Thoroughly refreshing: an astute portrait of contemporary small-town America that's genuinely fun to read.
Ryle’s 12 intertwining narratives, linked sequentially over a period of months, take a mostly upbeat look at how lives have changed in one post-Covid-19 Indiana town.
Representing the many small towns that saw an economically revitalizing influx of newcomers during the Covid pandemic, fictional Lanier struggles to balance its long-term traditional values and the more liberal outlook of the newcomers it has welcomed. The book opens with a mysterious email sent to all Lanier residents with the subject line “Invitation To Participate: Sexual Practices in a Small Midwestern Town.” Weaving through the following stories, the survey acts as a touchstone to which characters react. In a relatively short book, Ryle richly delineates a lot of personalities, listing more than 65 in her cast of characters. Like many of them, the central five appear predictable at first until they evolve in ways unexpected to readers and themselves. Having refused to get vaccinated, grouchy former basketball coach Don Blankman was hospitalized with Covid and now needs a new lung. While publicly fulminating about sexual morality, he’s privately tortured about the long-term adulterous affair he’s carrying on and by his fear of death. When Don returns temporarily to the hospital, his wife, Joyce, enjoys her newfound independence, taking up painting and finding a new creative social circle. A member of that circle, 81-year-old Nancy, begins a romance with a retired doctor involved in downtown gentrification. Loretta Sawyer, an embittered government bureaucrat who doesn’t admit her loneliness, finds herself drawn to a hot dog vendor whose business she’s supposed to shut down because he doesn’t fit the town’s new “brand.” Loretta’s friend Rachel Barr, a self-effacing bartender, discovers a gift she can’t avoid: writing stories about her observations. Rachel’s and the author’s trenchant insights and affection for the characters, especially Lanier itself, abound. Comparisons to Olive Kitteridge are inevitable, but the tone and expansiveness of this novel-in-stories hark back to Spoon River Anthology (if not Chaucer).
Thoroughly refreshing: an astute portrait of contemporary small-town America that's genuinely fun to read.Pub Date: Oct. 14, 2025
ISBN: 9798998954702
Page Count: 221
Publisher: Galiot Press
Review Posted Online: Aug. 16, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2025
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
A vibrant tale of a remarkable woman.
Who was Shakespeare?
Move over, Earl of Oxford and Francis Bacon: There’s another contender for the true author of plays attributed to the bard of Stratford—Emilia Bassano, a clever, outspoken, educated woman who takes center stage in Picoult’s spirited novel. Of Italian heritage, from a family of court musicians, Emilia was a hidden Jew and the courtesan of a much older nobleman who vetted plays to be performed for Queen Elizabeth. She was well traveled—unlike Shakespeare, she visited Italy and Denmark, where, Picoult imagines, she may have met Rosencrantz and Guildenstern—and was familiar with court intrigue and English law. “Every gap in Shakespeare’s life or knowledge that has had to be explained away by scholars, she somehow fills,” Picoult writes. Encouraged by her lover, Emilia wrote plays and poetry, but 16th-century England was not ready for a female writer. Picoult interweaves Emilia’s story with that of her descendant Melina Green, an aspiring playwright, who encounters the same sexist barriers to making herself heard that Emilia faced. In alternating chapters, Picoult follows Melina’s frustrated efforts to get a play produced—a play about Emilia, who Melina is certain sold her work to Shakespeare. Melina’s play, By Any Other Name, “wasn’t meant to be a fiction; it was meant to be the resurrection of an erasure.” Picoult creates a richly detailed portrait of daily life in Elizabethan England, from sumptuous castles to seedy hovels. Melina’s story is less vivid: Where Emilia found support from the witty Christopher Marlowe, Melina has a fashion-loving gay roommate; where Emilia faces the ravages of repeated outbreaks of plague, for Melina, Covid-19 occurs largely offstage; where Emilia has a passionate affair with the adoring Earl of Southampton, Melina’s lover is an awkward New York Times theater critic. It’s Emilia’s story, and Picoult lovingly brings her to life.
A vibrant tale of a remarkable woman.Pub Date: Aug. 20, 2024
ISBN: 9780593497210
Page Count: 544
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 15, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2024
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