their walkabout, encountering a garden gnome, a pair of snails, and a gang of animated coins who have lessons to offer about making choices. Though the author suggests in the introduction that adult readers might enjoy the book on their own, those looking for a follow-up to the memoir or a foray into adult fiction should be warned that this is not that book.
A sweet bedtime story.Pub Date: Oct. 8, 2024
ISBN: 9780593729960
Page Count: 128
Publisher: One World/Random House
Review Posted Online: July 4, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
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