Sweet, undemanding entertainment most suitable for longtime fans.
More “Tales of the City” (Mary Ann in Autumn, 2010, etc.), with the former residents of 28 Barbary Ln. still fluttering around their erstwhile landlady.
Anna Madrigal is now 93 and very frail, but she’s still got the gender-crossing panache that led her away from the whorehouse her mother ran in Winnemucca, Nev., and from the unwanted appendages associated with her youth as a boy named Andy. Having had one of the earliest sex-change operations in the U.S., Anna is a legend in the transgender community, and her young caretaker, Jake, has built a special float for her to ride at this year’s Burning Man festival to receive what everyone knows will probably be her final accolades. He is ultimately persuaded by others in their San Francisco circle that it’s too risky, and indeed, the closing chapters’ vivid depiction of the “mosh pit in the desert,” as Michael Tolliver calls Burning Man, makes it seem an unlikely place for an elderly lady. But while Michael, husband Ben, bisexual celebrity Shawna (who’s looking for a sperm donor) and many others are cavorting in the Nevada desert, Anna has unfinished business in not-too-far-away Winnemucca, to which she has persuaded Shawna’s father (and Michael’s close friend), Brian, and his new wife, Wren, to drive her in their air-conditioned RV. So it’s no surprise when Anna finally ends up at Burning Man after the not-terribly-dramatic resolution to a conflict laid out in flashbacks to the year she left home at 16. Readers not up to speed on the series may have trouble sorting out all the relationships (and genders), but Maupin spins his usual good-hearted web of intrigues involving people who have created their own community to shelter them from disapproving straights. The plot is as soap-operatic as usual, though thankfully, Maupin has abandoned the lurid improbabilities that marred Mary Ann in Autumn in favor of touching reunions and reconciliations.
Sweet, undemanding entertainment most suitable for longtime fans.Pub Date: Jan. 21, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-06-219624-8
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Nov. 3, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2013
A sprightly new cozy series for Ross (Steamed Open, 2018, etc.) with plenty of entertaining characters, hidden clues, and a...
A Massachusetts retiree with a knack for discovering secrets lands a new gig.
Jane Darrowfield, who has a reputation among her friends as a problem-solver, is offered a job at Walden Spring, an adult community in Concord. But director Paul Peavey is evasive about what exactly the job involves. When Jane, at his suggestion, moves into an apartment pretending to be a potential long-term resident, she sees that Walden Spring has rival cliques, just like high school. Because she’s already met Evangeline Murray, a friend of a friend, Jane lunches with the artists. The leather-jacketed bad boys are led by Mike Witkowski and the popular preppies by Bill Finnerty, whose wife is in the Alzheimer’s unit. At the same time, Jane, who’s vetting men from a dating site for a friend, finds herself drawn to Harry Welch and agreeing to another date after years of wariness ever since her husband took off with another woman and most of their money, leaving her to climb back to financial security on her own. Jane soon discovers disturbing undercurrents at beautiful Walden Spring, especially between Bill and Mike. When Bill’s found beaten to death on the golf course, Jane’s ready to go home. Since Peavey and the police prefer that she stay, she decides to do a little snooping. She’s especially interested in the identity of a man she’s seen walking across the community’s golf course late at night. The case takes an unexpected turn with the discovery that Bill and Mary Finnerty were killed in a car crash 12 years ago. So who are the residents passing as Bill and Mary?
A sprightly new cozy series for Ross (Steamed Open, 2018, etc.) with plenty of entertaining characters, hidden clues, and a touch of romance.Pub Date: June 25, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-4967-1994-2
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Kensington
Review Posted Online: March 30, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2019
Khong’s pithy observations and cynical humor round out a moving story that sparks empathy where you’d least expect it.
Former Lucky Peach executive editor Khong (All About Eggs: Everything We Know About the World’s Most Important Food, 2017) whisks up a heartfelt family dramedy in a debut novel that ruminates on love, loss, and memory.
Last June, Ruth Young was engaged and packing to move to a spacious apartment in Bernal Heights, San Francisco, when her fiance, Joel, broke the news that he wasn’t moving with her. Now 30, single, and still raw from the jarring breakup (and the gutting knowledge that Joel has a new, undoubtedly cooler, girlfriend), Ruth returns to her family’s home for the holidays. But instead of escaping her past, Ruth must face another obstacle upon arriving in Los Angeles—her father, esteemed history professor Howard Young, has Alzheimer’s disease, and it’s rapidly worsening. To alleviate her mother’s stress, Ruth quits her job in San Francisco—reluctantly joining “the unmarried and careerless boat”—and moves back in with her parents to care for her irascible father, who, notwithstanding his failing memory and bizarre behaviors (such as carrying a urinal cake in his pocket), insists he’s fine. Written in chronological vignettes spanning a year, Ruth’s vivid narration reads much like an intimate diary. In an effort to stave off her boredom at home, Ruth sleuths around her father’s unkempt office, digs for evidence of an extramarital affair, and even schemes with Howard’s former students to keep him under the illusion that he’s still actively teaching. As Howard’s memories fade, Ruth’s rise to the surface. Recollections of her father’s drinking problem and recent infidelity send her spiraling among resentment, disgust, and (unwittingly) compassion toward her parents. Ultimately, it’s Howard’s flaws that move Ruth to examine her own. Ruth and Howard are a hilarious father-daughter duo, at turns destructive and endearing, and entries from a notebook that Howard kept during Ruth’s childhood serve as an enriching back story to their deep bond.
Khong’s pithy observations and cynical humor round out a moving story that sparks empathy where you’d least expect it.Pub Date: July 11, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-250-10916-3
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: May 1, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2017
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