A novel with a real-world setting explores the disturbing consequences of racial intolerance.
Clovis’ (Just a Book in the Library, 2019, etc.) latest novel centers on white supremacist ideology in America, seen primarily through the eyes of a black female journalist.
Tanisha is a recent Columbia University grad living in Harlem. As a reporter for “a small local newspaper,” she sometimes writes op-ed pieces. With these, she can express her opinion on such events as a speech by Mark Zuckerberg about free expression, which did not reassure her that Facebook had no “alliance with anti-Black forces.” But another story grabs headlines after a shooting at and bombing of a Harlem Pentecostal church leaves six parishioners dead and five wounded (although the number of injured would later rise to 26). Tanisha discusses the tragedy with her editor and fellow reporters, particularly the crumbled note found at the scene that says: “Please forgive me.” This makes the third crime in the same neighborhood with a similar note left behind; in each case, the victim(s) have been black. Tanisha soon determines that the killer’s notes of forgiveness are seeking justification for “White violence”—and that further brutal acts are planned. Equally unnerving is that Tanisha, who continually spots the same person at the subway, believes someone is stalking her. She and her colleagues, though cautious, search for evidence that might point to a murderer. This book, like Clovis’ earlier work, is steeped in frank social commentary. Zeroing in on the political ideology of white supremacy, it deals intelligently with real-life occurrences, ranging from police shootings and the arrests of innocent black people to President Donald Trump’s brazenly comparing his impeachment to a lynching. Clovis’ prose is expressive and unequivocal, as when she writes of a student: “Seven White campus cops forcibly removed her Brown body handcuffed behind her back, wrangling violently like a caterpillar from the front door of the building at American University in Washington.” Tanisha’s story, along with the likable, savvy protagonist, presents flashes of the killer’s unnerving narrative perspective. Most readers will predict a later twist, but it doesn’t diminish the impact of the racial crimes in this novel.
A novel with a real-world setting explores the disturbing consequences of racial intolerance.Pub Date: June 15, 2020
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: -
Publisher: BalboaPress
Review Posted Online: Feb. 10, 2020
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy.
Are we not men? We are—well, ask Bigfoot, as Brooks does in this delightful yarn, following on his bestseller World War Z(2006).
A zombie apocalypse is one thing. A volcanic eruption is quite another, for, as the journalist who does a framing voice-over narration for Brooks’ latest puts it, when Mount Rainier popped its cork, “it was the psychological aspect, the hyperbole-fueled hysteria that had ended up killing the most people.” Maybe, but the sasquatches whom the volcano displaced contributed to the statistics, too, if only out of self-defense. Brooks places the epicenter of the Bigfoot war in a high-tech hideaway populated by the kind of people you might find in a Jurassic Park franchise: the schmo who doesn’t know how to do much of anything but tries anyway, the well-intentioned bleeding heart, the know-it-all intellectual who turns out to know the wrong things, the immigrant with a tough backstory and an instinct for survival. Indeed, the novel does double duty as a survival manual, packed full of good advice—for instance, try not to get wounded, for “injury turns you from a giver to a taker. Taking up our resources, our time to care for you.” Brooks presents a case for making room for Bigfoot in the world while peppering his narrative with timely social criticism about bad behavior on the human side of the conflict: The explosion of Rainier might have been better forecast had the president not slashed the budget of the U.S. Geological Survey, leading to “immediate suspension of the National Volcano Early Warning System,” and there’s always someone around looking to monetize the natural disaster and the sasquatch-y onslaught that follows. Brooks is a pro at building suspense even if it plays out in some rather spectacularly yucky episodes, one involving a short spear that takes its name from “the sucking sound of pulling it out of the dead man’s heart and lungs.” Grossness aside, it puts you right there on the scene.
A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy.Pub Date: June 16, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-9848-2678-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Del Rey/Ballantine
Review Posted Online: Feb. 9, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK TO SCREEN
Amateurish, with a twist savvy readers will see coming from a mile away.
A woman accused of shooting her husband six times in the face refuses to speak.
"Alicia Berenson was thirty-three years old when she killed her husband. They had been married for seven years. They were both artists—Alicia was a painter, and Gabriel was a well-known fashion photographer." Michaelides' debut is narrated in the voice of psychotherapist Theo Faber, who applies for a job at the institution where Alicia is incarcerated because he's fascinated with her case and believes he will be able to get her to talk. The narration of the increasingly unrealistic events that follow is interwoven with excerpts from Alicia's diary. Ah, yes, the old interwoven diary trick. When you read Alicia's diary you'll conclude the woman could well have been a novelist instead of a painter because it contains page after page of detailed dialogue, scenes, and conversations quite unlike those in any journal you've ever seen. " 'What's the matter?' 'I can't talk about it on the phone, I need to see you.' 'It's just—I'm not sure I can make it up to Cambridge at the minute.' 'I'll come to you. This afternoon. Okay?' Something in Paul's voice made me agree without thinking about it. He sounded desperate. 'Okay. Are you sure you can't tell me about it now?' 'I'll see you later.' Paul hung up." Wouldn't all this appear in a diary as "Paul wouldn't tell me what was wrong"? An even more improbable entry is the one that pins the tail on the killer. While much of the book is clumsy, contrived, and silly, it is while reading passages of the diary that one may actually find oneself laughing out loud.
Amateurish, with a twist savvy readers will see coming from a mile away.Pub Date: Feb. 5, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-250-30169-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Celadon Books
Review Posted Online: Nov. 3, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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