A funny and tender novel about life’s best and worst punchlines.
A lesbian clown walks into a bar and tries to figure out her life.
In Arnett’s new novel, Cherry Hendricks, a 28-year-old part-time aquarium-store worker, wants nothing more than to be a full-time clown. Though her persona Bunko, a rodeo clown terrified of horses, is successful on the Orlando birthday-party circuit, she’s broke because “going rates for clowns are at basement lows.” In addition to her money issues, Cherry is struggling with complicated family dynamics and an increasingly messy love life (including a penchant for “sleeping with people’s moms”). Five years ago, Cherry’s outgoing, hilarious, and successful brother, Dwight, died unexpectedly. In his absence, the already strained relationship between Cherry and her mother, Nancy, who is also a lesbian, is made even worse. Cherry’s life begins to change after a terrible first date with Margot—better known as Margot the Magnificent—who is nearly twice her age. One of Orlando’s finest magicians, Margot finds herself at a strange career crossroads in the wake of her divorce from Portia, her wife and magician’s assistant. Both Cherry and Margot see potential in each other—and begin a relationship that blurs the lines between personal and professional. As they become more closely enmeshed physically and artistically, Cherry must decide what kind of art she wants to make—and what she wants to be remembered for. During an eccentric sex scene near the beginning of the novel, Cherry says that “clowning is an excuse to make everyday life wildly, luxuriously absurd.” Though the novel dips into the absurd, Arnett grounds the characters and relationships beautifully through her signature style of humor and heart. Her writing is particularly strong when exploring the ways we show up for ourselves and our communities—as well as the sacrifices we should and shouldn’t make for our art.
A funny and tender novel about life’s best and worst punchlines.Pub Date: March 18, 2025
ISBN: 9780593719770
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Riverhead
Review Posted Online: Feb. 1, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
Have tissues ready as you read this. A small package will do.
A love story about a life of second chances.
In Nassau, in the Bahamas, casino detective Vincent LaPorta grills Alfie Logan, who’d come up a winner three times in a row at the roulette table and walked away with $2 million. “How did you do it?” asks the detective. Alfie calmly denies cheating. You wired all the money to a Gianna Rule, LaPorta says. Why? To explain, Alfie produces a composition book with the words “For the Boss, to Be Read Upon My Death” written on the cover. Read this for answers, Alfie suggests, calling it a love story. His mother had passed along to him a strange trait: He can say “Twice!” and go back to a specific time and place to have a do-over. But it only works once for any particular moment, and then he must live with the new consequences. He can only do this for himself and can’t prevent anyone from dying. Alfie regularly uses his power—failing to impress a girl the first time, he finds out more about her, goes back in time, and presto! She likes him. The premise is of course not credible—LaPorta doesn’t buy it either—but it’s intriguing. Most people would probably love to go back and unsay something. The story’s focus is on Alfie’s love for Gianna and whether it’s requited, unrequited, or both. In any case, he’s obsessed with her. He’s a good man, though, an intelligent person with ordinary human failings and a solid moral compass. Albom writes in a warm, easy style that transports the reader to a world of second chances and what-ifs, where spirituality lies close to the surface but never intrudes on the story. Though a cynic will call it sappy, anyone who is sick to their core from the daily news will enjoy this escape from reality.
Have tissues ready as you read this. A small package will do.Pub Date: Oct. 7, 2025
ISBN: 9780062406682
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: July 18, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2025
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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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