A bright, entertaining tale with a lovable protagonist.
A loyal, hard-working, and surprisingly contemplative dog describes his life on a Tennessee farm in this endearing novel.
Arthur Dogson Todd proudly protects Misty Meadows Farm, and the 10-year-old dachshund and Jack Russell mix takes his “forever profession” very seriously. He lives with his “sapiens,” O’mamma and Mr. Cliff, and myriad animals, including horses, chickens, cats, and Arthur’s assistant, Pristine, a rat terrier who doesn’t actually catch any rats. Arthur has a solid system in place, with several guarding stations around the farm for “maximum range of surveillance coverage.” He consistently hones his craft, like launching the Prior Protection Program, in which he takes action at the mere whisper of danger. It’s a challenging gig; his humans don’t always understand him, suspecting the innocent canine of stealing eggs (or so their facial expressions seem to say) or wrongly referring to his keen observations (and accompanying behavior) as “complaints.” Arthur runs into all sorts of trouble on the farm—a rooster attacks him with its spurs, and O’mamma and Mr. Cliff are so distracted by some kind of “abbey” (and its interminable episodes) that they all but ignore Arthur and Pristine. The canine isn’t only about perfecting his skillset; he also tries to better himself as a dog. Nearly every experience on the farm comes with a lesson to apply to daily life. For example, he must fight to control anger and jealousy since those emotions can bring out his “dark side.”
DeVito, whose previous work was Two Spirits Here (2011), structures the novel as a series of essays narrated by Arthur. The dog charmingly defines aspects of his job, like his various barks (e.g., Intruder-Alert Bark) and his guarding station’s Comfort Level Rating System (the least comfortable being the much-dreaded post on the gravel driveway). In some of his entries, he primarily observes or reports, like witnessing the unexpected outcome of Pristine lying on the sapiens’ pillow, a forbidden spot. Arthur has his own delightful way of describing things. He employs abundant acronyms in his work and downtime—DMC (Direct Mouth Capture) and the DFHL (Dying From Hunger Look). Although Arthur shrewdly comprehends most of what his sapiens say to him and to one another, he sometimes misunderstands and memorably so: Mr. Cliff calls himself a “leg man,” prompting Arthur to assiduously search for meaning in the many legs he sees. Arthur’s combination of smarts and naïveté makes him an easy dog to love, especially since he continually strives to improve and embraces everyone in the farm family, even the shifty cats. The supporting cast, most notably O’mamma and Mr. Cliff, help round out Arthur’s world. Vagreti’s black-and-white drawings, which precede each chapter, deliver sharply defined images of, for example, tired dogs luxuriating in a human bed and the classic canine smile.
Pub Date: Jan. 1, 2024
ISBN: 9781628802818
Page Count: 224
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: March 6, 2024
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
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
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