An often funny, occasionally tedious satire steeped in the “transgressive postmodern prose” it purports to spoof.
Swedish author Stoopendaal’s ruminative, cerebral, darkly humorous novel follows one man’s search for his intellectual soul.
The social theory of the title concerns “a cognitive bias that means someone who’s incompetent is also incapable of understanding their own incompetence.” Would that refer to the narrator? His pontifications about controversial psychologist Jordan B. Peterson before having read the man’s work hint that neither his nor Peterson’s views need be taken seriously. Readers need not be fascinated by lightning rods like Peterson or Michel Houellebecq to follow the never-named narrator’s emotional, spiritual, and mental health journey during the increasingly hot Swedish spring and summer of 2018—reminiscent of Stephen Dedalus’, although Joyce is too old-modern to be mentioned here—but it wouldn’t hurt. The tale of that journey is interrupted by the insertion of a story, written by the narrator, in which Houellebecq appears as a fictionalized version of the narrator. (How closely the narrator represents Stoopendaal remains a question among many layers of meta to unpack here.) While a professed fan of “transgressive postmodern prose” like Houellebecq’s, the narrator lives as a “normie” in Gothenburg with a respectable civil service job and a girlfriend studying to be a librarian. Their Pomeranian, Molly—labeled by the narrator his “baby surrogate”—is the book’s most endearing character, perhaps because she’s a watcher, not a talker. The novel’s big dramatic moment, with comic undertones, occurs when the narrator wakes up hungover after a night of philosophic discourse and briefly can’t find Molly, whom his girlfriend has left temporarily in his care. Molly turns up safe in the laundry hamper, but the narrator’s horrified remorse over his irresponsibility causes him to stop drinking and consider the Bible. Otherwise, there’s not much plot. The narrator describes his dreams, his drinking, his slightly confused sex life, and a lot of conversations. Expect to be bombarded by both high- and lowbrow cultural references, including footnotes.
An often funny, occasionally tedious satire steeped in the “transgressive postmodern prose” it purports to spoof.Pub Date: June 11, 2024
ISBN: 9781668020197
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Atria
Review Posted Online: April 5, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2024
A beautiful meditation on queer identity against a supernatural backdrop.
Three women deal very differently with vampirism in Schwab’s era-spanning follow-up to The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue (2020).
In 16th-century Spain, Maria seduces a wealthy viscount in an attempt to seize whatever control she can over her own life. It turns out that being a wife—even a wealthy one—is just another cage, but then a mysterious widow offers Maria a surprising escape route. In the 19th century, Charlotte is sent from her home in the English countryside to live with an aunt in London when she’s found trying to kiss her best friend. She’s despondent at the idea of marrying a man, but another mysterious widow—who has a secret connection to Maria’s widow from centuries earlier—appears and teaches Charlotte that she can be free to love whomever she chooses, if she’s brave enough. In 2019, Alice’s memories of growing up in Scotland with her mercurial older sister, Catty, pull her mind away from her first days at Harvard University. And though she doesn’t meet any mysterious widows, Alice wakes up alone after a one-night stand unable to tolerate sunlight, sporting two new fangs, and desperate to drink blood. Horrified at her transformation, she searches Boston for her hookup, who was the last person she remembers seeing before she woke up as a vampire. Schwab delicately intertwines the three storylines, which are compelling individually even before the reader knows how they will connect. Maria, Charlotte, and Alice are queer women searching for love, recognition, and wholeness, growing fangs and defying mortality in a world that would deny them their very existence. Alice’s flashbacks to Catty are particularly moving, and subtly play off themes of grief and loneliness laid out in the historical timelines.
A beautiful meditation on queer identity against a supernatural backdrop.Pub Date: June 10, 2025
ISBN: 9781250320520
Page Count: 544
Publisher: Tor
Review Posted Online: March 22, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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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
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