An excellent coming-of-age novel with an indelible lead.
In Arnowitz-Taylor’s novel, a young man struggles to come to grips with his past traumas and current, lurking hazards.
When readers first meet Jamie Goldberg, he’s at a major crossroads in his young life. As an out gay man in 1980s Detroit, where AIDS is spreading quickly, Jamie’s health would be a concern even if he didn’t spend his time with dangerous people. But by 1982, in this third installment in Arnowitz-Taylor’s The Goldberg Variationsseries, Jamie is coming off of a stretch of near-Herculean promiscuity, a period of time in which he’s chalked up so many lovers that he struggles to remember them all, doubly so thanks to the foggy haze of the copious amounts of alcohol and drugs he’d consumed over the same stretch of years. Now a theater student at the fictional Detroit State University, he’s just been cast as Horatio in Hamlet. While he’s initially flattered and thrilled, he learns quickly that he may have gotten the role simply because the director, Dwight Griss, expects sexual favors in return. This would be humiliating enough, but Jamie is put in an especially difficult position because he’s just sworn off the reckless amounts of sex and drugs that have massively complicated his life up to this point. As the weight of his childhood trauma becomes nearly unbearable, we learn that Jamie’s notions of love and affection have been affected by the sexual assault he experienced when he was a teenager. Were it not for an impromptu birthday phone call to his cousin or the presence of his roommate, who’s studying psychology, Jamie might not be able to utter even this backhanded affirmation: “I will be okay as long as no one kills me.”
Arnowitz-Taylor’s latest isn’t a traditional page-turner, but it more than manages to be continually gripping because of a looming sense of dread. Readers will feel the current of violence surrounding the protagonist early in this novel, whether he’s trying to behave safely or not. Threats weave through Jamie’s world: a violent ex-con, down-and-out exes, and the “scumbag” director of Hamlet, whose mistreatment of Jamie is its own kind of social and physical violence. Indeed, it often seems there is nowhere for Jamie to turn outside of his own apartment: “The LGBTQ community was invisible. There was no gay anything except dark, loud, and seedy bars.” Via humorous, approachable prose, Arnowitz-Taylor tells an intriguing story. The novel’s best asset, however, is Jamie himself, who’s a flawed narrator in a compelling and human way, which is not to say “damaged,” though perhaps he is that, too. He comes off like a young man desperate to belong to a community he fears has already rejected him, and as such, some of his decisions, which might otherwise turn off readers, become far more sympathetic. As Jamie struggles to understand his place in the world and the way it perceives him, readers will no doubt see something of their own young selves in him.
An excellent coming-of-age novel with an indelible lead.Pub Date: May 1, 2025
ISBN: 9781734295757
Page Count: 350
Publisher: ArnoLand Press
Review Posted Online: Dec. 12, 2024
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
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
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SEEN & HEARD
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