Provocative themes, strong characterizations, and propulsive storytelling combine for another great read from Glass.
An insular Massachusetts coastal town finds the world’s woes at its doorstep.
Judging by references scattered through the opening chapters with Glass’ usual deftness, the time is about 10 years after the pandemic first hit. Climate change has become more devastating, political polarization is worse than ever, and terrorist attacks have multiplied. As the story progresses via no less than eight narrators, each sharply individualized, we are reminded that eventually the bizarre becomes normal. A monster storm three years ago blew down multiple buildings and docks in Vigil Harbor, but a local tycoon wants to build his post-divorce mansion on the cliffside anyway. His is one of a rash of marital splits that are the talk of the town, but no one bats an eyelash when a new couple formed from the remains of two divorces runs off to a survivalist commune—“one of those psycho wilderness camps,” as college dropout Brecht puts it. He’s a member of “Generation NL (out loud: nil),” young adults with no expectations of a livable future. Brecht was at NYU “the year of the Union Square attack,” having lost his father when he was 8 to the first coronavirus wave. He returns to Vigil Harbor and goes to work for Celestino, the foreign-born landscaper who works on Brecht’s stepfather Austin’s fancy architecture projects. Even though he’s married to a U.S. citizen, Celestino is in danger; immigrants are now totally barred, “visa raids” ongoing. There’s lots more plot to come. The alleged journalist in town doing a profile of Austin is in fact pursuing him to avenge the mysterious woman they both loved and lost. An “old friend” turns up looking for Celestino, who is emphatically not happy to see him. We slowly learn there’s more to Brecht’s inertia than was apparent at first. The two big plot twists are more predictable than they should be, but Glass’ sharply drawn portraits of people coping as best they can with a world in crisis will convince most readers to go along happily for the ride.
Provocative themes, strong characterizations, and propulsive storytelling combine for another great read from Glass.Pub Date: May 3, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-101-87038-9
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Pantheon
Review Posted Online: Feb. 4, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2022
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
PERSPECTIVES
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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