A taut, searing tour of modern atrocities.
A curator explains the origins of a museum dedicated to torture.
Structured as the opening address at a press preview for the titular museum, Missaghi’s novel takes a chilling look at repressive regimes and the people complicit in their atrocities. The narrator is up front about her time spent as “an interrogator and torturer” and eventually reveals that the museum is intended to be “an educational center through which we can pass on our knowledge and achievements.” Given the Iranian setting, the actions of its government loom large, but so does the U.S. government’s use of torture, especially in the 21st century. “I’m aware that when it comes to torture, each country, era, situation, and even type of prisoner demands its own set of rules and regulations,” the narrator says — and what follows is an unsettling tour of historical atrocities, as well as the theorists who have tried to understand them. (Tonally, it’s pitched somewhere between Ali Smith’s Artful and Roberto Bolaño’s By Night in Chile.) The narrator’s speech abounds with allusions to writers and artists, including Siah Armajani, Tony Cokes, Pauline Oliveros, Hannah Arendt and Darius Rejali. But the most unsettling segment comes when the narrator speaks of Narges Mohammadi, an activist who is currently imprisoned by the Iranian regime. “Part of me also enjoys the constant battle between us,” the narrator says, and between this and her discussion of working to make torture a more equitable place when it comes to gender, there’s a haunting specificity to her approach. As much as readers might squirm as the narrator uses works opposed to torture to justify torture, the overall effect is one of a horror in which everyone is complicit.
A taut, searing tour of modern atrocities.Pub Date: Oct. 22, 2024
ISBN: 9781566896993
Page Count: 136
Publisher: Coffee House
Review Posted Online: Aug. 30, 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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