An odd, lyrical tale from Frucht (Life Before Death, 1997, etc.) of a mother’s ghost and the lives she tends in her 30-odd years roaming the astral plans. Disembodied though fully conscious, Polly narrates her life-after-death, which is less about her life than the observation of everybody else’s. After having given birth to three sets of twins, the charmingly irrepressible Polly dies in childbirth before ever seeing her single son, Tip, and so becomes his guardian in death. When Tip is nine, camping with next door neighbor Johnny—not yet friends, not yet enemies—Polly wishes for something to fall from the sky, an event to bind the boys, giving Tip a twin by proxy, to ease the loneliness she feels she’s burdened him with. She’s thinking of a falling star, but it’s Tom Bane’s airplane that falls from the sky into the lake, creating a vengeful ghost out of Tom, who subliminally needs to punish Polly’s kin, and setting off a chain of events that shape her son’s life. Dancing in and out of the consciousness of others, Polly “visits” Tom Bane’s wife, Angie; his daughter, Honey; and Johnny’s mother, Gwen. But it’s Tip she is trying to make her way to. Slowly, all these lives begin to converge, making a strong case for the concept of destiny, or at least for the power of ghostly interference. Inheriting his mother’s charismatic glow, Tip grows into a happy Lothario, Honey into the paragon of independence, while Johnny, lured into the water by Tom Bane’s liquid bitterness, drowns, leaving Tip alone again. The narrative’s forward thrust occasionally lags, suggesting a short-story cycle, but the detours are always beautifully imagined, redeeming the slow pace of Polly’s eternity. The final, non-astral meeting is not so much a surprise as a welcome conclusion. A gentle foray into the infinite strength of love.
Pub Date: Jan. 1, 2000
ISBN: 0-684-83589-4
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Scribner
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 1999
With an aura of both enchantment and authenticity, Bardugo’s compulsively readable novel leaves a portal ajar for equally...
Yale’s secret societies hide a supernatural secret in this fantasy/murder mystery/school story.
Most Yale students get admitted through some combination of impressive academics, athletics, extracurriculars, family connections, and donations, or perhaps bribing the right coach. Not Galaxy “Alex” Stern. The protagonist of Bardugo’s (King of Scars, 2019, etc.) first novel for adults, a high school dropout and low-level drug dealer, Alex got in because she can see dead people. A Yale dean who's a member of Lethe, one of the college’s famously mysterious secret societies, offers Alex a free ride if she will use her spook-spotting abilities to help Lethe with its mission: overseeing the other secret societies’ occult rituals. In Bardugo’s universe, the “Ancient Eight” secret societies (Lethe is the eponymous Ninth House) are not just old boys’ breeding grounds for the CIA, CEOs, Supreme Court justices, and so on, as they are in ours; they’re wielders of actual magic. Skull and Bones performs prognostications by borrowing patients from the local hospital, cutting them open, and examining their entrails. St. Elmo’s specializes in weather magic, useful for commodities traders; Aurelian, in unbreakable contracts; Manuscript goes in for glamours, or “illusions and lies,” helpful to politicians and movie stars alike. And all these rituals attract ghosts. It’s Alex’s job to keep the supernatural forces from embarrassing the magical elite by releasing chaos into the community (all while trying desperately to keep her grades up). “Dealing with ghosts was like riding the subway: Do not make eye contact. Do not smile. Do not engage. Otherwise, you never know what might follow you home.” A townie’s murder sets in motion a taut plot full of drug deals, drunken assaults, corruption, and cover-ups. Loyalties stretch and snap. Under it all runs the deep, dark river of ambition and anxiety that at once powers and undermines the Yale experience. Alex may have more reason than most to feel like an imposter, but anyone who’s spent time around the golden children of the Ivy League will likely recognize her self-doubt.
With an aura of both enchantment and authenticity, Bardugo’s compulsively readable novel leaves a portal ajar for equally dazzling sequels.Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-250-31307-2
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Flatiron Books
Review Posted Online: June 30, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2019
Fans of smart horror will sink their teeth into this one.
Things are about to get bloody for a group of Charleston housewives.
In 1988, the scariest thing in former nurse Patricia Campbell’s life is showing up to book club, since she hasn’t read the book. It’s hard to get any reading done between raising two kids, Blue and Korey, picking up after her husband, Carter, a psychiatrist, and taking care of her live-in mother-in-law, Miss Mary, who seems to have dementia. It doesn’t help that the books chosen by the Literary Guild of Mt. Pleasant are just plain boring. But when fellow book-club member Kitty gives Patricia a gloriously trashy true-crime novel, Patricia is instantly hooked, and soon she’s attending a very different kind of book club with Kitty and her friends Grace, Slick, and Maryellen. She has a full plate at home, but Patricia values her new friendships and still longs for a bit of excitement. When James Harris moves in down the street, the women are intrigued. Who is this handsome night owl, and why does Miss Mary insist that she knows him? A series of horrific events stretches Patricia’s nerves and her Southern civility to the breaking point. (A skin-crawling scene involving a horde of rats is a standout.) She just knows James is up to no good, but getting anyone to believe her is a Sisyphean feat. After all, she’s just a housewife. Hendrix juxtaposes the hypnotic mundanity of suburbia (which has a few dark underpinnings of its own) against an insidious evil that has taken root in Patricia’s insular neighborhood. It’s gratifying to see her grow from someone who apologizes for apologizing to a fiercely brave woman determined to do the right thing—hopefully with the help of her friends. Hendrix (We Sold Our Souls, 2018, etc.) cleverly sprinkles in nods to well-established vampire lore, and the fact that he’s a master at conjuring heady 1990s nostalgia is just the icing on what is his best book yet.
Fans of smart horror will sink their teeth into this one.Pub Date: April 7, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-68369-143-3
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Quirk Books
Review Posted Online: Jan. 12, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2020
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