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
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
SEEN & HEARD
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
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
