A compelling and challenging collection of tales that will entice readers.
A volume of short stories reflects aspects of the Black experience on the East and West coasts.
This prose collection from poet and fiction writer Juanita (following Manhattan My Ass, You’re in Oakland, 2020) features tales set in Northern California and the New York metropolitan area. Some are set in the present and recent past, while others reach back to the 1960s and ’70s. Some of the characters are political activists, working for the Black Panther Party and attending student conferences, while others are more practical than intellectual, focusing on day jobs, chronic pain, and failing relationships. The protagonist of “Making Room” sees ghosts. In “Driving,” just two paragraphs long, the narrator’s poor skills at the wheel tie her to the other motorists who keep her safe. In “Not a Through Street,” one of the more lighthearted works in the assemblage, a comedian works on her material while dealing with an attraction to her acupuncturist. “Between General MacArthur and Admiral Nimitz” is the story of a hapless woman who tries her relatives’ patience one time too many, and “Triplets” explores family relationships from another, sadder, angle. “Huelbo” borrows from the author’s own autobiography in its depiction of a woman editing the Black Panther Party’s newspaper, with the fictional characters joined by historical figures. “If 9/11 Had Happened in Harlem, This Would Be a Different World” encapsulates its premise in the title, then dives into a sardonic alternative history in which some outcomes seem inescapable.
The thought-provoking and evocative collection offers stories with enjoyable and well-designed plots, a constant stream of vivid imagery (one house is “a light green between celery and vomit”) and well-turned phrases (“I began drinking legally about when he exited the womb”), and insightful meditations on why the world is the way it is. All have the idea of Blackness at their core, both implicitly and explicitly. Juanita’s characters understand the nuanced differences among Oakland, Berkeley, and San Francisco and the gradations of skin color elided by the Brown Paper Bag Test (characters are identified as “shades between sand and the shore”; “leaf brown”; and “the brown of an overripe peach”). Some of the tales explore the generational divide between parents who achieve the milestones of Black middle-class respectability and their children, who would rather overturn the system than rise to its upper ranks, particularly “Sorors,” a dark take on joining a Greek organization. A few of the settings and characters appear in multiple stories, but each one stands alone. Readers can easily follow Ouida into the Ira Levin–esque domestic horror of “A Lucky Day” without first watching her marriage fall apart in “The Hand.” The tales raise plenty of questions without offering easy answers, and the mix of historical and contemporary settings suggests that the questions of belonging, equity, love, and responsibility remain unsolved over the course of decades. Fans of Danzy Senna and ZZ Packer will find plenty to appreciate in these pages.
A compelling and challenging collection of tales that will entice readers.Pub Date: July 20, 2022
ISBN: 978-1604893182
Page Count: 210
Publisher: Livingston Press
Review Posted Online: Aug. 1, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2022
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A boarding-school fantasia, with Hilderbrand’s signature upgrades to the cuisine and decor. Sign us up for next term.
A year in the life of the No. 2 boarding school in America—up from No. 19 last year!
Rumors of Hilderbrand’s retirement were greatly exaggerated, it turns out, since not only has she not gone out to pasture, she’s started over in high school, with her daughter Shelby Cunningham as co-author. As their delicious new book opens, it’s Move-In Day at Tiffin Academy, and Head of School Audre Robinson is warmly welcoming the returning and new students to the New England campus, the latter group including a rare midstream addition to the junior class. Brainiac Charley Hicks is transferring from public school in Maryland to a spot that opened up when one of the school’s most beloved students died by suicide the preceding year. She will be joining a large, diverse cast of adult and teenage characters—queen bees, jealous second-stringers, boozehounds young and old, secret lesbians, people chasing the wrong people chasing other wrong people—all of them royally screwed when an app called Zip Zap appears and starts blasting everyone’s secrets all over campus. How the heck…? Meanwhile, it seems so unlikely that Tiffin has jumped up to the No. 2 spot in the boarding-school rankings that a high-profile magazine launches an investigation, and even the head is worried that there may have been payola involved. The school has a reputation for being more social than academic, and this quality gets an exciting new exclamation point when the resident millionaire bad boy opens a high-style secret speakeasy for select juniors in a forgotten basement. It’s called Priorities. Exactly. One problem: Cinnamon Peters’ mysterious suicide hangs over the book in an odd way, especially since the note she left for her closest male friend is not to be opened for another year—and isn’t. This is surely a setup for a sequel, but it’s a bit frustrating here, and bobs sort of shallowly along amid the general high spirits.
A boarding-school fantasia, with Hilderbrand’s signature upgrades to the cuisine and decor. Sign us up for next term.Pub Date: Sept. 16, 2025
ISBN: 9780316567855
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: July 4, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2025
SEEN & HEARD
Vintage Follett. His fans will be pleased.
A dramatic, complex imagining of the origins of Stonehenge.
In about 2500 B.C.E. on the Great Plain, Seft and his family collect flints in a mine. He dislikes the work, and the motherless lad hates the abuse he gets from his father and brothers. He leaves them and arrives at a wooden monument where sacred events such as the Midsummer Rite take place. There are also circles of stones that help predict equinoxes, solstices, even eclipses. This is a world where the customary greeting is “May the Sun God smile on you,” and everyone is a year older on Midsummer Day. Except for a priestess or two, no one can count beyond fingers and toes—to indicate 30, they show both hands, point to both feet, then show both hands again. Casual sex is common, and sex between women is less common but not taboo. Joia, a young woman who becomes a priestess, wonders about her sexuality. After a fire destroys the Monument, she leads a bold effort to rebuild it in stone. To please the gods, they must haul 10 giant stones from distant Stony Valley. Of course neither machinery nor roads exist, so the difficulties are extraordinary. Although the project has its detractors, hundreds of able-bodied people are willing to help. Craftspeople known as cleverhands construct a sled and a road, and they make the rope to wrap around the stones. Many, many others pull. And pull. Meanwhile, the three principal groups—farmers, woodlanders, and herders—all have their separate interests. There is talk of war, which Joia has never seen in her lifetime. Soon it seems inevitable that the powerful farmers will not only start one but win it, unless heroes like Seft and Joia can come up with a creative plan. But there is also the matter of love for Joia in this well-plotted and well-told yarn. The story has a lot of characters from multiple tribes, and they can be hard to keep track of. A page in the front of the book listing who’s who would be helpful.
Vintage Follett. His fans will be pleased.Pub Date: Sept. 23, 2025
ISBN: 9781538772775
Page Count: 704
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Review Posted Online: July 4, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2025
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