A collection with a goth heart beating beneath a cheerleader’s peppy exterior.
Bite-sized fiction about the lives of women, from the far past to the present and beyond, who have been wronged.
The characters in this third collection of short fiction from Sparks (The Unfinished World and Other Stories, 2016, etc.) exemplify the famous quote from Muriel Rukeyser that made the social media rounds in the wake of the #MeToo movement: “What would happen if one woman told the truth about her life? / The world would split open.” These are stories of that split-open world. In “Everyone’s a Winner in Meadow Park”—an uncharacteristically lengthy story for Sparks—a young girl living in a trailer park is haunted by the ghost of another young girl, who helps her navigate the turmoil of her hardscrabble environment. The daughter of an artist obsessed with making dioramas of female saints tells the story of her strange childhood and her stepfather’s murder at the hands of her mother (“The Eyes of Saint Lucy”). Many of Sparks’ pieces borrow from myths and fairy tales; in “A Place for Hiding Precious Things,” a young princess is transported by her fairy godmother to contemporary New York City to save her from a ghoulish fate. In “When the Husband Grew Wings,” a wife who adds a magic powder to her husband’s cereal that results in his growing wings is unhappy with the results. Although there is anger and rage in these stories, Sparks suffuses them with zingy humor at every opportunity. At their best, they balance heartbreak and wit. The pieces that don’t land are the ones where that wit grows cartoonish, such as the apocalyptic “We Destroy the Moon,” in which a cult leader’s wife persistently hashtags her own narration.
A collection with a goth heart beating beneath a cheerleader’s peppy exterior.Pub Date: Feb. 11, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-63149-620-2
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Liveright/Norton
Review Posted Online: Nov. 9, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Robinson has composed, with its cascading perfections of symbols, a novel as big as a nation, as quiet as thought, and...
The wait since 1981 and Housekeeping is over. Robinson returns with a second novel that, however quiet in tone and however delicate of step, will do no less than tell the story of America—and break your heart.
A reverend in tiny Gilead, Iowa, John Ames is 74, and his life is at its best—and at its end. Half a century ago, Ames’s first wife died in childbirth, followed by her new baby daughter, and Ames, seemingly destined to live alone, devoted himself to his town, church, and people—until the Pentecost Sunday when a young stranger named Lila walked into the church out of the rain and, from in back, listened to Ames’s sermon, then returned each Sunday after. The two married—Ames was 67—had a son, and life began all over again. But not for long. In the novel’s present (mid-1950s), Ames is suffering from the heart trouble that will soon bring his death. And so he embarks upon the writing of a long diary, or daily letter—the pages of Gilead—addressed to his seven-year-old son so he can read it when he’s grown and know not only about his absent father but his own history, family, and heritage. And what a letter it is! Not only is John Ames the most kind, observant, sensitive, and companionable of men to spend time with, but his story reaches back to his patriarchal Civil War great-grandfather, fiery preacher and abolitionist; comes up to his grandfather, also a reverend and in the War; to his father; and to his own life, spent in his father’s church. This long story of daily life in deep Middle America—addressed to an unknown and doubting future—is never in the slightest way parochial or small, but instead it evokes on the pulse the richest imaginable identifying truths of what America was.
Robinson has composed, with its cascading perfections of symbols, a novel as big as a nation, as quiet as thought, and moving as prayer. Matchless and towering.Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2004
ISBN: 0-374-15389-2
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2004
PERSPECTIVES
SEEN & HEARD
Nevo is a funny, engaging writer, but his new book settles for cleverness without reaching for something more genuinely...
Three residents of an Israeli apartment building narrate their worries and woes.
Nevo (Neuland, 2014, etc.) is a bestselling Israeli author, and his most recent book to be translated into English makes it easy to understand why. His writing is compelling—actually, it’s compulsively readable, as the cliché goes. This novel takes place in a suburb outside Tel Aviv, an area one character labels “bourgeoisville.” It is split along three narrative lines, each corresponding to a character who lives on one of three floors in the same apartment building. On the first floor, there is Arnon, a father who grows obsessed by the idea that his young daughter may have been molested. On the second floor is Hani, a mother and a wife whose husband is always away on business. Devora, a retired judge, lives on the third floor; her husband has died, her son is estranged, and she must build a new life for herself. Nevo uses Devora to remind us, not so subtly, that these three characters match up rather neatly to Freud’s model of consciousness: Nevo has given us the id, the ego, and the superego, all in one novel. Fine; but though we’re drawn in by each of these characters and their various troubles and travails, in the end we’re left wanting. Sure, the stories are engaging (Arnon, Hani, and Devora each speak directly to a different “you”), but the book as a whole doesn’t satisfy. “Do you understand?” the characters say, again and again. “Can you understand?” Yes, of course, you’ll want to respond; but so what?
Nevo is a funny, engaging writer, but his new book settles for cleverness without reaching for something more genuinely moving.Pub Date: Oct. 10, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-59051-878-6
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Other Press
Review Posted Online: July 16, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2017
BOOK REVIEW
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