An engrossing, quietly original take on what women must do to survive in 21st-century small-town America.
Lee debuts with a sometimes eerie, sometimes pragmatic story about three women whose lives intersect in a small upstate New York town during the Great Recession.
Hoping for a new start with her troubled husband, childless Manhattan attorney Claire Pedersen, 43, buys an old house in Caliban in 2009. The reluctant seller, April Ives, whose great-grandfather built the place, is currently a cash-strapped single mother who cleans other people’s houses for a living. When Claire’s husband develops a “fetish” for Anna, a pregnant young Korean American woman belonging to the local branch of an otherwise white Christian cult, tragedy results. Over the next two years, the three women, all outsiders in their communities, crisscross paths as their fortunes alter and each considers the role of luck (especially bad luck), choice, and God’s role in life’s vicissitudes. Claire initially discounts April as a loser, but then Claire’s own life unravels. Having lost her husband, her financial stability, and her health, she feels a growing empathy for April’s hand-to-mouth struggles. But unlike Claire, April finds reserves of inner strength while facing crises concerning her young son and his ex-con father. She also forms an unexpected bond with Anna, who is suddenly forced to question the strict, narrow religious world in which she’s grown up and finds herself re-evaluating her beliefs while discovering the strength of genuine love and trust. Lee’s first novel is refreshingly out of sync with current trends; she manages to engage readers without relying on a big plot hook or trendy issue, and her point-of-view remains disquietingly ambiguous. Are the hints of the supernatural at work merely in the characters’ minds? Should Anna’s earnest theology be taken seriously? Readers may wonder at times where the open-ended plot is going, and the ending, while logical and satisfying, is not predictable. Life these days seldom is—which may be the novel’s ultimate message.
An engrossing, quietly original take on what women must do to survive in 21st-century small-town America.Pub Date: Nov. 7, 2023
ISBN: 9781951213770
Page Count: 275
Publisher: Unnamed Press
Review Posted Online: Aug. 31, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2023
A tender and moving portrait about the transcendent power of art and friendship.
An artwork’s value grows if you understand the stories of the people who inspired it.
Never in her wildest dreams would foster kid Louisa dream of meeting C. Jat, the famous painter of The One of the Sea, which depicts a group of young teens on a pier on a hot summer’s day. But in Backman’s latest, that’s just what happens—an unexpected (but not unbelievable) set of circumstances causes their paths to collide right before the dying 39-year-old artist’s departure from the world. One of his final acts is to bequeath that painting to Louisa, who has endured a string of violent foster homes since her mother abandoned her as a child. Selling the painting will change her life—but can she do it? Before deciding, she accompanies Ted, one of the artist’s close friends and one of the young teens captured in that celebrated painting, on a train journey to take the artist’s ashes to his hometown. She wants to know all about the painting, which launched Jat’s career at age 14, and the circle of beloved friends who inspired it. The bestselling author of A Man Called Ove (2014) and other novels, Backman gives us a heartwarming story about how these friends, set adrift by the violence and unhappiness of their homes, found each other and created a new definition of family. “You think you’re alone,” one character explains, “but there are others like you, people who stand in front of white walls and blank paper and only see magical things. One day one of them will recognize you and call out: ‘You’re one of us!’” As Ted tells stories about his friends—how Jat doubted his talents but found a champion in fiery Joar, who took on every bully to defend him; how Ali brought an excitement to their circle that was “like a blinding light, like a heart attack”—Louisa recognizes herself as a kindred soul and feels a calling to realize her own artistic gifts. What she decides to do with the painting is part of a caper worthy of the stories that Ted tells her. The novel is humorous, poignant, and always life-affirming, even when describing the bleakness of the teens’ early lives. “Art is a fragile magic, just like love,” as someone tells Louisa, “and that’s humanity’s only defense against death.”
A tender and moving portrait about the transcendent power of art and friendship.Pub Date: May 6, 2025
ISBN: 9781982112820
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Atria
Review Posted Online: July 4, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2025
SEEN & HEARD
Amateurish, with a twist savvy readers will see coming from a mile away.
A woman accused of shooting her husband six times in the face refuses to speak.
"Alicia Berenson was thirty-three years old when she killed her husband. They had been married for seven years. They were both artists—Alicia was a painter, and Gabriel was a well-known fashion photographer." Michaelides' debut is narrated in the voice of psychotherapist Theo Faber, who applies for a job at the institution where Alicia is incarcerated because he's fascinated with her case and believes he will be able to get her to talk. The narration of the increasingly unrealistic events that follow is interwoven with excerpts from Alicia's diary. Ah, yes, the old interwoven diary trick. When you read Alicia's diary you'll conclude the woman could well have been a novelist instead of a painter because it contains page after page of detailed dialogue, scenes, and conversations quite unlike those in any journal you've ever seen. " 'What's the matter?' 'I can't talk about it on the phone, I need to see you.' 'It's just—I'm not sure I can make it up to Cambridge at the minute.' 'I'll come to you. This afternoon. Okay?' Something in Paul's voice made me agree without thinking about it. He sounded desperate. 'Okay. Are you sure you can't tell me about it now?' 'I'll see you later.' Paul hung up." Wouldn't all this appear in a diary as "Paul wouldn't tell me what was wrong"? An even more improbable entry is the one that pins the tail on the killer. While much of the book is clumsy, contrived, and silly, it is while reading passages of the diary that one may actually find oneself laughing out loud.
Amateurish, with a twist savvy readers will see coming from a mile away.Pub Date: Feb. 5, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-250-30169-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Celadon Books
Review Posted Online: Nov. 3, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2018
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