A dense, sometimes-surreal novel with a de Sadean sense of humor.
A grocer takes his revenge on a rapacious young shoplifter in Landon’s lewd, satirical novel.
Justyce Dreadmiller, the self-made owner-manager of the boutique grocery store Mildred’s Market, has long suffered the routine shoplifting of “pouting young nymphet” Yvette Cartier. Every few days, the entitled, beautiful Yvette pilfers several high-end items—perfumes, cosmetics, lubricants, and the like—from Justyce’s shelves. Justyce has just purchased a Japanese-made novelty conveyor belt (the eponymous At-Your-Beck Felicity Conveyor) to help set the Market apart, a substantial investment that makes Yvette’s shoplifting increasingly hard on his bottom line. When Yvette purloins $700 worth of inventory in a single day, he knows he must do something to put her in her place. Justyce believes in “solving his own problems in his own ways, on his own initiative, and at his own convenience, in as straightforward a manner as was practicable,” an approach that has, in the past, meant leaving his high school bully drugged and castrated in a swamp. For Yvette, the plan is slightly less grisly: He will simply humiliate her in the most sadistic manner imaginable. For that, he will need, among other things, the help of his seductive son, an aphrodisiacal ointment that delays climax, and a few novel augmentations of the At-Your-Beck Felicity Conveyor. Landon’s prose is nearly Joycean in its verbosity, which, in addition to slowing down the novel’s pace, creates an ironic friction with the ribald subject matter. Here, the author describes Yvette’s magnetic effect on men: “Gentlemen from all walks of life would ogle our subdebutante everywhither she set her pretty young feet and, to boost her libidinal ego, she would play little games with these poor sitting ducks by coyly making goo-goo eyes at the throbbing love muscles inside their trousers.” The book builds to a preposterous (and literal) climax—aided by what amounts to a Rube Goldberg machine composed of sex toys—that is almost too abstracted to either scintillate or offend. Readers who enjoy both high postmodernism and BDSM will have fun with this one.
A dense, sometimes-surreal novel with a de Sadean sense of humor.Pub Date: Jan. 16, 2025
ISBN: 9798218468620
Page Count: 142
Publisher: 7th Species Publications
Review Posted Online: Jan. 7, 2025
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Suspenseful, full of incident, and not obviously necessary.
Atwood goes back to Gilead.
The Handmaid’s Tale (1985), consistently regarded as a masterpiece of 20th-century literature, has gained new attention in recent years with the success of the Hulu series as well as fresh appreciation from readers who feel like this story has new relevance in America’s current political climate. Atwood herself has spoken about how news headlines have made her dystopian fiction seem eerily plausible, and it’s not difficult to imagine her wanting to revisit Gilead as the TV show has sped past where her narrative ended. Like the novel that preceded it, this sequel is presented as found documents—first-person accounts of life inside a misogynistic theocracy from three informants. There is Agnes Jemima, a girl who rejects the marriage her family arranges for her but still has faith in God and Gilead. There’s Daisy, who learns on her 16th birthday that her whole life has been a lie. And there's Aunt Lydia, the woman responsible for turning women into Handmaids. This approach gives readers insight into different aspects of life inside and outside Gilead, but it also leads to a book that sometimes feels overstuffed. The Handmaid’s Tale combined exquisite lyricism with a powerful sense of urgency, as if a thoughtful, perceptive woman was racing against time to give witness to her experience. That narrator hinted at more than she said; Atwood seemed to trust readers to fill in the gaps. This dynamic created an atmosphere of intimacy. However curious we might be about Gilead and the resistance operating outside that country, what we learn here is that what Atwood left unsaid in the first novel generated more horror and outrage than explicit detail can. And the more we get to know Agnes, Daisy, and Aunt Lydia, the less convincing they become. It’s hard, of course, to compete with a beloved classic, so maybe the best way to read this new book is to forget about The Handmaid’s Tale and enjoy it as an artful feminist thriller.
Suspenseful, full of incident, and not obviously necessary.Pub Date: Sept. 10, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-385-54378-1
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Nan A. Talese
Review Posted Online: Sept. 3, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2019
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
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