An ultimately hopeful vision of the aftermath of disaster.
A pensive, dystopian Western set in the wake of a devastating pandemic stars a reluctant Buddhist hero with an ability to talk to animals.
In 2048, 52-year-old Will Collins is one of the oldest surviving members of a human society that consists mostly of those 30 and under. Living as a hermit for a year when Disease X struck, he got sick but didn't die. Now the sole caretaker of the Colorado Buddhist community where he has spent decades, he receives a message from California-based scientist Lars, father of his old flame Eva, who, Will has been told, died when the pandemic spread 14 years earlier. Lars instructs him to go to a local veterinarian and get an ampoule, which may contain an antidote, implanted in his body, and then make his way to the Sovereign Republic of California. Will calls together his two best friends, the raven Peau and the cat Casse, and uses a team of mules to pull an old truck across the deserted roads, pursued by the vicious Flynn and his militia. Along the way, he reluctantly assumes custody of bright, mouthy 14-year-old orphan Sophie, who is at risk of being forced into prostitution. Groner is at his best in describing the changed landscape, where passenger pigeons and bison have returned in full force and mutant crocodiles make river crossings dangerous, and the many settlements his little troupe encounters, some welcoming and others very much not. The novel sometimes bogs down in discussions of religion, philosophy, and the history of the series of pandemics that led the world into its present situation, and its final chapters are loaded with unlikely twists. But as long as the narrator is on the road, his exploits and observations provide an engaging window into a strange new world.
An ultimately hopeful vision of the aftermath of disaster.Pub Date: Dec. 3, 2024
ISBN: 9781954118423
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Spiegel & Grau
Review Posted Online: Aug. 17, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
Suspenseful, full of incident, and not obviously necessary.
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
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
Captivating, frightening, and a singular achievement.
As Ireland devolves into a brutal police state, one woman tries to preserve her family in this stark fable.
For Eilish Stack, a molecular biologist living with her husband and four children in Dublin, life changes all at once and then slowly worsens beyond imagining. Two men appear at her door one night, agents of the new secret police, seeking her husband, Larry, a union official. Soon he is detained under the Emergency Powers Act recently pushed through by the new ruling party, and she cannot contact him. Eilish sees things shifting at work to those backing the ruling party. The state takes control of the press, the judiciary. Her oldest son receives a summons to military duty for the regime, and she tries to send him to Northern Ireland. He elects to join the rebel forces and soon she cannot contact him, either. His name and address appear in a newspaper ad listing people dodging military service. Eilish is coping with her father’s growing dementia, her teenage daughter’s depression, the vandalizing of her car and house. Then war comes to Dublin as the rebel forces close in on the city. Offered a chance to flee the country by her sister in Canada, Eilish can’t abandon hope for her husband’s and son’s returns. Lynch makes every step of this near-future nightmare as plausible as it is horrific by tightly focusing on Eilish, a smart, concerned woman facing terrible choices and losses. An exceptionally gifted writer, Lynch brings a compelling lyricism to her fears and despair while he marshals the details marking the collapse of democracy and the norms of daily life. His tonal control, psychological acuity, empathy, and bleakness recall Cormac McCarthy’s The Road (2006). And Eilish, his strong, resourceful, complete heroine, recalls the title character of Lynch’s excellent Irish-famine novel, Grace (2017).
Captivating, frightening, and a singular achievement.Pub Date: Dec. 5, 2023
ISBN: 9780802163011
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Atlantic Monthly
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2023
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