Two sharp novellas that vividly complement each other.
Adult boys become adult men in Meyers' first book of two short novels.
At face value, Episcopalian Father Stackpole and Gary, an art history professor, have little in common. In The Man Who Owned New York, which takes place in the early 1900s, Stackpole works for All Angels church, a congregation that invests, builds and prospers—all thanks to owning a big chunk of New York City real estate. When a Kansas farmer calls the church’s land ownership fraudulent, Stackpole is forced to reconcile his own beliefs in the separation of church and bank with the practices of his congregation, while simultaneously vying for the favor of the claimant’s beautiful daughter. In Springtime in Siena, a study trip in Italy is revealed to be a sex-cation, with Gary taking his part in seducing students and townspeople. On this trip, Gary, in his late 20s, finds himself attracted to a woman for the first time, and he confronts his growing interest in the opposite gender. The two novellas are similar and different at the same time. Both are written as memoirs and focus on the transition from frantic adulthood into genuine maturity. Both men are involved in intense relationships for their respective times. Stackpole’s actions are cautiously prescribed per the rules of 1900s courting but include stealing kisses and secret dates. Gary’s boldness reflects a free-love era that seeped into the ’70s. Each story has a dramatically different writing style that plays into the contrast. Stackpole’s story is told with antiquated language, which can feel contrived at times, even as the author fixes Stackpole firmly in time by using flowing sentence structures common in bygone novels, where women are ladies and anger comes off as a devastating betrayal. On the other hand, Michael lives among brusquely described encounters and desires, where sex is a four-letter word and mechanical detail in the bedroom is a matter of course. By expertly separating these stories using substance and style, the author presents two distinct American men in two distinct eras—evidence that the tumultuous transition into adulthood transcends time.
Two sharp novellas that vividly complement each other.Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2012
ISBN: 978-1621418597
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Booklocker.com, Inc.
Review Posted Online: Nov. 21, 2012
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
An action-packed, brightly detailed historical novel not much hampered by its thinly characterized central figure.
A free-spirited woman forges a career as a writer and journalist, risking scandal and war zones to follow her heart.
Allende’s latest opens in San Francisco in 1873, introducing Emilia at age 7, the illegitimate daughter of Molly Walsh, who, as a novice nun, was seduced and abandoned by wealthy Chilean Gonzalo Andrés del Valle. Molly goes on to a successful marriage, Emilia grows up with a loving stepfather, and at 17 she begins writing, then publishing, sensational dime novels under the pseudonym Brandon J. Price. By 23, she’s a journalist with a column in The Daily Examiner, though still forced to hide her gender behind her pen name. Rule breaking is in her nature, and while she accepts, for now, lower pay than men, she decides on a trip to New York to take a lover and learns to control her own contraception. Later, finally writing under her own name, she’s commissioned to go to Chile and cover its civil war from a human angle, accompanied by colleague and friend Eric Whelan, whose focus is the military aspect. Chilean revolutionary politics make for less sprightly reading, but Emilia’s individual encounters with members of high and low society lend atmosphere. These include the president, a great aunt, and eventually her father—now alone, regretful, and mortally ill. Although he disapproves of working women, the two share a “desire to see the world and experience everything intensely,” and when he offers to recognize Emilia as his legitimate child, she accepts. Now the story gathers pace, with Emilia—always and predictably the rebel—witnessing the horrors of battle, discovering that she and Eric are in love, and getting arrested. Not quite plausibly, she instigates a further sequence of impulsive moves before the story is permitted to conclude.
An action-packed, brightly detailed historical novel not much hampered by its thinly characterized central figure.Pub Date: May 6, 2025
ISBN: 9780593975091
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: April 19, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2025
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
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