A profound, witty, and compassionate work with a compelling protagonist and message.
A 14-year-old girl tries to make sense of a raven’s announcement that she’s a prophet in Heinrichs’ novel.
Call her Jonah. The former Joan Mudgett adopted her father’s name after he disappeared—the same day her mother was murdered, more than a year ago. She’s certain that he had nothing to do with the crime, and she wants only to find the true “evil doer.” It’s now early January, and Joan lives alone in the family house at the foot of Jumper Mountain in New Hampshire, helped out by her teacher and friend, Mary Sullivan. When she’s not rereading Moby-Dick, she often patrols her surroundings on skis; on one such outing, she’s greeted by a talking raven who says, “I am Gabriel, come to appoint you humanity’s most sacred voice.” According to the raven, her prophecies are supposed to “create a favorable carom, a swerve, a divergence” to steer humanity away from terrible events. After other kids at school start a rumor that she hears voices, she’s pressed for predictions, so she makes some at random, expecting them to come to nothing—but they appear to come true instead. Joan decides to admit that she really is a prophet, with her message being that the world is too noisy: “Think how much more you can learn by shutting up. Being quiet.” As the quietness movement hilariously snowballs (and is monetized), Joan finally learns the truth about her parents. Heinrichs has also written three nonfiction books on rhetoric, and his debut novel is utterly engaging and complex as it combines comedy, tragedy, a coming-of-age story, social commentary, timely reflections on the Covid-19 pandemic, and scintillating philosophy about the biosphere. As the raven says, humans miss the beauty of other species’ communications: “You are surrounded by creatures who compose poetry and sparkling dialogues with smells, colors, shadows, and eloquent pauses.” Joan’s outsize impact on world events is made more plausible by her enormous charisma, courage, and independence over the course of the novel.
A profound, witty, and compassionate work with a compelling protagonist and message.Pub Date: March 18, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-73672-660-0
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Gavia Books
Review Posted Online: April 2, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2021
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
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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