A vibrant, gritty urban character study rich in cultural relevance, social gravitas, and interpersonal drama.
A diverse community of young men struggles with challenging queer realities in this novel.
Author and former social worker Ambrose crafts a moving profile of racial unrest and social injustice through an ethnic melting pot of young gay men living and loving in Philadelphia. Headlining the action is Babe, a queer Black youth with a “mass of thick dreadlocks” raised in the predominantly White Pennsylvania suburbs. He yearns to live a life unencumbered by racial stereotypes. The story opens in a gay bar where Babe meets Chance, a Black, cheeky, so-called wigger, who wears his pants baggy and sports purple cornrows. Chance becomes a nice distraction from Babe’s faltering relationship with Matthew, whom he suspects of cheating and using crack. Things end badly when a violent barroom brawl erupts between Babe and Matthew. Suddenly single, Babe rents out the now-vacant room in his duplex to Alise, a troubled woman of faith with a housing subsidy, an errant husband, and a son. But Babe inexplicably also invites Chance to move in as his roommate. Driven by instinct since childhood, Babe senses an opportunity to help both Alise and Chance with more than a place to live, offering them a prospect for happiness. Soon, Chance attempts to romance Babe, despite jealous Matthew resurfacing to create more melodrama. In his debut novel, State of the Nation(2018), Ambrose demonstrated a skill for characterization in his portrayal of Black teenagers living in Atlanta as a serial killer stalked the city. Here, he again intensifies the narrative with both solid characterization and a plot that generates a very realistic portrait of what it’s like to be Black in America, including scenes of Babe and Chance encountering police harassment and homophobia. There are also impressively descriptive passages throughout, demonstrating the author’s gift for introspective language, as when he evokes the concept of the inner city as “a mythic imaginarium created by white flight—barbaric microcosms within the city proper where crime and vice ruled over morality and decency.” Ambrose incorporates many heady themes, like racism, bullying, mental health, and queer identity, into a story that is smoothly written and engrossing from start to finish. The author is a writer to watch.
A vibrant, gritty urban character study rich in cultural relevance, social gravitas, and interpersonal drama.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: 978-1-64890-248-2
Page Count: 440
Publisher: Ninestar Press, LLC
Review Posted Online: May 25, 2022
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
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
Sweet, sharp, and satisfying.
Their daughter’s wedding stirs up uncomfortable memories for a divorced couple.
The day before the ceremony, the bride’s mother, Gail Baines, second in command at the Ashton School in Baltimore, learns that not only has she been passed over to replace the retiring headmistress, but the new recruit is bringing her deputy with her. The lack of people skills that have cost Gail this promotion are evident even in that initial scene; she’s a classic cranky Tyler protagonist, given to blurting out her opinions with little consideration for others’ feelings. Her first-person narration also reveals her to be touchingly vulnerable, convinced that daughter Debbie, prettier and more polished than she, will inevitably prefer husband-to-be Kenneth’s overbearing, better-off parents. Although her divorce from Max was amicable, Gail considers him a bit of a slacker, and isn’t best pleased when he turns up with a rescue cat in tow and says he has to stay with her because Kenneth is horribly allergic. A startling revelation from Debbie, fresh from her pre-wedding “Day of Beauty,” immediately divides the exes, who have very different opinions about how their daughter should handle this crisis. It also leads to Gail’s revelation of the infidelity that led to their divorce, though not in the way readers might imagine. Laid-back Max is the only fully fleshed character here other than Gail, and the novel is very short, but Tyler’s touch is as delicate, her empathy for human beings and all their quirks as evident in her 25th work of fiction as it was in her first, published an astonishing 60 years ago. Gail’s acerbic observations about the wedding and all its participants, her wistful memories of her odd-couple romance with Max, and her account of their enforced intimacy over the three days surrounding the wedding alternate to poignant effect. The closing pages offer a happy ending that feels true to the characters and utterly deserved.
Sweet, sharp, and satisfying.Pub Date: Feb. 11, 2025
ISBN: 9780593803486
Page Count: 176
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Oct. 26, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2024
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
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