An earnest novel of self-discovery and sexuality.
In Spang’s literary novel, a closeted man searches for identity in Vietnam War–era West Virginia.
The Vietnam War is raging, and Jason Follett isn’t sure what terrifies him more: the fact that he might get drafted, or the fact that he might be gay. The Chicago-raised, Vanderbilt Divinity School–educated young man needs time and space to figure himself out, and so he takes a job as the Head Start director in the small, rural town of Pearsall Flats, West Virginia. He rents an apartment from a local minister and his wife with a view of the Potomac River, part of a vacation property that the minister allows some friends to use for extramarital trysts. He befriends Carole Goldsmith, a preacher’s wife and fellow Head Start director who, like Jason, has no idea what she’s doing. The Goldsmiths provide Jason with a surrogate family as he struggles to get the churches of Pearsall Flats to accept a “Yankee” non-religious daycare open to both white and Black children. Though Jason is still in the closet—and dating women in order to keep it that way—he cannot help but come across men who, openly or not, share his attraction to other men. There’s the confirmed bachelor opera buff, the handsome tenant farmer, the glue-sniffing high school achiever, the interracial couple, and even Jason’s minister landlord. “I wouldn’t call it that,” the minister answers with a laugh when Jason asks him, directly, if he’s gay. “I just prefer men…Can we leave it at that?” Jason makes his way between and around these men with a mix of longing and revulsion until he meets Eric Kendrick, a painter and health counselor who lives in the open. Jason falls for Eric, but is he ready to commit to a marginalized identity, or should he take his chances with Debra, a volunteer and idealist with whom he might be able to lead a more conventional life?
Spang captures Jason’s inner turmoil in plainspoken prose, as here when he contemplates his path, Thoreau-like, while gazing over the nearby river, wondering, “I could forget if I were gay or straight, if I should rip up Eric’s card or call him up, if I should start dating someone else, if I should be as others wanted me to be, or if I should be myself. If, indeed, I knew what I was.” The setting is a rich one, and Spang does a fine job playing Jason’s artistic ambitions and Great Society idealism against the complex religiosity of both the people he meets and of Jason himself. The plot offers few real surprises, however, and for this reason its nearly 400-page length feels much too long. The text often reads like a memoir, lacking the immediacy or dynamism of fiction. Even when startling things happen—like a deadly fire that kills a child—they can land with a thud. The novel will likely appeal most to readers with their own memories of the time period, when it was much harder for people to openly be themselves.
An earnest novel of self-discovery and sexuality.Pub Date: Aug. 30, 2024
ISBN: 9798990774407
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Wisdom House Books
Review Posted Online: Nov. 25, 2024
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Have tissues ready as you read this. A small package will do.
A love story about a life of second chances.
In Nassau, in the Bahamas, casino detective Vincent LaPorta grills Alfie Logan, who’d come up a winner three times in a row at the roulette table and walked away with $2 million. “How did you do it?” asks the detective. Alfie calmly denies cheating. You wired all the money to a Gianna Rule, LaPorta says. Why? To explain, Alfie produces a composition book with the words “For the Boss, to Be Read Upon My Death” written on the cover. Read this for answers, Alfie suggests, calling it a love story. His mother had passed along to him a strange trait: He can say “Twice!” and go back to a specific time and place to have a do-over. But it only works once for any particular moment, and then he must live with the new consequences. He can only do this for himself and can’t prevent anyone from dying. Alfie regularly uses his power—failing to impress a girl the first time, he finds out more about her, goes back in time, and presto! She likes him. The premise is of course not credible—LaPorta doesn’t buy it either—but it’s intriguing. Most people would probably love to go back and unsay something. The story’s focus is on Alfie’s love for Gianna and whether it’s requited, unrequited, or both. In any case, he’s obsessed with her. He’s a good man, though, an intelligent person with ordinary human failings and a solid moral compass. Albom writes in a warm, easy style that transports the reader to a world of second chances and what-ifs, where spirituality lies close to the surface but never intrudes on the story. Though a cynic will call it sappy, anyone who is sick to their core from the daily news will enjoy this escape from reality.
Have tissues ready as you read this. A small package will do.Pub Date: Oct. 7, 2025
ISBN: 9780062406682
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: July 18, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2025
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
A heartbreaking, laugh-provoking, and absolutely Ephron-esque look at the beauty and fragility of everyday life.
A woman faces a health crisis and obsesses over a local accident in this wonderful follow-up to Sandwich (2024).
Newman begins her latest with a quote from Nora Ephron: “Death is a sniper. It strikes people you love, people you like, people you know—it’s everywhere. You could be next. But then you turn out not to be. But then again, you could be.” It sets an appropriate tone for a story that is just as full of death and dread as it is laughter. Two years after the events of Sandwich, Rocky is back home in Western Massachusetts and happily surrounded by family—her daughter, Willa, lives with her and her husband, Nick, while applying to Ph.D. programs; her widowed father, Mort, has moved into the in-law apartment behind their house. When a young man who graduated from high school with Rocky’s son, Jamie, is hit by a train, Rocky finds herself spiraling as she thinks about how close the tragedy came to her own family. She’s also freaking out about a mysterious rash her dermatologist can’t explain. Both instances are tailor-made for internet research and stalking. As Rocky obsessively googles her symptoms and finds only bad news (“Here’s what’s true about the Internet: very infrequently do people log on with their good news. Gosh, they don’t write, I had this weird rash on my forearm? And it turned out to be completely nothing!”), she also compulsively checks the Facebook page of the accident victim’s mother. Newman excels at showing how sorrow and joy coexist in everyday life. She masterfully balances a modern exploration of grief with truly laugh-out-loud lines (one passage about the absurdity of collecting a stool sample and delivering it to the doctor stands out). As Rocky deals with the byzantine frustrations of the medical system, she also has to learn, once more, how to see her children, husband, father, and herself as fully flawed and lovable humans.
A heartbreaking, laugh-provoking, and absolutely Ephron-esque look at the beauty and fragility of everyday life.Pub Date: Oct. 28, 2025
ISBN: 9780063453913
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: July 17, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2025
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