Expansive and empathetic, this novel is a stunner.
A trans man in future New York considers the legacy of his trans parents.
“Who were these two people?” asks Griffon Keming, the protagonist of Fellman’s fourth book, set centuries into the future. “Who were these two people? Revolutionaries, or half-revolutionaries. Survivors, or half-survivors. They spoke a language that was half one thing and half another, and they had spent half their lives together.” Griffon, a transgender man, is writing about his parents, Etoine and Zaffre Zipporah Keming, who are also transgender, and who took Griffon in when he was younger and fleeing his abusive father. Griffon’s parents have died, and he has resolved to discover more about them; the novel switches perspective between Griffon and Etoine, the latter through diary entries that he wrote, partly while in prison for allegedly trying to overthrow the ruler of the city-state of Stephensport, where he and Zaffre lived when they were younger, before moving to New York. Etoine’s diary reveals his longtime friendship with Zaffre, and their roles in the city-state’s revolution movement, while Griffon reflects on his childhood growing up as closeted and trans: “In fact, through my whole adolescence, I stayed a little girl….Everybody liked me this way, and I proceeded invisibly through the world.” Fellman’s worldbuilding is subtle but beautifully done; he captures the essence of a future New York that is covered in canals and also brings Stephensport to life. His dialogue sparkles, particularly in sections featuring Etoine and Zaffre bantering and bickering and others where they tenderly reassure a young Griffon. Most notably, though, Fellman paints a tender portrait of Griffon and his journey to coming out as trans, which he handles with real compassion and insight. This beautifully written, self-assured novel is a major accomplishment.
Expansive and empathetic, this novel is a stunner.Pub Date: April 15, 2025
ISBN: 9781250329103
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Tor
Review Posted Online: March 22, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
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
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.
Coelho is a Brazilian writer with four books to his credit. Following Diary of a Magus (1992—not reviewed) came this book, published in Brazil in 1988: it's an interdenominational, transcendental, inspirational fable—in other words, a bag of wind.
The story is about a youth empowered to follow his dream. Santiago is an Andalusian shepherd boy who learns through a dream of a treasure in the Egyptian pyramids. An old man, the king of Salem, the first of various spiritual guides, tells the boy that he has discovered his destiny: "to realize one's destiny is a person's only real obligation." So Santiago sells his sheep, sails to Tangier, is tricked out of his money, regains it through hard work, crosses the desert with a caravan, stops at an oasis long enough to fall in love, escapes from warring tribesmen by performing a miracle, reaches the pyramids, and eventually gets both the gold and the girl. Along the way he meets an Englishman who describes the Soul of the World; the desert woman Fatima, who teaches him the Language of the World; and an alchemist who says, "Listen to your heart" A message clings like ivy to every encounter; everyone, but everyone, has to put in their two cents' worth, from the crystal merchant to the camel driver ("concentrate always on the present, you'll be a happy man"). The absence of characterization and overall blandness suggest authorship by a committee of self-improvement pundits—a far cry from Saint- Exupery's The Little Prince: that flagship of the genre was a genuine charmer because it clearly derived from a quirky, individual sensibility.
Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.Pub Date: July 1, 1993
ISBN: 0-06-250217-4
Page Count: 192
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1993
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
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