A wide variety of thought-provoking tales.
Kelly presents a brief collection of offbeat short stories that span multiple genres.
In this anthology, readers will find eclectic works divided into three sections: “New Fabulism/Slipstream,” “Speculative,” and “Meditations and Benedictions.” In “Wax Works,” which was previously published in The Fabulist, she offers an offbeat take on the legend of Icarus, with a boy made of wax melting after getting too close to a microwave. In the horror-tinged “Kahlo,” a woman’s insurance coverage runs out during the middle of heart surgery, so instead of sewing the organ back inside her chest, the surgeons leave it outside her body, connected by seeping tubes and bloody bandages. During a war between gods, two deities fall in love, while another is trapped in a sheep’s body in “Sheep Baah Baah Baah.” Several tales feature solitary figures grappling with the wider world in their own unique ways; for instance, in “Upper Management, or GodCo., LLC,” angels test out a “de-lonesoming device,” and one woman questions the contract they’re required to sign. In “The Best-Known Unknown People Who Maybe Drew Breath Upon the Planet,” which appeared in the Kenyon Review, a man writes letters to the editor and op-eds under assumed names (a series of personas he’s created whom he pits against one another in his imagination and in print); it’s a work that straddles the line between the literary and the fantastic. In “Graceland and Greenland and Disneyland”—a notable example of a story without any fantasy elements, other than one character’s dreams of a better future—a runaway travels to Pittsburgh by train and briefly meets an older woman who had youthful adventures as a Rockette. Sarah B. Mohler, an associate professor of English at Truman State University in Missouri, offers a thoughtful analysis of Kelly’s work at the end of the collection that focuses on the stories’ genre fluidity. Readers looking for fiction that’s outside the mainstream, no matter what genres they generally prefer, are likely to find much to enjoy here. These are stories with sometimes-hidden depths that may be revealed to readers in moments of quiet consideration.
A wide variety of thought-provoking tales.Pub Date: Nov. 14, 2023
ISBN: 9798891320468
Page Count: 134
Publisher: Atmosphere Press
Review Posted Online: Dec. 8, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2024
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A dramatic, vividly detailed reconstruction of a little-known aspect of the Vietnam War.
A young woman’s experience as a nurse in Vietnam casts a deep shadow over her life.
When we learn that the farewell party in the opening scene is for Frances “Frankie” McGrath’s older brother—“a golden boy, a wild child who could make the hardest heart soften”—who is leaving to serve in Vietnam in 1966, we feel pretty certain that poor Finley McGrath is marked for death. Still, it’s a surprise when the fateful doorbell rings less than 20 pages later. His death inspires his sister to enlist as an Army nurse, and this turn of events is just the beginning of a roller coaster of a plot that’s impressive and engrossing if at times a bit formulaic. Hannah renders the experiences of the young women who served in Vietnam in all-encompassing detail. The first half of the book, set in gore-drenched hospital wards, mildewed dorm rooms, and boozy officers’ clubs, is an exciting read, tracking the transformation of virginal, uptight Frankie into a crack surgical nurse and woman of the world. Her tensely platonic romance with a married surgeon ends when his broken, unbreathing body is airlifted out by helicopter; she throws her pent-up passion into a wild affair with a soldier who happens to be her dead brother’s best friend. In the second part of the book, after the war, Frankie seems to experience every possible bad break. A drawback of the story is that none of the secondary characters in her life are fully three-dimensional: Her dismissive, chauvinistic father and tight-lipped, pill-popping mother, her fellow nurses, and her various love interests are more plot devices than people. You’ll wish you could have gone to Vegas and placed a bet on the ending—while it’s against all the odds, you’ll see it coming from a mile away.
A dramatic, vividly detailed reconstruction of a little-known aspect of the Vietnam War.Pub Date: Feb. 6, 2024
ISBN: 9781250178633
Page Count: 480
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Nov. 4, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2023
PERSPECTIVES
BOOK TO SCREEN
SEEN & HEARD
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
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