A delightful artifact that will leave readers wondering if they ever truly understood the world at all.
Eleven short stories from the weirder end of South American culture.
Best known for his posthumously published work The Luminous Novel (2021), this collection by Levrero (1940-2004) resurrects his earliest fiction, most with shades of paranoia and self-consciousness that would turn Philip K. Dick green. The opener already gives off a strong “Tell-Tale Heart” vibe, as one man’s checklist of his nightly bedtime rituals descends into disaster—and that’s the cheerier of the two stories that bookend the collection (“The Thinking-About-Gladys Machine” and “The Thinking-About-Gladys Machine (Negative)”), both concerning a machine that seems to offer a self-destructive feedback loop instead of white noise. Even a casual action like igniting a lighter becomes a labyrinthine quest for salvation in “Beggar Street,” while brevities like “One-Way Story No. 2” use a mere handful of words to examine existential truths. There is some humor here, albeit very dark. “The Stiff Corpse” offers Pythonesque absurdity, while seemingly innocuous items become instruments of destruction in “Jelly” (a take on The Blob by way of Latin American surrealism) and in “That Green Liquid,” which shows a home product demonstration going Cat in the Hat–grade awry. The only notion that’s overused is the haunted house motif that marks “The Abandoned House,” full of tiny men and spiders and unicorns and whatnot, and the locked-room-mystery that morphs into a hero’s quest in “The Basement.” Similarly, insomnia and obsession grip the protagonists of “The Golden Reflections” and “The Boarding House,” where nocturnal wanderings lead men astray. Most of the collection’s protagonists are unnamed gray men whose featurelessness sharpens the bizarre elements of each tale. They often seem adrift, navigating a slow descent into mediocrity that makes their encounters with the surreal, and the dichotomy between their worldviews and Levrero’s phantasmagorical imagination, delightfully jarring.
A delightful artifact that will leave readers wondering if they ever truly understood the world at all.Pub Date: Oct. 15, 2024
ISBN: 9781916751064
Page Count: 176
Publisher: And Other Stories
Review Posted Online: Aug. 29, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Haig’s positive message will keep his fans happy.
A British widow travels to Ibiza and learns that it’s never too late to have a happy life.
In a world that seems to be getting more unstable by the moment, Haig’s novels are a steady ship in rough seas, offering a much-needed positive message. In works like the bestselling The Midnight Library (2020), he reminds us that finding out what you truly love and where you belong in the universe are the foundations of building a better existence. His latest book continues this upbeat messaging, albeit in a somewhat repetitive and facile way. Retired British schoolteacher Grace Winters discovers that an old acquaintance has died and left her a ramshackle home in Ibiza. A widow who lost her only child years earlier, Grace is at first reluctant to visit the house, because, at 72, she more or less believes her chance for happiness is over—but when she rouses herself to travel to the island, she discovers the opposite is true. A mystery surrounds her friend’s death involving a roguish islander, his activist daughter, an internationally famous DJ, and a strange glow in the sea that acts as a powerful life force and upends Grace’s ideas of how the cosmos works. Framed as a response to a former student’s email, the narrative follows Grace’s journey from skeptic (she was a math teacher, after all) to believer in the possibility of magic as she learns to move on from the past. Her transformation is the book’s main conflict, aside from a protest against an evil developer intent on destroying Ibiza’s natural beauty. The outcome is never in doubt, and though the story often feels stretched to the limit—this novel could have easily been a novella—the author’s insistence on the power of connection to change lives comes through loud and clear.
Haig’s positive message will keep his fans happy.Pub Date: Sept. 3, 2024
ISBN: 9780593489277
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: Aug. 3, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2024
A vibrant tale of a remarkable woman.
Who was Shakespeare?
Move over, Earl of Oxford and Francis Bacon: There’s another contender for the true author of plays attributed to the bard of Stratford—Emilia Bassano, a clever, outspoken, educated woman who takes center stage in Picoult’s spirited novel. Of Italian heritage, from a family of court musicians, Emilia was a hidden Jew and the courtesan of a much older nobleman who vetted plays to be performed for Queen Elizabeth. She was well traveled—unlike Shakespeare, she visited Italy and Denmark, where, Picoult imagines, she may have met Rosencrantz and Guildenstern—and was familiar with court intrigue and English law. “Every gap in Shakespeare’s life or knowledge that has had to be explained away by scholars, she somehow fills,” Picoult writes. Encouraged by her lover, Emilia wrote plays and poetry, but 16th-century England was not ready for a female writer. Picoult interweaves Emilia’s story with that of her descendant Melina Green, an aspiring playwright, who encounters the same sexist barriers to making herself heard that Emilia faced. In alternating chapters, Picoult follows Melina’s frustrated efforts to get a play produced—a play about Emilia, who Melina is certain sold her work to Shakespeare. Melina’s play, By Any Other Name, “wasn’t meant to be a fiction; it was meant to be the resurrection of an erasure.” Picoult creates a richly detailed portrait of daily life in Elizabethan England, from sumptuous castles to seedy hovels. Melina’s story is less vivid: Where Emilia found support from the witty Christopher Marlowe, Melina has a fashion-loving gay roommate; where Emilia faces the ravages of repeated outbreaks of plague, for Melina, Covid-19 occurs largely offstage; where Emilia has a passionate affair with the adoring Earl of Southampton, Melina’s lover is an awkward New York Times theater critic. It’s Emilia’s story, and Picoult lovingly brings her to life.
A vibrant tale of a remarkable woman.Pub Date: Aug. 20, 2024
ISBN: 9780593497210
Page Count: 544
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 15, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2024
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