A big-hearted and relatable read, especially if you’re old enough to remember the 1990s.
An older gay writer in New York City finds a way forward, despite many losses.
Finger’s sophomore effort tracks Artie Anderson on two interwoven timelines. One begins in the 1990s, when he’s about to quit his soul-sucking job as an advertising copywriter to pen a novel based on his beloved friend group, two other gay men and a lesbian, the four of whom are joined at the hip and hang out religiously at Julius’, a gay bar in Greenwich Village. The other thread begins on Artie’s 60th birthday in 2022, and we can’t help but notice that the guest list includes none of the same people. At 60, Artie has become a successful ghostwriter but has yet to produce a follow-up to his fiction debut, which was not a financial success, though all 34 people who read it seem to have liked it quite a lot. Finger’s own well-received debut, The Old Place (2022), revolved around a church picnic in small-town Texas, and his sophomore effort continues to explore the theme of appreciation for the social networks and institutions that hold people together. In this case it’s GALS, a center for Gay and Lesbian Seniors, where the decimated cohort who survived AIDS can gather for movie nights, Thanksgiving dinners, and the like. After all, as this book shows us, gay Manhattan is actually just another kind of small town. Finger’s depictions of the changes in the West Village, the depredations of aging, and the possibilities of romantic connection between older single people are acute, yet infused with a sweet shrug of resignation. For example, he points out that the high-end cooking utensil store that has replaced an infamous gay club known as the Rod is at least still staffed by good-looking young men. The plot relies on a couple of big reveals toward the end, one of which is very powerful and the other less so, but it’s the warmth and astute observation that are the main draw anyway.
A big-hearted and relatable read, especially if you’re old enough to remember the 1990s.Pub Date: June 18, 2024
ISBN: 9780593713556
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: March 23, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
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 boarding-school fantasia, with Hilderbrand’s signature upgrades to the cuisine and decor. Sign us up for next term.
A year in the life of the No. 2 boarding school in America—up from No. 19 last year!
Rumors of Hilderbrand’s retirement were greatly exaggerated, it turns out, since not only has she not gone out to pasture, she’s started over in high school, with her daughter Shelby Cunningham as co-author. As their delicious new book opens, it’s Move-In Day at Tiffin Academy, and Head of School Audre Robinson is warmly welcoming the returning and new students to the New England campus, the latter group including a rare midstream addition to the junior class. Brainiac Charley Hicks is transferring from public school in Maryland to a spot that opened up when one of the school’s most beloved students died by suicide the preceding year. She will be joining a large, diverse cast of adult and teenage characters—queen bees, jealous second-stringers, boozehounds young and old, secret lesbians, people chasing the wrong people chasing other wrong people—all of them royally screwed when an app called Zip Zap appears and starts blasting everyone’s secrets all over campus. How the heck…? Meanwhile, it seems so unlikely that Tiffin has jumped up to the No. 2 spot in the boarding-school rankings that a high-profile magazine launches an investigation, and even the head is worried that there may have been payola involved. The school has a reputation for being more social than academic, and this quality gets an exciting new exclamation point when the resident millionaire bad boy opens a high-style secret speakeasy for select juniors in a forgotten basement. It’s called Priorities. Exactly. One problem: Cinnamon Peters’ mysterious suicide hangs over the book in an odd way, especially since the note she left for her closest male friend is not to be opened for another year—and isn’t. This is surely a setup for a sequel, but it’s a bit frustrating here, and bobs sort of shallowly along amid the general high spirits.
A boarding-school fantasia, with Hilderbrand’s signature upgrades to the cuisine and decor. Sign us up for next term.Pub Date: Sept. 16, 2025
ISBN: 9780316567855
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: July 4, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2025
SEEN & HEARD
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