A comic interrogation of manhood set in a nearly man-free apocalypse.
A nerd discovers he may be the only man to have survived a deadly plague in Dargitz’s debut satirical novel.
Twenty-two-year-old Fletcher Sinclair was never a prime specimen of masculinity—he was an introverted community college student with thick glasses, greasy hair, and a love of video games and energy drinks. Then a super-virus literally wiped out every other man on earth, leaving Fletcher the lone surviving example of manhood. After spending months in isolation following the deaths of his parents and brother, Fletcher is rescued from his house by a small group of female doctors who have been laboring to understand why the “Delilah” virus only targets men—a study that requires, of course, a living male subject. Fletcher provides them with bodily fluid samples, and he agrees to stay hidden at their compound so as to not become a target of the raiders, cultists, and other bad actors roaming the post-pandemic female wasteland. At first, it’s great to have some company, but after weeks of doing little more than rewatching Sleepless in Seattle in his hospital room, Fletcher begins to feel a bit coddled. He begins to wonder: Shouldn’t the last man on earth act a little more…manly? When violence strikes the hospital, Fletcher is forced to learn the hard way that being the last surviving man requires an unpleasant amount of surviving. The author’s comedic prose flows easily, managing to sneak in quite a bit of his character’s traumatized psychology: “[Fletcher] had developed a nice little defense mechanism during his isolation that acted as a firewall to most forms of sentimentality. When an apocalypse is at your door, wallowing is an indulgence you simply can’t afford. Because wallowing is just one little hop away from giving up…” The book is far too long, but the length does give Dargitz ample space to move beyond the sitcom-like premise and explore some deeper issues related to the concept of masculinity, in a narrative more timely than it may seem.
A comic interrogation of manhood set in a nearly man-free apocalypse.Pub Date: Oct. 20, 2023
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: 324
Publisher: Edderkoppen Press
Review Posted Online: Aug. 22, 2023
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
Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.
Coelho is a Brazilian writer with four books to his credit. Following Diary of a Magus (1992—not reviewed) came this book, published in Brazil in 1988: it's an interdenominational, transcendental, inspirational fable—in other words, a bag of wind.
The story is about a youth empowered to follow his dream. Santiago is an Andalusian shepherd boy who learns through a dream of a treasure in the Egyptian pyramids. An old man, the king of Salem, the first of various spiritual guides, tells the boy that he has discovered his destiny: "to realize one's destiny is a person's only real obligation." So Santiago sells his sheep, sails to Tangier, is tricked out of his money, regains it through hard work, crosses the desert with a caravan, stops at an oasis long enough to fall in love, escapes from warring tribesmen by performing a miracle, reaches the pyramids, and eventually gets both the gold and the girl. Along the way he meets an Englishman who describes the Soul of the World; the desert woman Fatima, who teaches him the Language of the World; and an alchemist who says, "Listen to your heart" A message clings like ivy to every encounter; everyone, but everyone, has to put in their two cents' worth, from the crystal merchant to the camel driver ("concentrate always on the present, you'll be a happy man"). The absence of characterization and overall blandness suggest authorship by a committee of self-improvement pundits—a far cry from Saint- Exupery's The Little Prince: that flagship of the genre was a genuine charmer because it clearly derived from a quirky, individual sensibility.
Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.Pub Date: July 1, 1993
ISBN: 0-06-250217-4
Page Count: 192
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1993
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
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