Stories that take you on a tour of grungy London with a guide who slips in dagger-sharp social commentary.
Scuzzy, raucous stories that take aim at sexism, racism, and gentrification.
In her first book to be published in the U.S, Baal, whose style is described in her bio as a “marrying of politics and ass,” writes about young rebels roaming London, engaging in adolescent tomfoolery, getting drunk, gossiping, and ultimately discovering their friends aren’t really their friends. Gritty and profane, these stories are marbled with deliciously slangy dialogue and irreverent lists and rants. In “Pain in the Neck,” a woman does a favor for an old friend with whom she once had “sad, gray-area sex” which she’s “probably blanked for sanity’s sake” and winds up stuck on his roof with his rich Spanish girlfriend. The formally brilliant and hilarious “Change :)” is a group text gone awry: Ed texts everyone in his address book to drum up political engagement, only to be accused of predatory sexual behavior by several women in front of dozens of people, many of whom claim not to know him. A story titled “Victim Blaming” marks a change in the collection, as an older narrator—a woman who also happens to be a writer—takes over. More essayistic than dramatic, these pieces reveal the narrators’ blind spots: In one, a woman falls for a sexist pig after avowing that she’s done having sex with men; another realizes that by spending so many years rebelling against her parents, she’s actually kept them in the center of her life. The standout is “Married to the Streets,” which ends with a knock-your-socks-off surprising description of Grenfell, the West London residential tower that burned down in 2017, killing more than 70 people. Here, the narrator comes to terms with how much she loves her city, though she also loathes how it’s changing. While some of Baal’s stories suffer from a little of the aimlessness that besets her characters, they’re all good, unruly fun.
Stories that take you on a tour of grungy London with a guide who slips in dagger-sharp social commentary.Pub Date: Oct. 21, 2025
ISBN: 9781965028001
Page Count: 264
Publisher: Hagfish
Review Posted Online: July 17, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2025
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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