Completists will search for clues in this slight but rich volume to the maturation of DeLillo’s artistry.
The renowned author’s first story collection presents a chronological progression of nine narratives, organized into three parts, challenging readers to make connections.
Though DeLillo’s legacy rests with his longer work, building to the epic scope and scale of Underworld (1997), this collection feels more like his more recent novels—short, elliptical, suggestive, provocative. He originally published the opening story, “Creation,” in 1979, but hasn’t published a whole lot of stories since. Some of what were originally published as stories, such as the one that gives this volume its title, have subsequently been reworked into novels (as “Angel” was into Underworld), while other published stories have not been selected for inclusion here. So the reader starts with questions, as always with DeLillo. Why these stories, grouped into these three parts? Is the organizing principle thematic, or stylistic, or is it possible to separate the two within the writing of America’s premier post-modernist? Often the characters are unnamed, as in “Baader-Meinhof” (2002), in which a chance encounter between two unemployed people at an art exhibition—with politically charged images of imprisonment, torture, corpses—leads to an unusual connection that one of them finds disturbing. Somewhat similarly, though this time the protagonist has a name, “The Starveling” (2011) finds two people making an unlikely, tenuous connection through their obsessive routines of seeing a series of movies at multiple theaters daily, though the relationship between the two only seems to exist in the mind of one of them. The title story (1994) provides the book’s centerpiece, with its glimpses of the holy amid the ubiquity of the profane, within a ravaged Bronx detailed in prose of terrible beauty. In “The Runner” (1988), the unnamed protagonist muses, after witnessing an accident, “The car, the man, the mother, the child. Those are the parts. But how do the parts fit together?” Readers often might find themselves wondering the same, but part of what distinguishes DeLillo’s work is the way in which he engages the world rather than settling for the literary parlor tricks of some virtuoso experimentalists.
Completists will search for clues in this slight but rich volume to the maturation of DeLillo’s artistry.Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-1-4516-5584-1
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Scribner
Review Posted Online: Sept. 19, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2011
A touching, sometimes-funny, often wise portrait of grief.
A contemporary fairy tale from the whimsical author of A Man Called Ove (2014).
Elsa is almost 8, and her granny is her best—and only—friend. Elsa’s precociousness and her granny’s disregard for societal rules mark them as trouble to most people they encounter and make Elsa a pariah at school. But every night she can journey with her granny to the Land-of-Almost-Awake, made of six kingdoms, each with its own strength, purpose, and interlocking mythologies that Elsa knows by heart. In the Land-of-Almost-Awake, Elsa doesn’t have to worry about how she fits in at school, in the apartment building full of misfits where she lives, or in her family, where both her parents are divorced and remarried and her mother is pregnant. When granny passes away with very little notice, Elsa is bereft. And angry. So angry that it’s almost no consolation that Elsa’s granny has left her a treasure hunt. But the hunt reveals that each misfit in her apartment building has a connection to her granny, and they all have a story reflected in the Land-of-Almost-Awake. Neither world is short on adventure, tragedy, or danger. This is a more complex tale than Backman’s debut, and it is intricately, if not impeccably, woven. The third-person narrative voice, when aligned with Elsa’s perspective, reveals heartfelt, innocent observations, but when moving toward omniscience, it can read as too clever by half. Given a choice, Backman seems more likely to choose poignancy over logic; luckily, the choice is not often necessary. As in A Man Called Ove, there are clear themes here, nominally: the importance of stories; the honesty of children; and the obtuseness of most adults, putting him firmly in league with the likes of Roald Dahl and Neil Gaiman.
A touching, sometimes-funny, often wise portrait of grief.Pub Date: June 16, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-5011-1506-6
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Atria
Review Posted Online: April 14, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2015
Will simultaneously intrigue both romantics and skeptics. The science might oversimplify, but it’s gripping enough to read...
Marrs’ debut novel traces the stories of five people who find their soul mates—or do they?
Imagine if you could submit to a simple DNA test and then receive your Match in your email. Not just an online date who might be geographically compatible, but a true and unique genetically destined partner. While the potential long-term benefits may seem to outweigh the negative consequences, the system is far from infallible; as any science-fiction fan could tell you, if it sounds too good to be true, there’s usually a catastrophe lurking at the other end. Marrs’ novel traces five individuals who meet their Matches under varying circumstances and with widely conflicting outcomes. During the course of their romantic adventures (and misadventures), the entire DNA matching algorithm will prove to be susceptible to hacking, also proving that (gasp!) just because something may be driven by science doesn’t mean that it’s free from the world of human error. The philosophy posed by the novel speaks not just to the power of love and the laws of attraction, but also serves as a commentary on today’s world of genetic exploration. Do these breakthroughs simplify our lives, or do they make us lazy, replacing the idea of “destiny” or “fate” with “science” as a larger power that we don’t need to question? These ideas keep the novel moving along and create a deeper level of interest, since most of the narrative threads are fairly predictable. The two exceptions are the psychopathic serial killer who meets his Match and begins to lose interest in killing and the heterosexual man matched with another man, both of whom must then redefine sexuality and love, commitment and family.
Will simultaneously intrigue both romantics and skeptics. The science might oversimplify, but it’s gripping enough to read all in one sitting.Pub Date: Feb. 20, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-335-00510-6
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Hanover Square Press
Review Posted Online: Dec. 6, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2018
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