An engrossing crime tale that would make a lean and mean movie.
In this debut novel, the events leading up to the brutal murders of a ranch foreman and his wife unfold through a variety of viewpoints.
“Something bad” has happened on the ranch of Sam Duff, “the big name T.V. broadcaster and part time rancher.” The bodies of foreman Luke Pruitt and his third wife, Deona, have been found in a manure pit while their two children, Leeland, 14, and his preteen sister, Karmen, are missing. Chapters of Burns’ compelling book alternate between Deputy Rob Greenwood’s investigation and the perspectives of the principals and participants involved in the case. These include the ill-fated Luke, who, like his father, Payton, was “meaner-than-shit” and made Benedict Cumberbatch in the film The Power of the Dog look like Roy Rogers. Linda Pruitt, his mother, was “a genuine ranch woman,” whose Ranching Weekly column contained such homespun (and posthumously ironic) wisdom as “Cowboys expect a lot of their families because they expect a lot of themselves,” and who met an unfortunate end. Most heartbreakingly, there is Luke’s abused son, Leeland, who admits to his school counselor that he does not want to be a cowboy. But haunting the narrative is the communal “We,” one voice that guiltily confesses, “We’d seen it coming, and stood by watching it the way we’d watch a dry storm approach across flat land—always thinking we had more time.” This bruising story is less a murder mystery than an unflinching look at a culture and community. Burns writes with a vivid sense of place and ranch life. Dialogue is effectively terse. “I wouldn’t treat my livestock” the way “Luke and Deona Pruitt treated that boy,” one character remarks. Evocative descriptions add rich grace notes (“Only a clarinet could have mimicked the sadness of that boy’s voice”). There are a few positive adult characters who offer compassion and a helping hand, but there is little respite for readers, which may make it hard going for some. As Luke growls at one point, “This is no tea party.”
An engrossing crime tale that would make a lean and mean movie.Pub Date: May 20, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-63988-366-0
Page Count: 306
Publisher: Atmosphere Press
Review Posted Online: Feb. 23, 2022
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
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
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
