A sometimes rollicking, sometimes tragedy-tinged novel about a not-so-innocent abroad.
A stylish and often surprising American-expatriate novel for the not-quite–post-colonial age—and a portrait of Ukraine in the run-up to Russia's 2022 assault.
It's 2018. John Turner, just turned 30, has suffered both a romantic breakup and the death of his father. A college friend calls with a ridiculous-sounding opportunity: Might he move to western Ukraine to train call-center reps in idiomatic American English? Despite having no contacts and no experience with either the Ukrainian or the Russian languages, John takes the plunge. He foresees a chance to rebuild himself, part monastic retreat, part grand adventure. It turns out that the reps most need a crash course in chipper American small talk, which they find baffling, and the effort to provide this brings John closer to them; despite his determination not to succumb to morally dubious cliché, he struggles against a crush on one, Natalia, and befriends another, with whom he trains in boxing. John’s effort also provides Lichtman an opportunity to reflect on cultural differences, on the twilight of the so-called American Age... and on the damage peculiar to the representative of empire who is sheepish, guilty, exquisitely sensitive, and determined to make everyone agree that he has no imperial intent. Perhaps most impressive is Lichtman's high-wire act of tone. In the book's first half, John is largely an earnest goof, well meaning and bewildered. But when a comic figure like that is set down in a country inured to tragedy—and as the undeclared Russian war worsens and a comic actor is elected to the Ukrainian presidency—it becomes clear that John's misunderstandings and awkwardnesses, his accidents of language (when he panics, he tends to blurt out a phrase that means "have sex with me"), can't stay mere fish-out-of-water humor. In places like Ukraine, comedy is backed with consequence. John keeps overhearing neighbors fighting—a suffering woman, her brutal spouse—and can't decide what to do. Call the police? Intervene himself? Can domestic violence be a cultural difference?
A sometimes rollicking, sometimes tragedy-tinged novel about a not-so-innocent abroad.Pub Date: April 11, 2023
ISBN: 9781982156817
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Marysue Rucci Books
Review Posted Online: Jan. 11, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2023
BOOK REVIEW
PERSPECTIVES
Amateurish, with a twist savvy readers will see coming from a mile away.
A woman accused of shooting her husband six times in the face refuses to speak.
"Alicia Berenson was thirty-three years old when she killed her husband. They had been married for seven years. They were both artists—Alicia was a painter, and Gabriel was a well-known fashion photographer." Michaelides' debut is narrated in the voice of psychotherapist Theo Faber, who applies for a job at the institution where Alicia is incarcerated because he's fascinated with her case and believes he will be able to get her to talk. The narration of the increasingly unrealistic events that follow is interwoven with excerpts from Alicia's diary. Ah, yes, the old interwoven diary trick. When you read Alicia's diary you'll conclude the woman could well have been a novelist instead of a painter because it contains page after page of detailed dialogue, scenes, and conversations quite unlike those in any journal you've ever seen. " 'What's the matter?' 'I can't talk about it on the phone, I need to see you.' 'It's just—I'm not sure I can make it up to Cambridge at the minute.' 'I'll come to you. This afternoon. Okay?' Something in Paul's voice made me agree without thinking about it. He sounded desperate. 'Okay. Are you sure you can't tell me about it now?' 'I'll see you later.' Paul hung up." Wouldn't all this appear in a diary as "Paul wouldn't tell me what was wrong"? An even more improbable entry is the one that pins the tail on the killer. While much of the book is clumsy, contrived, and silly, it is while reading passages of the diary that one may actually find oneself laughing out loud.
Amateurish, with a twist savvy readers will see coming from a mile away.Pub Date: Feb. 5, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-250-30169-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Celadon Books
Review Posted Online: Nov. 3, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
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
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