The literary thrust plays to Ifkovic’s strengths, but he leaves other central aspects underdeveloped and unresolved.
Ifkovic (Make Believe, 2012, etc.), author of a mystery series about Edna Ferber, turns his eye toward Emily Dickinson and a professor obsessed with her in this convoluted mystery-cum-drama about a family’s inevitable dissolution.
After getting lost in a snowstorm, Fordham professor Bartholomew Judd finds himself driving down an isolated Connecticut road, inexplicably drawn to an ancient-looking clapboard house. Soon enough, he packs up the Manhattan apartment where he and his wife, Rebecca, live and transplants them to the history-soaked saltbox on Tommy’s Path. Rebecca, who gives up a beloved teaching job for this leap of faith, initially supports the change; she stifles her misgivings with a wildflower garden and huckleberry tarts. Ifkovic gradually reveals why: Rebecca is hoping new scenery will snap Bart out of a slump that has lingered since his graduate school days, though it has sharpened since a tragic incident 15 years ago involving their elder son, Jack. But as bad omens materialize, it becomes clear that Tommy’s Path isn’t the refuge it seemed. A professional nemesis of Bart’s charges back into their lives, and creepy neighbors (who may or may not be apparitions) breed conflict and transfix both Bart and Rebecca. The anxiety sends Bart into a tailspin: Thinking he’s stumbled onto a treasure trove of Emily Dickinson–related materials, he turns hermetic, suspicious. He obsesses over gathering evidence for the scholarly tome he finally feels ready to write. But the house, with its hidden passages and harbingers of death, transforms into a foreboding backdrop. Interesting details of Emily Dickinson’s life and work—and Ifkovic’s obvious knowledge of both—make this a fascinating read for any admirer of her poetry, although the storyline involving the Judd family tragedy and its final unraveling is less compelling. Once readers learn what Jack did, the hubbub seems overdramatized, spun into something unrealistic. As for the story’s spookier elements, Ifkovic leaves too many threads hanging.
The literary thrust plays to Ifkovic’s strengths, but he leaves other central aspects underdeveloped and unresolved.Pub Date: May 11, 2013
ISBN: 978-1482337556
Page Count: 326
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: July 26, 2013
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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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