An astute anatomy of a decadent cultural milieu.
In this novel, a rivalrous friendship in Northern California during the tech boom of the 1990s comes to a spectacular crescendo.
Steve Galanos didn’t initially like his colleague John Goertz. When John warned the phone company for which they worked of the impending disaster that came to be known as Y2K, Steve thought it was an opportunistic career move, especially since it was only 1994. But John’s case proved convincing, and he was rewarded for what was seen as his diligent prescience, an outcome that rankled Steve: “This was his master plan all along. Point out this ridiculous problem, scare everyone, and get himself a promotion.” Nevertheless, while working together on the newly created Year 2000 Conversion Team, they both discover they have a lot in common, and the two become best friends. But while John is an ambitious perfectionist on his way to building a dream life—he weds Mary, makes a killing when a new company he works for launches a successful IPO, and buys a $1 million house—Steve feels trapped in an unfulfilling career without any hopes for improvement. Not surprisingly, his feelings of inadequacy emerge in the form of profound envy: “I was completely jealous, just like on that first day I had met him. Who was this guy and what had he done to deserve all of this?” Cuesta delicately portrays Steve’s mounting discontent mixed with genuine fraternity—in fact, his jealously is only explicable in the context of his very real affection for his best friend. But when John hosts a housewarming party at his new home in swanky Los Gatos, the friendly competitiveness between them turns sinister.
The author paints a rich tableau of Northern California during the frenetically optimistic days of the tech industry and—as Y2K demonstrated—the feverish capacity for overheated fearmongering. It was a time when considerable fortunes were eagerly made and quickly lost. As John climbs the ladder of corporate success, Steve is laid off. In addition, Cuesta limns a devilishly complex psychology of envy, which plumbs the peculiar relationship between love and loathing. Finally, the author captures an emotional emptiness at the core of corporate striving, one humorously expressed in the way John handles his spirituality: “It wasn’t that he didn’t believe in God. He did. Firmly. And he especially believed in God’s omnipresence. And the only way he knew how to deal with that—that is, live without the fetters of conviction while God watched—was to postpone thinking about God altogether. Just as with any other chore or task, he was simply procrastinating, setting it in the back of his mind, willing to deal with it later.” The plot can drag a bit—even for a shorter novel—and the granular presentation of drearily flat lives eventually begins to take on a tedium of its own. Readers will wonder if this tale would have been more successful as a short story. Still, the ending is as unpredictable as it is thrilling, and the novel as a whole is a keen peek into a hollow culture.
An astute anatomy of a decadent cultural milieu.Pub Date: Oct. 6, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-957885-00-1
Page Count: 254
Publisher: Celestial Eyes Press
Review Posted Online: Sept. 23, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2022
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
An affecting portrait of a prickly woman.
A lifetime’s worth of letters combine to portray a singular character.
Sybil Van Antwerp, a cantankerous but exceedingly well-mannered septuagenarian, is the titular correspondent in Evans’ debut novel. Sybil has retired from a beloved job as chief clerk to a judge with whom she had previously been in private legal practice. She is the divorced mother of two living adult children and one who died when he was 8. She is a reader of novels, a gardener, and a keen observer of human nature. But the most distinguishing thing about Sybil is her lifelong practice of letter writing. As advancing vision problems threaten Sybil’s carefully constructed way of life—in which letters take the place of personal contact and engagement—she must reckon with unaddressed issues from her past that threaten the house of cards (letters, really) she has built around herself. Sybil’s relationships are gradually revealed in the series of letters sent to and received from, among others, her brother, sister-in-law, children, former work associates, and, intriguingly, literary icons including Joan Didion and Larry McMurtry. Perhaps most affecting is the series of missives Sybil writes but never mails to a shadowy figure from her past. Thoughtful musings on the value and immortal quality of letters and the written word populate one of Sybil’s notes to a young correspondent while other messages are laugh-out-loud funny, tinged with her characteristic blunt tartness. Evans has created a brusque and quirky yet endearing main character with no shortage of opinions and advice for others but who fails to excavate the knotty difficulties of her own life. As Sybil grows into a delayed self-awareness, her letters serve as a chronicle of fitful growth.
An affecting portrait of a prickly woman.Pub Date: May 6, 2025
ISBN: 9780593798430
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Feb. 15, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2025
A welcome literary resurrection that deserves a place alongside Wright’s best-known work.
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
BOOK TO SCREEN
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