A broad, well-crafted satire of political radicalization.
Some right-wing malcontents get in over their heads with an ocean-based secessionist movement in this debut comic novel.
North Carolina mechanic and Civil War reenactor Gage Randolph, recently unemployed, has just been paid to dig up Stonewall Jackson’s arm for a wealthy collector. Gage has the arm beside him in his Ford Bronco when he’s involved in a three-car accident. One of the other vehicles contains progressive TV host Monica Bell, who—right at the moment of impact—is conducting a call-in debate on right-winger Bill Spark’s internet radio show. The third car is piloted by Jacob Kelley, the so-called Unacrapper, on the run from the law after unsuccessfully attempting to blow up the IRS using a bomb made from his own feces (an act inspired by the same show that Monica has called in to). The two male drivers panic and kidnap the unconscious Monica, bringing her to Gage’s friend’s recently shuttered breast-themed wing restaurant. Now wanted for a whole slew of crimes, Gage and his assorted anti-government friends hatch a scheme to gain citizenship on FreedomLand, the mobile oil rig of anti-tax billionaire Zacharias Townsend. But Gage will soon learn that the conspiracy-fueled anarchic utopianism of people like Spark and Townsend may not be the best lodestar for a simple man like himself. Christopher Jackson’s prose blends madcap humor and Southern wit: “Honey, Gage dug up Stonewall Jackson’s arm and then kidnapped Monica Bell and the Unacrapper,” one of Gage’s friends tells his fiancee. “At several points during his evening, he could have opted not to commit a felony, and he blew past all of ’em.” The book skewers many recognizable figures and talking points on the American right, but the author’s characters are specific and original enough for readers to accept them as their own personalities. What’s more, he treats them and their views empathetically, exploring the motivations and emotions behind them. The author doesn’t have many answers to America’s problem of bitter partisanship, but he has provided a funny and fast-paced sendup of it for readers’ enjoyment. As things spin further and further out of control, they somehow become more cathartic.
A broad, well-crafted satire of political radicalization.Pub Date: July 1, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-09-838029-8
Page Count: 324
Publisher: BookBaby
Review Posted Online: April 17, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2021
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A stunning feat of storytelling and moral clarity.
An Irishman uncovers abuse at a Magdalen laundry in this compact and gripping novel.
As Christmas approaches in the winter of 1985, Bill Furlong finds himself increasingly troubled by a sense of dissatisfaction. A coal and timber merchant living in New Ross, Ireland, he should be happy with his life: He is happily married and the father of five bright daughters, and he runs a successful business. But the scars of his childhood linger: His mother gave birth to him while still a teenager, and he never knew his father. Now, as he approaches middle age, Furlong wonders, “What was it all for?…Might things never change or develop into something else, or new?” But a series of troubling encounters at the local convent, which also functions as a “training school for girls” and laundry business, disrupts Furlong’s sedate life. Readers familiar with the history of Ireland’s Magdalen laundries, institutions in which women were incarcerated and often died, will immediately recognize the circumstances of the desperate women trapped in New Ross’ convent, but Furlong does not immediately understand what he has witnessed. Keegan, a prizewinning Irish short story writer, says a great deal in very few words to extraordinary effect in this short novel. Despite the brevity of the text, Furlong’s emotional state is fully rendered and deeply affecting. Keegan also carefully crafts a web of complicity around the convent’s activities that is believably mundane and all the more chilling for it. The Magdalen laundries, this novel implicitly argues, survived not only due to the cruelty of the people who ran them, but also because of the fear and selfishness of those who were willing to look aside because complicity was easier than resistance.
A stunning feat of storytelling and moral clarity.Pub Date: Nov. 30, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-8021-5874-1
Page Count: 128
Publisher: Grove
Review Posted Online: Aug. 31, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2021
A compelling story about grief, sex, and money, but also the power of family and forgiveness.
After her tycoon father’s death, a woman reunites with her estranged family for a dramatic week on their private island.
Alice Storm hasn’t visited her family in five years, but this is no normal house she’s avoiding. Her father was Franklin Storm, founder of a world-changing technology company, and their home is a private island off the Rhode Island coast. When Alice went against her controlling father’s wishes, she was cut off and banished. She’s been supporting herself as a teacher and artist, trying her best to forget that she was ever a Storm—that is, until Franklin’s death. Now she’s back with the family she hasn’t spoken to in years—her icy mother, Elisabeth; rule-following older sister, Greta; bratty, power-hungry older brother, Sam; and spiritual younger sister, Emily, who never met a crystal she didn’t like. Among them, Alice is the rebel—the only one who managed to ignore their father’s wishes and escape the island. But it turns out that, even in death, Franklin is still calling the shots. He’s left them challenges they must complete if they want to earn their inheritance, and if any one of them fails, the whole group loses. Alice’s task seems almost impossible, even though it's simpler than the others': She just has to stay on the island, with her family, for the entire week. All this information is delivered by Jack Dean, Franklin’s right-hand man. He’s also the guy Alice accidentally slept with before realizing who he was (whoops). Now she’s stuck with her family and a man she’s deeply attracted to even though she hates him for being involved in her father’s company—and she has to make it through her father’s funeral (or “celebration,” as her mother insists on calling it). MacLean’s first foray into contemporary family drama has notes of Succession along with the steamy romance she’s known for in her historical novels. The Storm family is full of complicated, flawed characters, and sticking them together on an island for a week leads to lots of delightfully dramatic fights, secrets, and reveals.
A compelling story about grief, sex, and money, but also the power of family and forgiveness.Pub Date: July 8, 2025
ISBN: 9780593972250
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: April 4, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2025
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