An evocative collection of stories about family life.
Saint-Denis offers a collection of family-related anecdotes and vignettes in this short story collection.
In this collection of extremely short stories (several of the pieces are less than a page long, and few are more than three pages), the author draws on notes recorded over decades of parenting, working, and living in France and the United States, turning memories into a work of autofiction. The first section, “New Roots,” includes stories spanning the French family’s stay in the United States. The following three sections (“Infancy,” “Adolescence,” and “Send-Off”) are roughly chronological, following Saint-Denis’ evolution as a parent. The stories are all written in the third person, and all the characters remain unnamed. At first it can be difficult to recognize that each story features the same individuals, but as the reader progresses, their personalities and themes develop a consistency across the stories. In “Unpacking,” the husband and wife clash over differing priorities for emptying their boxes, but harmony is eventually restored even though the books get unpacked and the kitchen gear does not. “Good Eye” offers an outsider’s look at the culture and vocabulary of children’s sports. “Scarce Commodity” examines parental sleeplessness, with teenagers as much to blame as infants. In “Hair Gel,” an adolescent son gets to teach his father a new skill. Saint-Denis explores the mundane, ordinary moments of family life, from elementary school homework to dance class to serving as a parental chaperone. The narration hews closely to the mother's thoughts, so readers get the most intimate look into her psyche as she wrestles with balancing work and family, mourns and celebrates her children growing up, and puzzles out American customs. The writing is generally strong and often highly descriptive, with a touch of dry humor, as in her characterization of cellphones: “There were some similarities to the revolution of having a baby, in the sense that life before it became unimaginable. And yet they had survived many years without it.”
An evocative collection of stories about family life.Pub Date: May 2, 2023
ISBN: 9781627204811
Page Count: 230
Publisher: Loyola College/Apprentice House
Review Posted Online: April 27, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2023
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
The story unfolds so irresistibly that newcomers may think Grisham’s been writing thrillers like this his whole life.
What hasn’t legendary legal eagle Grisham tried yet? How about a thriller about serial kidnapping and international terrorism.
When Paul and Chelsea Tanner disappear during a day trip on their Paris honeymoon, their abductors demand a ransom of $2 million from Chelsea’s wealthy parents, and a few days later the same sum from Paul’s much less well-heeled parents. After orthopedist Lowell Clayburn, Chelsea’s father, ponies up the ransom without breathing a word to the authorities, his daughter is promptly released. But even though Paul’s parents sell their home, liquidate their assets, and borrow money from the Clayburns to meet the kidnappers’ demands, the villains hold on to Paul anyway. Asked whether he’s ever seen such an outcome in a double kidnapping, FBI deputy director Andrew Strong tells Lowell: “No, this is a new one.” But it’s not, as Strong knows all too well; it’s the third such active case, all involving honeymooning couples whose bridegrooms had served in the armed forces. After masterfully drawing readers in with his bare-knuckle account of the Tanners’ abduction and the attempt by their families and the CIA to tell the lies required to keep caring friends and the rapacious press at bay, Grisham effortlessly switches gears to follow CIA agent Rae Claire Russo and Stuart Nash, a former Department of Justice prosecutor at Guantanamo Bay who agrees to marry her so they can serve as bait for the kidnappers, whose motives include justice and revenge as well as cold hard cash. So much for the imprisoned Paul’s wistful reflection that “hopefully, it was only about money.”
The story unfolds so irresistibly that newcomers may think Grisham’s been writing thrillers like this his whole life.Pub Date: Sept. 29, 2026
ISBN: 9780385550543
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Aug. 17, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2026
Brilliant, affecting work from one of contemporary literature’s masters.
A phone call from her past disrupts the tenuously reconstructed life of a concert pianist turned farmer’s wife.
We know from the beginning that Livia Cable is the battered survivor of her brother Cyrus’ death by suicide, a devastating romance, and a career-ending injury. Only 11 when Cyrus stepped in front of a train, she was already marked out as different in her rural Tennessee hometown by her extraordinary musical ability. The siblings had huddled together against their angry mother’s frequent beatings, and Livia still feels abandoned by Cyrus years later, when she picks up the phone to hear the voice of Sigurd, the fiery labor organizer she loved and lost to “the revolution” while on scholarship at the Indiana University School of Music. Now married to kind, steady childhood friend Charlie, Livia looks back on her affair with Sigurd as she struggles to deal with the recent death of her mother, a compulsive hoarder who left a house stuffed with junk to be disposed of and bitter memories that haven’t faded over time. Kingsolver skillfully juggles the two time frames to unravel Livia’s complicated feelings about the life she lost when her right hand was crushed and the life she has now as a country piano teacher. A partita, she explains to Sigurd early on, “is a composition made of a lot of parts with a lot of different moods…the artist’s work is to make them all add up to something that feels whole.” That’s precisely what Kingsolver does in this beautifully paced and judged narrative, which builds to revelations uncovered amid the piles of trash in Livia’s childhood home about the reasons for Cyrus’ suicide (clearly foreshadowed) and their mother’s rage (startling and heartbreaking). A fierce belief that great art is for everyone joins Kingsolver’s familiar preoccupations with class distinctions, social injustice, and the complex bonds of family and community in a tender denouement.
Brilliant, affecting work from one of contemporary literature’s masters.Pub Date: Oct. 6, 2026
ISBN: 9780063577541
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: July 6, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2026
SEEN & HEARD
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