At their best, these poems offer engagingly sardonic and witty observations
A debut volume of poetry takes a comic view of contemporary life with a sometimes-serious edge.
In his collection, which features some poems that were previously published in literary journals, Dickson often skewers the jargon-y language of advertising, apps, and marketing. “Dear Citibank,” for example, is a sardonic prose-poem note of thanks for the company’s many so-called “Last Chance!” credit-card offers: “Five last chances! If only we all had such patience in our human intercourse. / But wait, there’s more! / When my sixth last chance arrived this morning, I could hardly contain myself. Is there no limit to your indulgence?” The speaker’s hyperbolically polite appreciation hilariously exposes the bank’s naked attempts at manipulation. In other pieces, the poet also displays a keen ear for the rhythms of speech. Dickson’s humorous but real exasperation with himself is plain in “Yet Another If-I-Had-Life-To-Do-All-Over-Again Poem”: “Speaking of which, this time I will not let Lucinda Gluck go, / just because I thought her ultimatum was ‘too soon.’ / Too soon for what, Barry? Too soon to be loved? / … / Clearly it wasn’t too soon to be an asshole.” The piece ends with a soberer yet not didactic reflection on taking risks. Not all the verses are comic. The title poem, for example, considers hate crimes: “Maybe today will be the day / no one is dragged behind a truck / because he’s black / or kicked to death because he’s gay.” Perhaps expecting things to be different is a form of insanity, asserts the poet, but “Maybe it / defines optimism.” Maybe it does, but is hope an especially fruitful response to tragedy? The poem could grapple more deeply with the darkness of its subject instead of rushing toward a think-positive conclusion.
At their best, these poems offer engagingly sardonic and witty observationsPub Date: March 28, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-62549-374-3
Page Count: 52
Publisher: Cherry Grove Collections
Review Posted Online: Nov. 20, 2021
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
SEEN & HEARD
A beautiful meditation on queer identity against a supernatural backdrop.
Three women deal very differently with vampirism in Schwab’s era-spanning follow-up to The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue (2020).
In 16th-century Spain, Maria seduces a wealthy viscount in an attempt to seize whatever control she can over her own life. It turns out that being a wife—even a wealthy one—is just another cage, but then a mysterious widow offers Maria a surprising escape route. In the 19th century, Charlotte is sent from her home in the English countryside to live with an aunt in London when she’s found trying to kiss her best friend. She’s despondent at the idea of marrying a man, but another mysterious widow—who has a secret connection to Maria’s widow from centuries earlier—appears and teaches Charlotte that she can be free to love whomever she chooses, if she’s brave enough. In 2019, Alice’s memories of growing up in Scotland with her mercurial older sister, Catty, pull her mind away from her first days at Harvard University. And though she doesn’t meet any mysterious widows, Alice wakes up alone after a one-night stand unable to tolerate sunlight, sporting two new fangs, and desperate to drink blood. Horrified at her transformation, she searches Boston for her hookup, who was the last person she remembers seeing before she woke up as a vampire. Schwab delicately intertwines the three storylines, which are compelling individually even before the reader knows how they will connect. Maria, Charlotte, and Alice are queer women searching for love, recognition, and wholeness, growing fangs and defying mortality in a world that would deny them their very existence. Alice’s flashbacks to Catty are particularly moving, and subtly play off themes of grief and loneliness laid out in the historical timelines.
A beautiful meditation on queer identity against a supernatural backdrop.Pub Date: June 10, 2025
ISBN: 9781250320520
Page Count: 544
Publisher: Tor
Review Posted Online: March 22, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2025
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