An absorbing novel by a wise and graceful writer.
In Perlstein’s novel, a bereft man, after the death of his wife of 46 years, examines his life with an aim of becoming “another version” of himself.
Steve Goldman has had an undeniably successful life in many ways. He’s a former officer at a San Francisco bank who’s found time to indulge his passion for fiction writing over the years; he knows he’ll never be as talented as Bernard Malamud or Philip Roth, but he’s content with that. Now he’s a retired widower who’s feeling his own mortality. One day, he sits down at the kitchen table and creates a life ledger of sorts, focusing mostly on his relationships with lifelong friends and thinking about when he’s been a “mensch” and when he’s been a “schmuck.” His greatest touchstones are three people he’s known since they attended junior high in Queens—Arnie Lieberman, Jeffrey Shiffrin, and Gary Weisbrod—all of whom he considers blood brothers. They’ve stayed in touch, or at least their paths have occasionally crossed, over the decades. Toward the very end of the novel, Steve offers an account of how the four took a train trip up the California coast for old times’ sake. The trip was instigated by Jeffrey, who was dying. They were all successful in their careers—Jeffrey, a lawyer; Gary, a wildly popular artist and genius self-promoter; and Arnie, an advertising agency art director-turned-painter. Arnie never forgave Steve for jilting his sister, Joyce, so many years ago; also, Steve feels that Jeffrey treated him and his wife, Evelyn, badly in the settling of her late father’s estate. All these people, and others, find their place in Steve’s ledger.
Perlstein, like his protagonist, lives in San Francisco and is a prolific and successful writer in his own right. That he writes well is hardly surprising. Steve's voice is delightful: self-regarding, conversational, honest, and witty (“I was determined to hold my ground rather than be shoveled into it”). Steve is a man who, whenever he lets himself off the hook, immediately realizes it and backtracks. Early on, he takes a walk in Golden Gate Park to clear his head and finds a split-open suitcase in the bushes; from this find, he concocts a wonderful (and sad) domestic story, establishing his writing credentials. He tells many other stories along the way, such as that of his flamboyant Uncle Max, who crossed the mob and had secrets. An account of Gary’s art installation, which has a comeuppance along the lines of “The Emperor’s New Clothes,” is priceless—and it also happens to dovetail with when Steve met Evelyn. Through it all, a tortured Steve issues dicta such as “I found myself powerless to keep self-justification from duking it out with guilt.” Steve eventually realizes that his ledger may not be the salvation he’d hoped for, since life is much too messy and accounting is for CPAs. But all this reflection, all this revisiting, certainly helps him get through a very tough couple of days.
An absorbing novel by a wise and graceful writer.Pub Date: April 5, 2024
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: -
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: April 14, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2024
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
A tender and moving portrait about the transcendent power of art and friendship.
An artwork’s value grows if you understand the stories of the people who inspired it.
Never in her wildest dreams would foster kid Louisa dream of meeting C. Jat, the famous painter of The One of the Sea, which depicts a group of young teens on a pier on a hot summer’s day. But in Backman’s latest, that’s just what happens—an unexpected (but not unbelievable) set of circumstances causes their paths to collide right before the dying 39-year-old artist’s departure from the world. One of his final acts is to bequeath that painting to Louisa, who has endured a string of violent foster homes since her mother abandoned her as a child. Selling the painting will change her life—but can she do it? Before deciding, she accompanies Ted, one of the artist’s close friends and one of the young teens captured in that celebrated painting, on a train journey to take the artist’s ashes to his hometown. She wants to know all about the painting, which launched Jat’s career at age 14, and the circle of beloved friends who inspired it. The bestselling author of A Man Called Ove (2014) and other novels, Backman gives us a heartwarming story about how these friends, set adrift by the violence and unhappiness of their homes, found each other and created a new definition of family. “You think you’re alone,” one character explains, “but there are others like you, people who stand in front of white walls and blank paper and only see magical things. One day one of them will recognize you and call out: ‘You’re one of us!’” As Ted tells stories about his friends—how Jat doubted his talents but found a champion in fiery Joar, who took on every bully to defend him; how Ali brought an excitement to their circle that was “like a blinding light, like a heart attack”—Louisa recognizes herself as a kindred soul and feels a calling to realize her own artistic gifts. What she decides to do with the painting is part of a caper worthy of the stories that Ted tells her. The novel is humorous, poignant, and always life-affirming, even when describing the bleakness of the teens’ early lives. “Art is a fragile magic, just like love,” as someone tells Louisa, “and that’s humanity’s only defense against death.”
A tender and moving portrait about the transcendent power of art and friendship.Pub Date: May 6, 2025
ISBN: 9781982112820
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Atria
Review Posted Online: July 4, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2025
SEEN & HEARD
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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