A fun romp through the modern American West buttressed by earnest humor and a dash of history.
Dunn’s comedic novel features a wounded veteran and an itinerant dreamer.
Punxie Tawney is out on his own in the wilds of Washington state, panning for gold in much the same way the prospectors of yesteryear would have. Punxie is freshly back from a tour of duty in Iraq, and though he is up and about, readers quickly learn his tour ended when he was critically injured by a roadside IED while riding in an Army Humvee. Though Punxie might say his faculties are intact, he seems, if not psychologically bereft, to be searching for something or someone. This longing is no doubt exacerbated by the fact that while Punxie was away at war, both his mother and father died in rapid succession, leaving him an orphan. From across the shores of the river where he combs for precious ore, Punxie notices the also memorably named Hamilton Chance, another man ostensibly panning for gold who, Punxie soon learns, is driven by another goal. Hamilton, as he explains to Punxie, is descended from a long line of American patriots, most notably the men who led the Whiskey Rebellion of 1794. Using that rebellion as a call to action, Hamilton’s sole purpose at this stage in his life is to establish a distillery in which he will make tax-free, all-American whiskey (the name of which, the men decide later on, will be “Westcoulatum Good Goddamned 1794 Freedom Whiskey”). Punxie, with little family or obligation tethering him to any one place, soon sets off with Hamilton, and the two of them “go fishing,” using their thumbs as “lures” to hitch a ride to the local library where Hamilton can teach Punxie about his family history. Punxie, perhaps somewhat conveniently, is taken quite quickly with the idea of Hamilton’s distillery and the notion of pure freedom it promises. Things are never so simple, though. When “The Aphrodite of Wenatchee,” otherwise known as Cherry, shows up with her friend Loyalhanna in tow, Punxie’s latent loneliness and desperation for contact—the same things that initially attached him to Hamilton—make it impossible for him to shun human connection, even if it gets in the way of 1794 Freedom Whiskey.
While Dunn’s novel is mostly humorous and generally lighthearted, his prose occasionally rises to the poetic, particularly when describing the landscape: “The sun was beginning to get tired of sterilizing Moses Coulee and was letting gravity pull it toward the Cascades. Soon, it would take its evening dip into the Pacific to cool off for the night, and then Moses Coulee would become a different thing altogether.” Such writing is reminiscent of Dunn’s other work, and fans of his novel Radio Free Olympia (2023) will delight in this return to form. This novel arrives at an interesting time in the American cultural climate; while some readers may have a hard time finding the levity in any discussion of “freedom” or American history, Dunn writes with enough heart and a sufficiently deft hand to wrangle the material with class and self-awareness.
A fun romp through the modern American West buttressed by earnest humor and a dash of history.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: -
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: Feb. 19, 2025
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A boarding-school fantasia, with Hilderbrand’s signature upgrades to the cuisine and decor. Sign us up for next term.
A year in the life of the No. 2 boarding school in America—up from No. 19 last year!
Rumors of Hilderbrand’s retirement were greatly exaggerated, it turns out, since not only has she not gone out to pasture, she’s started over in high school, with her daughter Shelby Cunningham as co-author. As their delicious new book opens, it’s Move-In Day at Tiffin Academy, and Head of School Audre Robinson is warmly welcoming the returning and new students to the New England campus, the latter group including a rare midstream addition to the junior class. Brainiac Charley Hicks is transferring from public school in Maryland to a spot that opened up when one of the school’s most beloved students died by suicide the preceding year. She will be joining a large, diverse cast of adult and teenage characters—queen bees, jealous second-stringers, boozehounds young and old, secret lesbians, people chasing the wrong people chasing other wrong people—all of them royally screwed when an app called Zip Zap appears and starts blasting everyone’s secrets all over campus. How the heck…? Meanwhile, it seems so unlikely that Tiffin has jumped up to the No. 2 spot in the boarding-school rankings that a high-profile magazine launches an investigation, and even the head is worried that there may have been payola involved. The school has a reputation for being more social than academic, and this quality gets an exciting new exclamation point when the resident millionaire bad boy opens a high-style secret speakeasy for select juniors in a forgotten basement. It’s called Priorities. Exactly. One problem: Cinnamon Peters’ mysterious suicide hangs over the book in an odd way, especially since the note she left for her closest male friend is not to be opened for another year—and isn’t. This is surely a setup for a sequel, but it’s a bit frustrating here, and bobs sort of shallowly along amid the general high spirits.
A boarding-school fantasia, with Hilderbrand’s signature upgrades to the cuisine and decor. Sign us up for next term.Pub Date: Sept. 16, 2025
ISBN: 9780316567855
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: July 4, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2025
SEEN & HEARD
Vintage Follett. His fans will be pleased.
A dramatic, complex imagining of the origins of Stonehenge.
In about 2500 B.C.E. on the Great Plain, Seft and his family collect flints in a mine. He dislikes the work, and the motherless lad hates the abuse he gets from his father and brothers. He leaves them and arrives at a wooden monument where sacred events such as the Midsummer Rite take place. There are also circles of stones that help predict equinoxes, solstices, even eclipses. This is a world where the customary greeting is “May the Sun God smile on you,” and everyone is a year older on Midsummer Day. Except for a priestess or two, no one can count beyond fingers and toes—to indicate 30, they show both hands, point to both feet, then show both hands again. Casual sex is common, and sex between women is less common but not taboo. Joia, a young woman who becomes a priestess, wonders about her sexuality. After a fire destroys the Monument, she leads a bold effort to rebuild it in stone. To please the gods, they must haul 10 giant stones from distant Stony Valley. Of course neither machinery nor roads exist, so the difficulties are extraordinary. Although the project has its detractors, hundreds of able-bodied people are willing to help. Craftspeople known as cleverhands construct a sled and a road, and they make the rope to wrap around the stones. Many, many others pull. And pull. Meanwhile, the three principal groups—farmers, woodlanders, and herders—all have their separate interests. There is talk of war, which Joia has never seen in her lifetime. Soon it seems inevitable that the powerful farmers will not only start one but win it, unless heroes like Seft and Joia can come up with a creative plan. But there is also the matter of love for Joia in this well-plotted and well-told yarn. The story has a lot of characters from multiple tribes, and they can be hard to keep track of. A page in the front of the book listing who’s who would be helpful.
Vintage Follett. His fans will be pleased.Pub Date: Sept. 23, 2025
ISBN: 9781538772775
Page Count: 704
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Review Posted Online: July 4, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2025
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