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EGGSHELLS

Absent the dramatic character arcs or plot twists readers would expect from an American novel, this urban fairy tale...

Dubliner Vivian Lawlor doesn’t fit in anywhere. Will she ever find her place in this world?

Debut novelist Lally creates a portrait of loneliness through the whimsical and obsessive Viv, who meticulously and painstakingly plots her daily walks through the streets of Dublin. The Irishwoman lives in the cluttered home she inherited from her deceased great-aunt, with whom she had lived since her parents’ deaths. Auntie was a Grey Gardens–style hoarder with an impressive collection of oddball items. Quirkiness runs in the Lawlor family, and before their deaths, Viv’s parents managed to convince this daughter (they have another, also named Vivian) that she's a changeling from another world. Viv is now a woman searching for portals to the world where she belongs and desperately seeking a friend. Her interactions with the people she crosses paths with in her daily life—shopkeepers, taxi drivers, urban pedestrians—are so, so awkward, they are at once delightfully hilarious and painfully cringeworthy. But they will never lead to friendship, and so Viv posts a sign advertising for a pal. Not just any friend. This charmingly touched heroine is on the hunt for a friend named Penelope (no Pennies need apply). Viv, who insists on the abbreviated version of her name because she loves palindromes, wants to ask this new friend why Penelope does not rhyme with antelope. When Viv meets her Penelope, she’s met her match. Though not a grounding influence, Penelope’s friendship forces Viv to see her world from a new perspective.

Absent the dramatic character arcs or plot twists readers would expect from an American novel, this urban fairy tale delivers something that is both subtle and profound in its examination of the human soul. Magically delicious.

Pub Date: Feb. 21, 2017

ISBN: 978-1-61219-597-1

Page Count: 272

Publisher: Melville House

Review Posted Online: Nov. 21, 2016

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2016

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THE TESTAMENTS

Suspenseful, full of incident, and not obviously necessary.

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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

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THINGS FALL APART

This book sings with the terrible silence of dead civilizations in which once there was valor.

Written with quiet dignity that builds to a climax of tragic force, this book about the dissolution of an African tribe, its traditions, and values, represents a welcome departure from the familiar "Me, white brother" genre.

Written by a Nigerian African trained in missionary schools, this novel tells quietly the story of a brave man, Okonkwo, whose life has absolute validity in terms of his culture, and who exercises his prerogative as a warrior, father, and husband with unflinching single mindedness. But into the complex Nigerian village filters the teachings of strangers, teachings so alien to the tribe, that resistance is impossible. One must distinguish a force to be able to oppose it, and to most, the talk of Christian salvation is no more than the babbling of incoherent children. Still, with his guns and persistence, the white man, amoeba-like, gradually absorbs the native culture and in despair, Okonkwo, unable to withstand the corrosion of what he, alone, understands to be the life force of his people, hangs himself. In the formlessness of the dying culture, it is the missionary who takes note of the event, reminding himself to give Okonkwo's gesture a line or two in his work, The Pacification of the Primitive Tribes of the Lower Niger.

This book sings with the terrible silence of dead civilizations in which once there was valor.

Pub Date: Jan. 23, 1958

ISBN: 0385474547

Page Count: 207

Publisher: McDowell, Obolensky

Review Posted Online: April 23, 2013

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 1958

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