An intriguing but familiar tale of spiritual longing.
In this novel, an artist travels to Cuba on a spiritual journey to communicate with his deceased father.
Painter Julian Valladares grew up hearing stories about Ernest Hemingway from his father, Ramón, who for many years worked as a major domo for the writer when he lived in Cuba. As a result, Ramón becomes obsessed with the novelist and writes a book about his stay in Cuba, a work that makes him something of a celebrity among Hemingway scholars and enthusiasts. Ramón is also a priest in the Palo Monte religious tradition, one that combines African, Cuban, and Christian beliefs into a seamless whole. He introduces his son to this spiritual practice, a process lucidly depicted by Curry. Once Ramón dies, Julian is filled with a desperate yearning to reconnect with his Cuban heritage and his religious upbringing as well as to talk with his father once more. Julian travels to Cuba with his best friend, Max Albury, and the two meet up with Phoebe Brennan and Mira Stadler, both Hemingway scholars, at an academic colloquium dedicated to the luminary. But Julian informs Max that he’s really there to take part in an ancient ritual that promises to permit him to see Ramón again, one in which there is “no guaranteed outcome,” as his spiritual guide, Caridad Arango, ominously puts it. The author conjures a tantalizingly complex Cuba, a mysterious place in which oppression, poverty, and anguish are concealed beneath a topsoil of cultural vitality. Moreover, he insightfully discusses Hemingway’s own fascination with Cuba, a place where he found great inspiration for his writing. But the plot moves slowly and is sometimes more stilted than spiritually engaging. And the religious element of Julian’s quest is sometimes rendered in contemporary literature formulas. Here, Julian describes his desire to return to his “spiritual home”: “How do we find our way back? How do we connect to what is ours, what is in our souls and in our DNA? I hope that when we die in exile, we are no longer disconnected. I hope the spirit mother finds us and brings us home.”
An intriguing but familiar tale of spiritual longing.Pub Date: Nov. 30, 2022
ISBN: 9781954396319
Page Count: 354
Publisher: Barringer Publishing/Schlesinger Advertising
Review Posted Online: Feb. 25, 2023
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
This luxurious novel is set to take the world by storm.
The true story of Axis diplomats detained in the U.S. at the start of World War II is transformed into a dazzling historical novel set at a sumptuous West Virginia hotel.
Bestselling YA fantasy author Stiefvater’s adult debut introduces a writer whose prodigious imagination and distinctive prose style have combined to create a novel that will remind readers of why they fell in love with reading in the first place. At its center is the captivating June Hudson, an erstwhile Appalachian orphan who was taken in by the wealthy Gilfoyle family, owners of the Avallon Hotel & Spa, a high-society retreat built over underground mineral springs. At his death, the patriarch bequeathed ownership to his playboy son, Edgar, but made June the general manager, as she had spent her life learning the business—and also shared with Gilfoyle Sr. a rare gift relating to the “sweetwater” springs, a fantastical element of this otherwise realistic novel. Aside from the magical waters and a few other fanciful details, Stiefvater’s fictional world is based on extensive research into high-end hotels of the period, creating a version of luxury so appealing that readers will wish they could check into the Avallon and stay on indefinitely. In fact, the novel revolves around the true meaning of luxury. To June, it has nothing to do with wealth; it is more connected to joy, and to the book’s title: “June had long ago discovered that most people were bad listeners; they thought listening was synonymous with hearing. But the spoken was only half a conversation. True needs, wants, fears, and hopes hid not in the words that were said, but in the ones that weren’t, and all these formed the core of luxury.” Also brilliantly managed is the rest of the ensemble cast: sexy FBI agents; June’s inimitable staff; the delegations of Japanese, Germans, and Italians detained at the hotel, some quite nasty, but among them a strange, special, totally silent child. And on top of all this, a delicious love story!
This luxurious novel is set to take the world by storm.Pub Date: June 3, 2025
ISBN: 9780593655504
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: April 19, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2025
PERSPECTIVES
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