A sometimes rollicking, sometimes tragedy-tinged novel about a not-so-innocent abroad.
A stylish and often surprising American-expatriate novel for the not-quite–post-colonial age—and a portrait of Ukraine in the run-up to Russia's 2022 assault.
It's 2018. John Turner, just turned 30, has suffered both a romantic breakup and the death of his father. A college friend calls with a ridiculous-sounding opportunity: Might he move to western Ukraine to train call-center reps in idiomatic American English? Despite having no contacts and no experience with either the Ukrainian or the Russian languages, John takes the plunge. He foresees a chance to rebuild himself, part monastic retreat, part grand adventure. It turns out that the reps most need a crash course in chipper American small talk, which they find baffling, and the effort to provide this brings John closer to them; despite his determination not to succumb to morally dubious cliché, he struggles against a crush on one, Natalia, and befriends another, with whom he trains in boxing. John’s effort also provides Lichtman an opportunity to reflect on cultural differences, on the twilight of the so-called American Age... and on the damage peculiar to the representative of empire who is sheepish, guilty, exquisitely sensitive, and determined to make everyone agree that he has no imperial intent. Perhaps most impressive is Lichtman's high-wire act of tone. In the book's first half, John is largely an earnest goof, well meaning and bewildered. But when a comic figure like that is set down in a country inured to tragedy—and as the undeclared Russian war worsens and a comic actor is elected to the Ukrainian presidency—it becomes clear that John's misunderstandings and awkwardnesses, his accidents of language (when he panics, he tends to blurt out a phrase that means "have sex with me"), can't stay mere fish-out-of-water humor. In places like Ukraine, comedy is backed with consequence. John keeps overhearing neighbors fighting—a suffering woman, her brutal spouse—and can't decide what to do. Call the police? Intervene himself? Can domestic violence be a cultural difference?
A sometimes rollicking, sometimes tragedy-tinged novel about a not-so-innocent abroad.Pub Date: April 11, 2023
ISBN: 9781982156817
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Marysue Rucci Books
Review Posted Online: Jan. 11, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2023
BOOK REVIEW
PERSPECTIVES
Amateurish, with a twist savvy readers will see coming from a mile away.
A woman accused of shooting her husband six times in the face refuses to speak.
"Alicia Berenson was thirty-three years old when she killed her husband. They had been married for seven years. They were both artists—Alicia was a painter, and Gabriel was a well-known fashion photographer." Michaelides' debut is narrated in the voice of psychotherapist Theo Faber, who applies for a job at the institution where Alicia is incarcerated because he's fascinated with her case and believes he will be able to get her to talk. The narration of the increasingly unrealistic events that follow is interwoven with excerpts from Alicia's diary. Ah, yes, the old interwoven diary trick. When you read Alicia's diary you'll conclude the woman could well have been a novelist instead of a painter because it contains page after page of detailed dialogue, scenes, and conversations quite unlike those in any journal you've ever seen. " 'What's the matter?' 'I can't talk about it on the phone, I need to see you.' 'It's just—I'm not sure I can make it up to Cambridge at the minute.' 'I'll come to you. This afternoon. Okay?' Something in Paul's voice made me agree without thinking about it. He sounded desperate. 'Okay. Are you sure you can't tell me about it now?' 'I'll see you later.' Paul hung up." Wouldn't all this appear in a diary as "Paul wouldn't tell me what was wrong"? An even more improbable entry is the one that pins the tail on the killer. While much of the book is clumsy, contrived, and silly, it is while reading passages of the diary that one may actually find oneself laughing out loud.
Amateurish, with a twist savvy readers will see coming from a mile away.Pub Date: Feb. 5, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-250-30169-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Celadon Books
Review Posted Online: Nov. 3, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2018
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
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