A dramatic and cumulatively powerful tale of one man’s healing.
Harris’ new novel tells the remarkable life story of a modern-day miracle worker.
Theodore “Theo” Dalton is a therapist who helps his female clients make sense out of their trauma and find spiritual healing. But as readers learn in alternating chapters, before Theo was a healer of psyches, he was a healer of bodies. In 1961, when he was 6 years old, he was in a car accident that crippled his father, maimed his own hands, and killed his pregnant mother—although his infant sister, Lily, was saved. Now, in his adulthood, Theo is reluctant to revisit those memories. “The misfortune of that November night in 1961 is safely locked away,” he thinks, “only rarely peering out—in sepia tones.” When he’s 12 and living in Oklahoma under the care of his father and his imperious Aunty Li, a Native American man named Frank Kotori sees Theo heal another boy’s arm by simply touching it. At Frank’s encouragement, Theo goes on to heal an injured bird, which prompts the man to bring the boy to a sick baby in a nearby part of town: “The current splayed to my fingers, tiny jolts of something,” Theo recalls of holding the infant in his hands, “something charged, even voltaic.” When word of his abilities spreads, some of the townspeople consider him an instrument of evil, and after a string of misunderstandings and tragedies, he decides never to use his hands to heal again. Later, however, his relationships with his therapy patients draw him deeper into his own memories.
Harris, the author of the essay collection Ham (2014), handles Theo’s story with a smooth confidence that belies the inherent difficulties of wrangling a narrative split between two different time frames—a strategy that has brought more than a few other authors to grief. His main narrative gamble is to juxtapose the inherently dramatic developments of the storyline set in the past, involving a boy with supernatural powers and the angry residents of a small town, with the intense but relatively quotidian developments of the present-day story, which focuses on a series of therapy sessions. This gamble pays off well, however, as Harris expertly expands on Theo’s character over the course of the book, and he adroitly plays each plotline against the other to create a gripping sense of narrative momentum. Other characters’ stories also benefit from this gradual unfolding—especially that of Theo’s father, who’s had to live with massive guilt, not only regarding the loss of his wife, but also for a crucial decision regarding Theo’s well-being in the wake of the car crash. The book’s villains, which include childhood bullies and fundamentalist zealots, are somewhat underdeveloped, as is the far more important character of Aunty Li. But the slow, controlled portrayal of adult Theo’s progress toward personal redemption is so commanding that readers will find that such minor flaws fade away as one reads. It all culminates in a series of chapters with hefty emotional impact.
A dramatic and cumulatively powerful tale of one man’s healing.Pub Date: July 1, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-578-66878-9
Page Count: 382
Publisher: Self
Review Posted Online: July 9, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2020
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
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
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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