As witty as it is wise, Iczkovits’ novel is a profoundly moving caper through the Russian empire.
A search for a missing husband goes wildly awry.
Occasionally a book comes along so fresh, strange, and original that it seems peerless, utterly unprecedented. This is one of those books. You might hear traces of Gogol or Isaac Babel in Iczkovits’ voice, but they’re only traces. The madcap plot is more or less as follows: Mende Speismann’s husband has taken off, leaving her, her two children, and her in-laws basically destitute. It’s the late 19th century, the Pale of Settlement, and when Mende’s sister, Fanny Keismann, takes off in search of the errant husband, nobody knows where she’s gone. The oblique note she leaves behind doesn’t clarify matters. Fanny is known in their tightknit, insular Jewish community as a vilde chaya—a wild animal—because, as a young girl, she learned to slaughter animals, which was not, to say the least, a typically feminine pastime. Iczkovits follows Fanny on her search for Mende’s husband, but he also describes Mende’s life back in Motal, and his sympathy for his women characters is profound. But there’s also an agent of the secret police, Piotr Novak, who becomes involved when a trail of dead bodies sprouts up in Fanny’s wake, as well as a pair of old soldiers who had been, as children, forcibly removed from their Jewish homes and compelled to serve. If occasionally Iczkovits’ superb humor slips too far into the slapstick, you’ll forgive him: He’s so compelling a storyteller he could be forgiven anything. Likewise, the passages that delve into Mende’s inner life are so textured and rich they can’t help but draw attention to the fact that Iczkovits never quite explicates Fanny’s own thoughts to an equal degree. But these are minor quibbles. Iczkovits is a superb talent, and this novel is a resounding success.
As witty as it is wise, Iczkovits’ novel is a profoundly moving caper through the Russian empire.Pub Date: Feb. 23, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-8052-4365-9
Page Count: 528
Publisher: Pantheon
Review Posted Online: Sept. 15, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2020
PERSPECTIVES
Unrelenting, and not in a good way.
A young Navarrian woman faces even greater challenges in her second year at dragon-riding school.
Violet Sorrengail did all the normal things one would do as a first-year student at Basgiath War College: made new friends, fell in love, and survived multiple assassination attempts. She was also the first rider to ever bond with two dragons: Tairn, a powerful black dragon with a distinguished battle history, and Andarna, a baby dragon too young to carry a rider. At the end of Fourth Wing (2023), Violet and her lover, Xaden Riorson, discovered that Navarre is under attack from wyvern, evil two-legged dragons, and venin, soulless monsters that harvest energy from the ground. Navarrians had always been told that these were monsters of legend and myth, not real creatures dangerously close to breaking through Navarre’s wards and attacking civilian populations. In this overly long sequel, Violet, Xaden, and their dragons are determined to find a way to protect Navarre, despite the fact that the army and government hid the truth about these creatures. Due to the machinations of several traitorous instructors at Basgiath, Xaden and Violet are separated for most of the book—he’s stationed at a distant outpost, leaving her to handle the treacherous, cutthroat world of the war college on her own. Violet is repeatedly threatened by her new vice commandant, a brutal man who wants to silence her. Although Violet and her dragons continue to model extreme bravery, the novel feels repetitive and more than a little sloppy, leaving obvious questions about the world unanswered. The book is full of action and just as full of plot holes, including scenes that are illogical or disconnected from the main narrative. Secondary characters are ignored until a scene requires them to assist Violet or to be killed in the endless violence that plagues their school.
Unrelenting, and not in a good way.Pub Date: Nov. 7, 2023
ISBN: 9781649374172
Page Count: 640
Publisher: Red Tower
Review Posted Online: Jan. 20, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
Though not perfect, a clear leap forward for Rooney; her grandmaster status remains intact.
Two brothers—one a lawyer, one a chess prodigy—work through the death of their father, their complicated romantic lives, and their even more tangled relationship with each other.
Ten years separate the Koubek brothers. In his early 30s, Peter has turned his past as a university debating champ into a career as a progressive lawyer in Dublin. Ivan is just out of college, struggling to make ends meet through freelance data analysis and reckoning with his recent free fall in the world chess rankings. When their father dies of cancer, the cracks in the brothers’ relationship widen. “Complete oddball” Ivan falls in love with an older woman, an arts center employee, which freaks Peter out. Peter juggles two women at once: free-spirited college student Naomi and his ex-girlfriend Sylvia, whose life has changed drastically since a car accident left her in chronic pain. Emotional chaos abounds. Rooney has struck a satisfying blend of the things she’s best at—sensitively rendered characters, intimacies, consideration of social and philosophical issues—with newer moves. Having the book’s protagonists navigating a familial rather than romantic relationship seems a natural next step for Rooney, with her astutely empathic perception, and the sections from Peter’s point of view show Rooney pushing her style into new territory with clipped, fragmented, almost impressionistic sentences. (Peter on Sylvia: “Must wonder what he’s really here for: repentance, maybe. Bless me for I have. Not like that, he wants to tell her. Why then. Terror of solitude.”) The risk: Peter comes across as a slightly blurry character, even to himself—he’s no match for the indelible Ivan—so readers may find these sections less propulsive at best or over-stylized at worst. Overall, though, the pages still fly; the characters remain reach-out-and-touch-them real.
Though not perfect, a clear leap forward for Rooney; her grandmaster status remains intact.Pub Date: Sept. 24, 2024
ISBN: 9780374602635
Page Count: 464
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: July 4, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
PERSPECTIVES
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