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GREEN HORSES ON THE WALLS

A multilayered and often effective poetic exploration of the past’s effects on the present.

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A collection of poems about history, family, and love by a millennial Romanian American poet.

The title of this book comes from a Romanian expression about delusion—a concept that the speaker in the title poem says she struggled with as she dreamed of a creative career. In “Equilibrium,” the speaker tells the reader ways that “Things could be worse”—from cancer-ridden parents to a lover leaving for the priesthood. A speaker reunites with an estranged cousin in a Camden pub to discuss troubled family ties in “Nu e rolul meu [It’s not my role].” “Under your mattress” explores a father’s notion that both money and secrets are meant to be stashed away. The seizure and torture of a speaker’s grandparents under Communism, and the legacy of paranoia it imparted on their descendants, are the focus of “Opening the Orange Envelope.” The all-consuming nature of new love inspires “Scumpul meu [My dear]” and “Înainte [Forward].” Bejan unpacks—and rails against—a toxic relationship in “#Simplicity” and “The Streets of Johannesburg.” She concludes with translations of a pair of poems by Ana Blandiana and Nina Cassian. In this book, Bejan centers her poems in a dazzling variety of settings, immersing readers in such environments as a U.S. military base on the banks of the Black Sea, an unnamed invitation-only island, and the “Strip-mall paradise” of Raleigh, North Carolina. In “Bucharest,” she describes in detail the “fumes of gasoline lingering amidst the general smell of pollution / Mixed with cigarettes, mixed with cigars, mixed with, pure, sweet and delicious B.O.” But when she turns her focus to her romantic relationships, Bejan occasionally slips into clichés, as when a speaker describes a lover’s inner light as “more blinding than the sun.” Other poems show notable boldness, however; one bravely catalogs the traumatic repercussions of sexual assault, and another boldly takes on Communism, calling it a system under which “Every man and woman were equal / Equally destroyed / Equally in fear / Equally invisible.”

A multilayered and often effective poetic exploration of the past’s effects on the present.

Pub Date: May 27, 2020

ISBN: 978-1-64-662219-1

Page Count: 46

Publisher: Finishing Line Press

Review Posted Online: July 14, 2021

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2021

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THE WEDDING PEOPLE

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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THE MAN WHO LIVED UNDERGROUND

A welcome literary resurrection that deserves a place alongside Wright’s best-known work.

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A falsely accused Black man goes into hiding in this masterful novella by Wright (1908-1960), finally published in full.

Written in 1941 and '42, between Wright’s classics Native Son and Black Boy, this short novel concerns Fred Daniels, a modest laborer who’s arrested by police officers and bullied into signing a false confession that he killed the residents of a house near where he was working. In a brief unsupervised moment, he escapes through a manhole and goes into hiding in a sewer. A series of allegorical, surrealistic set pieces ensues as Fred explores the nether reaches of a church, a real estate firm, and a jewelry store. Each stop is an opportunity for Wright to explore themes of hope, greed, and exploitation; the real estate firm, Wright notes, “collected hundreds of thousands of dollars in rent from poor colored folks.” But Fred’s deepening existential crisis and growing distance from society keep the scenes from feeling like potted commentaries. As he wallpapers his underground warren with cash, mocking and invalidating the currency, he registers a surrealistic but engrossing protest against divisive social norms. The novel, rejected by Wright’s publisher, has only appeared as a substantially truncated short story until now, without the opening setup and with a different ending. Wright's take on racial injustice seems to have unsettled his publisher: A note reveals that an editor found reading about Fred’s treatment by the police “unbearable.” That may explain why Wright, in an essay included here, says its focus on race is “rather muted,” emphasizing broader existential themes. Regardless, as an afterword by Wright’s grandson Malcolm attests, the story now serves as an allegory both of Wright (he moved to France, an “exile beyond the reach of Jim Crow and American bigotry”) and American life. Today, it resonates deeply as a story about race and the struggle to envision a different, better world.

A welcome literary resurrection that deserves a place alongside Wright’s best-known work.

Pub Date: April 20, 2021

ISBN: 978-1-59853-676-8

Page Count: 240

Publisher: Library of America

Review Posted Online: March 16, 2021

Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2021

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