Trauma, rage, depression, and heartbreak mingle with dashes of optimism and excitement.
A moving testament to human connection in the modern age.
The characters in Welsh author Morris’ short stories are desperate for control. He paints a world that is ambivalent at best, actively cruel at worst. In “Little Wizard,” the ironically nicknamed Big Mike rails against his diminutive stature, lashing out at friends, co-workers, roommates, and prospective Tinder dates because no one can seem to look past the fact that he’s 5-foot-3. He, like Morris’ other protagonists, begs for a chance, for someone to see him. He finally works up the courage to ask his best friend and crush, Rhian, out on a date, and the grand reveal showcases Morris’ true intention with the tale. Elsewhere, in “Birthday Teeth,” Glyn is a moderator on a forum for vampire fanatics. He balances taking care of his depressed mother with his own macabre outlook on the world, all the while obsessively sharing details of a recently ended relationship, one that involved a staggering betrayal. Glyn has convinced himself he can solve his problems by paying for a procedure to get his teeth sharpened; if only he had this one thing, everything else would turn out all right. It’s the essential theme of this story collection—what are the ways we try to control the uncontrollable? Life’s randomness brings chaos and tragedy. Is there an escape? In “Wales,” Gareth goes to a soccer match with his father, whom he hasn’t seen in three months. If Wales wins, “everything will turn out okay,” he assures himself. “His mother will find a wad of cash stuffed in the walls and they won’t need to move out.” The throughline here is an unrelenting empathy, whether Morris is writing about a family of seahorses or a couple wrestling through disconnect on what was supposed to be a restful vacation. Everyone, every living thing, matters.
Trauma, rage, depression, and heartbreak mingle with dashes of optimism and excitement.Pub Date: April 8, 2025
ISBN: 9781961884342
Page Count: 200
Publisher: Unnamed Press
Review Posted Online: March 22, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: tomorrow
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
A welcome literary resurrection that deserves a place alongside Wright’s best-known work.
A falsely accused Black man goes into hiding in this masterful novella by Wright (1908-1960), finally published in full.
Written in 1941 and '42, between Wright’s classics Native Son and Black Boy, this short novel concerns Fred Daniels, a modest laborer who’s arrested by police officers and bullied into signing a false confession that he killed the residents of a house near where he was working. In a brief unsupervised moment, he escapes through a manhole and goes into hiding in a sewer. A series of allegorical, surrealistic set pieces ensues as Fred explores the nether reaches of a church, a real estate firm, and a jewelry store. Each stop is an opportunity for Wright to explore themes of hope, greed, and exploitation; the real estate firm, Wright notes, “collected hundreds of thousands of dollars in rent from poor colored folks.” But Fred’s deepening existential crisis and growing distance from society keep the scenes from feeling like potted commentaries. As he wallpapers his underground warren with cash, mocking and invalidating the currency, he registers a surrealistic but engrossing protest against divisive social norms. The novel, rejected by Wright’s publisher, has only appeared as a substantially truncated short story until now, without the opening setup and with a different ending. Wright's take on racial injustice seems to have unsettled his publisher: A note reveals that an editor found reading about Fred’s treatment by the police “unbearable.” That may explain why Wright, in an essay included here, says its focus on race is “rather muted,” emphasizing broader existential themes. Regardless, as an afterword by Wright’s grandson Malcolm attests, the story now serves as an allegory both of Wright (he moved to France, an “exile beyond the reach of Jim Crow and American bigotry”) and American life. Today, it resonates deeply as a story about race and the struggle to envision a different, better world.
A welcome literary resurrection that deserves a place alongside Wright’s best-known work.Pub Date: April 20, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-59853-676-8
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Library of America
Review Posted Online: March 16, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2021
BOOK TO SCREEN
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