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 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
Uneven but fitfully amusing.
Betrayed by her husband, a severely depressed young woman gets drawn into the over-the-top festivities at a lavish wedding.
Phoebe Stone, who teaches English literature at a St. Louis college, is plotting her own demise. Her husband, Matt, has left her for another woman, and Phoebe is taking it hard. Indeed, she's determined just where and how she will end it all: at an oceanfront hotel in Newport, where she will lie on a king-sized canopy bed and take a bottle of her cat’s painkillers. At the hotel, Phoebe meets bride-to-be Lila, a headstrong rich girl presiding over her own extravagant six-day wedding celebration. Lila thought she had booked every room in the hotel, and learning of Phoebe's suicidal intentions, she forbids this stray guest from disrupting the nuptials: “No. You definitely can’t kill yourself. This is my wedding week.” After the punchy opening, a grim flashback to the meltdown of Phoebe's marriage temporarily darkens the mood, but things pick up when spoiled Lila interrupts Phoebe's preparations and sweeps her up in the wedding juggernaut. The slide from earnest drama to broad farce is somewhat jarring, but from this point on, Espach crafts an enjoyable—if overstuffed—comedy of manners. When the original maid of honor drops out, Phoebe is persuaded, against her better judgment, to take her place. There’s some fun to be had here: The wedding party—including groom-to-be Gary, a widower, and his 11-year-old daughter—takes surfing lessons; the women in the group have a session with a Sex Woman. But it all goes on too long, and the humor can seem forced, reaching a low point when someone has sex with the vintage wedding car (you don’t want to know the details). Later, when two characters have a meet-cute in a hot tub, readers will guess exactly how the marriage plot resolves.
Uneven but fitfully amusing.Pub Date: July 30, 2024
ISBN: 9781250899576
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: Sept. 13, 2024
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SEEN & HEARD
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