A surprising, emotionally intense character study that elevates everyday anxieties into epic form.
The concluding volume in Tiller’s three-part novel about class and identity, thick with provocative twists and ill will.
Tiller’s Norwegian domestic saga closes by following the pattern of the first two books, published in English in 2017 and 2018. David has taken out an ad asking friends and acquaintances to share memories about him following a bout of amnesia; the replies say something about David, a witty, sour writer, but also about the respondents and broader Norwegian culture. Hanging over the narrative is David’s search for his father’s identity, which this volume resolves, but happy feelings of closure are hard to come by. In the first section, Marius reveals the truth about David’s father and unspools a remembrance of his own insecurities growing up in a wealthy family and competing with his brother. Susanne, a college friend, had an affair with David after her marriage began to crumble, but her relationship with David became poisonous as well. Finally, David himself weighs in, chafing against his stalled literary career and neuroses about his wife’s family; scenes of him sabotaging a family dinner are paired with transcripts of him parrying with his therapist over his fears. If those talk-it-out scenes are a little pat, Tiller’s sense of his characters’ pressure points is acute; he grasps how competitive Marius and David are and how desperate Susanne is to buck against domestic roles. And though scenes sometimes stretch on, Tiller’s pointillistic approach gains power as it goes along. (In David’s section, a bouillabaisse and some Q-tips spark an epic interior explosion over feelings of failure as a husband and father.) David is hard to like, but Tiller’s prismatic approach captures him from a multitude of angles; he and his cohort become fuller, if not necessarily more likable, as the story progresses.
A surprising, emotionally intense character study that elevates everyday anxieties into epic form.Pub Date: July 13, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-64445-058-1
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Graywolf
Review Posted Online: April 13, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2021
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
PERSPECTIVES
PERSPECTIVES
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
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