A sometimes enjoyable, sometimes uneven homage to an oft-romanticized era.
A man fresh from the Navy must revitalize a leftist playhouse in this satirical counterculture novel.
San Francisco, 1968. The oddly named Student Patterson has just wrapped up his naval service aboard a refrigerator ship, but his post-discharge plans are not panning out. His fiancee, Debbie, sent him a Dear John letter—calling him a killer and also explaining their lack of sexual compatibility. Student then drowned his grief in a brothel in Saigon, and he now has a full complement of venereal diseases to deal with. He can at least enter his theater and folklore Ph.D. program as planned—though his advising professor has determined he is painfully underqualified. Student’s assigned to put on a play in the theater of the Butcher’s Town Writer’s Guild, which he discovers—just after he is pickpocketed—sits in a bad part of the city. During his initial meeting with the Thespian Committee, Student’s heart sinks further: “This collection of lame-brained, anachronistic Never-Weres and Has-Beens added up to the most catastrophic graduate program” in the long history “of colleges and universities. If needs be, he would hitchhike back to Iowa and raise chickens.” Due to his recent experiences with Debbie, Student has decided to adopt a “program of informed misogyny.” But his anti-women policy will be challenged by several students and colleagues, including the middle-aged socialist and set designer Millicent Rothstein, the grade-grubbing mother of two Jessica Bolton, and Debbie, who has not yet left his life for good—and who now has a baby in tow. Can Student repair his relationship with women, put on his play, earn his Ph.D., and successfully bridge the cultural gap between Vietnam veterans and hippie longhairs? It’s San Francisco in the late ’60s, so anything is possible.
Warner’s playful satire skewers many of the familiar types one finds in stories of ’60s America, often in unexpected ways. For instance, Student’s pickpocketing occurs when he’s stopped on his way to the theater by two older women who wish to give a hug to a patriotic serviceman—and promptly rob him blind. “One thing Mr. Student—south of Market—you worry less about flowers in your hair and more about creatures like those two misfits of femininity—they are a more effective criminal combo than if Mata-Hari and Carmen teamed up,” warns one of his new theater colleagues. The book has a number of postmodern flourishes, including a literal Greek chorus, the “Seers of Future Present,” that breaks in from time to time to warn Student about the trouble he’s about to get in for offending various powers. The story attempts to undermine Student’s posture of misogyny, but in doing so, it acts out quite a bit of it. There’s a lot of sexualizing going on—in part, perhaps, due to the free-love projects of many of the characters—but it sometimes leads to moments of extreme unpleasantness. (For instance, the Saigon sex workers Student patronizes are remarked to be no older than 15 years old.) The novel ends up walking a fine line between serving as a satire of a certain sort of libidinous male fantasy and becoming the thing itself.
A sometimes enjoyable, sometimes uneven homage to an oft-romanticized era.Pub Date: Nov. 20, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-60489-268-0
Page Count: 250
Publisher: Livingston Press
Review Posted Online: Feb. 12, 2021
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
Have tissues ready as you read this. A small package will do.
A love story about a life of second chances.
In Nassau, in the Bahamas, casino detective Vincent LaPorta grills Alfie Logan, who’d come up a winner three times in a row at the roulette table and walked away with $2 million. “How did you do it?” asks the detective. Alfie calmly denies cheating. You wired all the money to a Gianna Rule, LaPorta says. Why? To explain, Alfie produces a composition book with the words “For the Boss, to Be Read Upon My Death” written on the cover. Read this for answers, Alfie suggests, calling it a love story. His mother had passed along to him a strange trait: He can say “Twice!” and go back to a specific time and place to have a do-over. But it only works once for any particular moment, and then he must live with the new consequences. He can only do this for himself and can’t prevent anyone from dying. Alfie regularly uses his power—failing to impress a girl the first time, he finds out more about her, goes back in time, and presto! She likes him. The premise is of course not credible—LaPorta doesn’t buy it either—but it’s intriguing. Most people would probably love to go back and unsay something. The story’s focus is on Alfie’s love for Gianna and whether it’s requited, unrequited, or both. In any case, he’s obsessed with her. He’s a good man, though, an intelligent person with ordinary human failings and a solid moral compass. Albom writes in a warm, easy style that transports the reader to a world of second chances and what-ifs, where spirituality lies close to the surface but never intrudes on the story. Though a cynic will call it sappy, anyone who is sick to their core from the daily news will enjoy this escape from reality.
Have tissues ready as you read this. A small package will do.Pub Date: Oct. 7, 2025
ISBN: 9780062406682
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: July 18, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2025
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
With captivating dialogue, angst-y characters, and a couple of steamy sex scenes, Hoover has done it again.
After being released from prison, a young woman tries to reconnect with her 5-year-old daughter despite having killed the girl’s father.
Kenna didn’t even know she was pregnant until after she was sent to prison for murdering her boyfriend, Scotty. When her baby girl, Diem, was born, she was forced to give custody to Scotty’s parents. Now that she’s been released, Kenna is intent on getting to know her daughter, but Scotty’s parents won’t give her a chance to tell them what really happened the night their son died. Instead, they file a restraining order preventing Kenna from so much as introducing herself to Diem. Handsome, self-assured Ledger, who was Scotty’s best friend, is another key adult in Diem’s life. He’s helping her grandparents raise her, and he too blames Kenna for Scotty’s death. Even so, there’s something about her that haunts him. Kenna feels the pull, too, and seems to be seeking Ledger out despite his judgmental behavior. As Ledger gets to know Kenna and acknowledges his attraction to her, he begins to wonder if maybe he and Scotty’s parents have judged her unfairly. Even so, Ledger is afraid that if he surrenders to his feelings, Scotty’s parents will kick him out of Diem’s life. As Kenna and Ledger continue to mourn for Scotty, they also grieve the future they cannot have with each other. Told alternatively from Kenna’s and Ledger’s perspectives, the story explores the myriad ways in which snap judgments based on partial information can derail people’s lives. Built on a foundation of death and grief, this story has an undercurrent of sadness. As usual, however, the author has created compelling characters who are magnetic and sympathetic enough to pull readers in. In addition to grief, the novel also deftly explores complex issues such as guilt, self-doubt, redemption, and forgiveness.
With captivating dialogue, angst-y characters, and a couple of steamy sex scenes, Hoover has done it again.Pub Date: Jan. 18, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-5420-2560-7
Page Count: 335
Publisher: Montlake Romance
Review Posted Online: Oct. 12, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2021
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
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