Engel's multinational update of dirty realism is full of ironic flair, imagination, and empathy.
In New York, Cuba, and Colombia, destiny comes in pairs.
Most of the 10 stories in Engel's fifth book, following the novel Infinite Country (2021), have a pair of characters at the center, the intersection of their lives sizzling like crossed wires. In the first, "Aida," chosen for The Best American Mystery Stories 2014, a 16-year-old girl faces the unfolding reality of her twin sister's disappearance. In "Fausto," an almost O. Henry–style ironic outcome crowns a story about a young woman whose boyfriend lures her into drug muling. Unexpectedly, the closest thing to a happy ending is found in "The Book of Saints," a wonderful tennis match of a story, bouncing back and forth between the points of view of a Home Depot manager from upstate New York and his mail-order Colombian bride. You wouldn't think a relationship that starts out with "To be honest, all the girls on the website looked really similar," and "It didn't bother me to sleep with him" is going to turn out to be a love story. "Campoamor" highlights Engel's dark sense of humor, focusing on a wannabe novelist in Havana with two girlfriends. This man is getting nowhere on his novel but as an "interesting exercise" writes practice suicide notes in his notebook. "Dear Lily, I remember when you saw me on the sidewalk and asked me to help bring your shopping bags to your apartment. Within minutes you were sucking me off as if you'd been waiting for me all your life. You make it hard to leave you." Engel's gift for dialogue makes the stories a pleasure to read despite their often grim situations—the stealing of a brother's bones from his grave, the impregnation of a nanny by the man she works for, the strange sort-of romance that unfolds between the survivors of a kidnapping and a rape.
Engel's multinational update of dirty realism is full of ironic flair, imagination, and empathy.Pub Date: Jan. 24, 2023
ISBN: 978-1-982159-52-8
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Avid Reader Press
Review Posted Online: Oct. 25, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2022
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BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A tender and moving portrait about the transcendent power of art and friendship.
An artwork’s value grows if you understand the stories of the people who inspired it.
Never in her wildest dreams would foster kid Louisa dream of meeting C. Jat, the famous painter of The One of the Sea, which depicts a group of young teens on a pier on a hot summer’s day. But in Backman’s latest, that’s just what happens—an unexpected (but not unbelievable) set of circumstances causes their paths to collide right before the dying 39-year-old artist’s departure from the world. One of his final acts is to bequeath that painting to Louisa, who has endured a string of violent foster homes since her mother abandoned her as a child. Selling the painting will change her life—but can she do it? Before deciding, she accompanies Ted, one of the artist’s close friends and one of the young teens captured in that celebrated painting, on a train journey to take the artist’s ashes to his hometown. She wants to know all about the painting, which launched Jat’s career at age 14, and the circle of beloved friends who inspired it. The bestselling author of A Man Called Ove (2014) and other novels, Backman gives us a heartwarming story about how these friends, set adrift by the violence and unhappiness of their homes, found each other and created a new definition of family. “You think you’re alone,” one character explains, “but there are others like you, people who stand in front of white walls and blank paper and only see magical things. One day one of them will recognize you and call out: ‘You’re one of us!’” As Ted tells stories about his friends—how Jat doubted his talents but found a champion in fiery Joar, who took on every bully to defend him; how Ali brought an excitement to their circle that was “like a blinding light, like a heart attack”—Louisa recognizes herself as a kindred soul and feels a calling to realize her own artistic gifts. What she decides to do with the painting is part of a caper worthy of the stories that Ted tells her. The novel is humorous, poignant, and always life-affirming, even when describing the bleakness of the teens’ early lives. “Art is a fragile magic, just like love,” as someone tells Louisa, “and that’s humanity’s only defense against death.”
A tender and moving portrait about the transcendent power of art and friendship.Pub Date: May 6, 2025
ISBN: 9781982112820
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Atria
Review Posted Online: today
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2025
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
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