A moving and graceful novella of overcoming sorrow.
A year in the life of a woman grieving for her stepfather.
The narrator of this beautiful book is a 27-year-old woman named April, a curatorial assistant in California. The story starts in the spring, in the days after April’s beloved stepfather, Wilson, has died. This is the second of her fathers to have died: The first killed himself when she was 16. In the months of April’s mourning, she floats along, almost dissociative. She has short relationships with unsuitable men: Crash Man, who would always fall asleep while driving; Leaf Man, who grows marijuana plants in his spare bedroom closet; Math Man, who is a foot and a half taller than she is; Critic Man, who hates the layout of her apartment. Finally, in the fall, April falls for her best friend’s husband’s cousin, Victor, who himself suffers from depression—“the serious kind”—and her life begins to take shape once more. Vogel (At the Border of Wilshire & Nobody, 2015) captures with acute accuracy the drifting sadness that lingers in the months after the death of a loved one—the way little moments serve as reminders and how every task feels just a little bit more difficult. The novella is broken up by season and then into brief chapters, as if to mirror the disjointed, distracted experience of trying to live after the people you love are dead. The prose is stunning: never overwrought for so intense a subject, flowing yet specific, quiet and lovely. In reference to the lists April makes to keep her life on track, she writes: “Life doesn’t rest, though. It’s always slipping into the future, right when I was all caught up. It’s always bringing me back into the thick of it, and I don’t want to be in the thick of it. I want everything done.”
A moving and graceful novella of overcoming sorrow.Pub Date: Nov. 13, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-61219-736-4
Page Count: 144
Publisher: Melville House
Review Posted Online: Aug. 20, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2018
These letters from some important executive Down Below, to one of the junior devils here on earth, whose job is to corrupt mortals, are witty and written in a breezy style seldom found in religious literature. The author quotes Luther, who said: "The best way to drive out the devil, if he will not yield to texts of Scripture, is to jeer and flout him, for he cannot bear scorn." This the author does most successfully, for by presenting some of our modern and not-so-modern beliefs as emanating from the devil's headquarters, he succeeds in making his reader feel like an ass for ever having believed in such ideas. This kind of presentation gives the author a tremendous advantage over the reader, however, for the more timid reader may feel a sense of guilt after putting down this book. It is a clever book, and for the clever reader, rather than the too-earnest soul.
Pub Date: Jan. 1, 1942
ISBN: 0060652934
Page Count: 53
Publisher: Macmillan
Review Posted Online: Oct. 17, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1943
Dark and unsettling, this novel’s end arrives abruptly even as readers are still moving at a breakneck speed.
Ten years after her teenage daughter went missing, a mother begins a new relationship only to discover she can't truly move on until she answers lingering questions about the past.
Laurel Mack’s life stopped in many ways the day her 15-year-old daughter, Ellie, left the house to study at the library and never returned. She drifted away from her other two children, Hanna and Jake, and eventually she and her husband, Paul, divorced. Ten years later, Ellie’s remains and her backpack are found, though the police are unable to determine the reasons for her disappearance and death. After Ellie’s funeral, Laurel begins a relationship with Floyd, a man she meets in a cafe. She's disarmed by Floyd’s charm, but when she meets his young daughter, Poppy, Laurel is startled by her resemblance to Ellie. As the novel progresses, Laurel becomes increasingly determined to learn what happened to Ellie, especially after discovering an odd connection between Poppy’s mother and her daughter even as her relationship with Floyd is becoming more serious. Jewell’s (I Found You, 2017, etc.) latest thriller moves at a brisk pace even as she plays with narrative structure: The book is split into three sections, including a first one which alternates chapters between the time of Ellie’s disappearance and the present and a second section that begins as Laurel and Floyd meet. Both of these sections primarily focus on Laurel. In the third section, Jewell alternates narrators and moments in time: The narrator switches to alternating first-person points of view (told by Poppy’s mother and Floyd) interspersed with third-person narration of Ellie’s experiences and Laurel’s discoveries in the present. All of these devices serve to build palpable tension, but the structure also contributes to how deeply disturbing the story becomes. At times, the characters and the emotional core of the events are almost obscured by such quick maneuvering through the weighty plot.
Dark and unsettling, this novel’s end arrives abruptly even as readers are still moving at a breakneck speed.Pub Date: April 24, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-5011-5464-5
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Atria
Review Posted Online: Feb. 5, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2018
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