Antón may not always be a sympathetic character, but his quest could resonate with readers struggling to find meaning in...
In Casariego’s witty, thought-provoking novel (translated from Spanish by Bunstead), a man plagued by anxiety attacks resolves to live a full, happy life.
Antón Mallick is a 32-year-old Spaniard in the midst of a deeply personal, existential crisis. On the surface, he seems to have a successful, if unremarkable, life. He has a steady job working with satellites, a large and well-meaning family, and an active social life. However, underneath the surface, Antón suffers from near-debilitating anxiety attacks, his family is highly dysfunctional, and his social life is punctuated by drug use and casual sexual encounters. Antón manages to keep his anxiety in check until a chance encounter at a local store sends him spiraling into a particularly intense attack: While standing in line, he spots a pregnant woman ahead of him buying a set of the Lethal Weapon films. She turns to him and says she’s going to have his baby. Antón’s life is completely transformed by the encounter, which eventually helps set him on a path toward embracing happiness. Armed with books on self-help and philosophy provided by his brother, Zoltan, and sister, Bela, Antón resolves to be happy in life and to look for the mystery woman carrying his child. Casariego succeeds at giving vibrant life to Antón and his world by using a complex, unorthodox narrative structure. Antón’s story is primarily told through journal entries in which he discusses his colorful family history, his desire to be happy, his feelings toward his unborn child, whom he names Dragosi, and his complicated relationships with his siblings. In lengthy sidebars, Antón also critiques the myriad of books given to him by his siblings, and transcripts of Skype conversations offer insights into his connections with his parents. Antón’s life is anything but straightforward, and Bunstead’s lucid translation keeps the narrative clear and cohesive, even when Antón’s life seems to be falling apart.
Antón may not always be a sympathetic character, but his quest could resonate with readers struggling to find meaning in their lives.Pub Date: April 1, 2014
ISBN: 978-8494174483
Page Count: 354
Publisher: Hispabooks
Review Posted Online: May 22, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2014
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Jonathan Livingston Kitty, it’s not.
A lonely postman learns that he’s about to die—and reflects on life as he bargains with a Hawaiian-shirt–wearing devil.
The 30-year-old first-person narrator in filmmaker/novelist Kawamura’s slim novel is, by his own admission, “boring…a monotone guy,” so unimaginative that, when he learns he has a brain tumor, the bucket list he writes down is dull enough that “even the cat looked disgusted with me.” Luckily—or maybe not—a friendly devil, dubbed Aloha, pops onto the scene, and he’s willing to make a deal: an extra day of life in exchange for being allowed to remove something pleasant from the world. The first thing excised is phones, which goes well enough. (The narrator is pleasantly surprised to find that “people seemed to have no problem finding something to fill up their free time.”) But deals with the devil do have a way of getting complicated. This leads to shallow musings (“Sometimes, when you rewatch a film after not having seen it for a long time, it makes a totally different impression on you than it did the first time you saw it. Of course, the movie hasn’t changed; it’s you who’s changed") written in prose so awkward, it’s possibly satire (“Tears dripped down onto the letter like warm, salty drops of rain”). Even the postman’s beloved cat, who gains the power of speech, ends up being prim and annoying. The narrator ponders feelings about a lost love, his late mother, and his estranged father in a way that some readers might find moving at times. But for many, whatever made this book a bestseller in Japan is going to be lost in translation.
Jonathan Livingston Kitty, it’s not.Pub Date: March 12, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-250-29405-0
Page Count: 176
Publisher: Flatiron Books
Review Posted Online: Feb. 16, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2019
The Brat Pack meets The Bacchae in this precious, way-too-long, and utterly unsuspenseful town-and-gown murder tale. A bunch of ever-so-mandarin college kids in a small Vermont school are the eager epigones of an aloof classics professor, and in their exclusivity and snobbishness and eagerness to please their teacher, they are moved to try to enact Dionysian frenzies in the woods. During the only one that actually comes off, a local farmer happens upon them—and they kill him. But the death isn't ruled a murder—and might never have been if one of the gang—a cadging sybarite named Bunny Corcoran—hadn't shown signs of cracking under the secret's weight. And so he too is dispatched. The narrator, a blank-slate Californian named Richard Pepen chronicles the coverup. But if you're thinking remorse-drama, conscience masque, or even semi-trashy who'll-break-first? page-turner, forget it: This is a straight gee-whiz, first-to-have-ever-noticed college novel—"Hampden College, as a body, was always strangely prone to hysteria. Whether from isolation, malice, or simple boredom, people there were far more credulous and excitable than educated people are generally thought to be, and this hermetic, overheated atmosphere made it a thriving black petri dish of melodrama and distortion." First-novelist Tartt goes muzzy when she has to describe human confrontations (the murder, or sex, or even the ping-ponging of fear), and is much more comfortable in transcribing aimless dorm-room paranoia or the TV shows that the malefactors anesthetize themselves with as fate ticks down. By telegraphing the murders, Tartt wants us to be continually horrified at these kids—while inviting us to semi-enjoy their manneristic fetishes and refined tastes. This ersatz-Fitzgerald mix of moralizing and mirror-looking (Jay McInerney shook and poured the shaker first) is very 80's—and in Tartt's strenuous version already seems dated, formulaic. Les Nerds du Mal—and about as deep (if not nearly as involving) as a TV movie.
Pub Date: Sept. 16, 1992
ISBN: 1400031702
Page Count: 592
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1992
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SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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