An eye-opening chronicle of one man’s harrowing journey of self-discovery powered by perseverance, courage, and hope.
This first installment of Mushenye’s saga chronicles the trials and tribulations of a Luhya boy living in western Kenya and struggling to find his place in the world.
The narrative begins with shockingly immersive sequences that readers will not soon forget, if ever: A superstitious mother wants to cure her son Andayi of stuttering, so she hires a medicine man with alleged magic powers to “trim” his uvula. The surgery is as brutal as it is unsanitary—done with a bamboo stick with razor blades attached and no anesthesia—and the boy is lucky to survive. (“The moment he left me lying still, I started to breathe out slowly, desperately wishing and waiting for the searing pain to ease. It took a protracted interval to subdue the agony before I could even think of moving a muscle.”) The horrific incident pales, however, next to an even more traumatic experience soon thereafter. When Andayi’s older brother, Rono, leaves for a month-long ritualized retreat in a sacred forest that will supposedly make him a man, Andayi tricks his mother and secretly follows the group of boys Rono is with deep into the wilderness. He is eventually caught and forced to undergo the generations-long rite that will make him a man: circumcision. “As soon as I caught sight of the bloody knife at work on [my brother’s] bleeding rocket, the reality of what I was about to experience hit me like a bolt of lightning. My eyes shuddered with instant shock and terror. The rush of adrenaline was so sudden that they nearly popped out. As I struggled to comprehend the grisly torment, my brain sought to reboot and believe what I saw, but it didn’t work.” Surviving the “rocket-sculpting ritual,” as well as a month of revelatory education from adult mentors, makes Andayi a different person when he returns to his village—but he is still deeply flawed, embracing childish attitudes and behaviors like bullying, lying, and blaming others for his own inadequacies. When he flunks out of high school, he is faced with some troubling realizations—without the opportunities provided by a higher education, his future holds little promise. With his mother’s help, he reassesses his life and vows to, somehow, further his education in the land of plenty. (“I had no money and didn’t even know where America was.”)
There’s a genuineness, authenticity, and refreshing candor to Mushenye’s writing. The Kenyan-born novelist’s meticulous description of Luhya culture—its traditions and superstitions—is an undeniable strength, as is his main character’s relentless self-analysis and self-reflection. His story is a profound coming-of-age tale replete with numerous tidbits of wisdom along the way: “Patience is bitter, but the fruit is sweet. If you stretch your imagination beyond what you know or have seen, you will come across new opportunities.” The novel’s chief failing is its lack of a satisfying conclusion. The end of the book is more of a respite, a stopping point that sets up the second installment well but leaves readers hanging.
An eye-opening chronicle of one man’s harrowing journey of self-discovery powered by perseverance, courage, and hope.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: -
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: Nov. 20, 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
Suspenseful, full of incident, and not obviously necessary.
Atwood goes back to Gilead.
The Handmaid’s Tale (1985), consistently regarded as a masterpiece of 20th-century literature, has gained new attention in recent years with the success of the Hulu series as well as fresh appreciation from readers who feel like this story has new relevance in America’s current political climate. Atwood herself has spoken about how news headlines have made her dystopian fiction seem eerily plausible, and it’s not difficult to imagine her wanting to revisit Gilead as the TV show has sped past where her narrative ended. Like the novel that preceded it, this sequel is presented as found documents—first-person accounts of life inside a misogynistic theocracy from three informants. There is Agnes Jemima, a girl who rejects the marriage her family arranges for her but still has faith in God and Gilead. There’s Daisy, who learns on her 16th birthday that her whole life has been a lie. And there's Aunt Lydia, the woman responsible for turning women into Handmaids. This approach gives readers insight into different aspects of life inside and outside Gilead, but it also leads to a book that sometimes feels overstuffed. The Handmaid’s Tale combined exquisite lyricism with a powerful sense of urgency, as if a thoughtful, perceptive woman was racing against time to give witness to her experience. That narrator hinted at more than she said; Atwood seemed to trust readers to fill in the gaps. This dynamic created an atmosphere of intimacy. However curious we might be about Gilead and the resistance operating outside that country, what we learn here is that what Atwood left unsaid in the first novel generated more horror and outrage than explicit detail can. And the more we get to know Agnes, Daisy, and Aunt Lydia, the less convincing they become. It’s hard, of course, to compete with a beloved classic, so maybe the best way to read this new book is to forget about The Handmaid’s Tale and enjoy it as an artful feminist thriller.
Suspenseful, full of incident, and not obviously necessary.Pub Date: Sept. 10, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-385-54378-1
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Nan A. Talese
Review Posted Online: Sept. 3, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2019
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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