An engaging and scabrous alternative-universe farce about the American government.
In this satire, sham news articles, memos, prose, and dialogue transcriptions follow the fantastical fortunes of the George H.W. Bush presidential dynasty, whose members are human-alien hybrids in thrall to insect extraterrestrials and opposed by a group of talking fish and others.
Robinson delves into the conspiracies and extremes of the UFO and Edgar Cayce cults for this broad lampoon. The premise proposes that Texas broke off from the United States to become a right-wing/racist police state. The New England family of patrician Prescott Bush is appointed to the Texas presidency and intelligence services. It turns out that all of Earth’s ruling elite families are secretly human-alien hybrids who answer to ageless, spaceship-riding insect ETs from Atlantis. The principal insect agent is W. Averell Harriman, aka Dogsbody Harriman, a praying mantis. Dogsbody’s foes are the Lemurians, who include talking fish and mer-people. They are led by a lunar diving beetle forced off the moon by Atlantean aggression. Prominent on the beetle side: Abraham Lincoln, occasionally sighted in Texas aquatic habitats astride a horned “devil-water-cow.” The narrative becomes alt-history shaped by fish versus bug intrigues. Bush scions George H.W. and George W. are both disappointing clones, given to multiple malapropisms (“This really gets my groat, people correcting my English”). Though they are promised prominence by Dogsbody, subversion by the fishy terrorists and the maneuverings of rivals John F. Kennedy, Lyndon B. Johnson, and Richard Nixon thwart the Bush family’s ambitions temporarily. There are assassinations, drug smuggling, the invasion of Panama, sexual perversions, and the Reverend Moon. Perhaps the biggest surprise is that the most famous Bush family escapades (attacks on Iraq, Hurricane Katrina, the Great Recession) do not enter into the picture. The complex burlesque recalls such surreal confabulations as Robert Mayer’s I, JFK (1989) and Chuck Barris’ Confessions of a Dangerous Mind (1984). In its best parts, Robinson’s yarn captures the nasty wit of vintage National Lampoon political parodies; other times, it treads into bad taste, working real-life tragedies (First Lady Laura Bush’s teenage car fatality) into the kooky cosmology. The striking tale provides redeeming social value in the occasional impressions of the government encompassing amoral power blocs and game players, treating the common folk as so many insects as they scheme outrageously for control and privilege.
An engaging and scabrous alternative-universe farce about the American government.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: -
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 6, 2024
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
PERSPECTIVES
With captivating dialogue, angst-y characters, and a couple of steamy sex scenes, Hoover has done it again.
After being released from prison, a young woman tries to reconnect with her 5-year-old daughter despite having killed the girl’s father.
Kenna didn’t even know she was pregnant until after she was sent to prison for murdering her boyfriend, Scotty. When her baby girl, Diem, was born, she was forced to give custody to Scotty’s parents. Now that she’s been released, Kenna is intent on getting to know her daughter, but Scotty’s parents won’t give her a chance to tell them what really happened the night their son died. Instead, they file a restraining order preventing Kenna from so much as introducing herself to Diem. Handsome, self-assured Ledger, who was Scotty’s best friend, is another key adult in Diem’s life. He’s helping her grandparents raise her, and he too blames Kenna for Scotty’s death. Even so, there’s something about her that haunts him. Kenna feels the pull, too, and seems to be seeking Ledger out despite his judgmental behavior. As Ledger gets to know Kenna and acknowledges his attraction to her, he begins to wonder if maybe he and Scotty’s parents have judged her unfairly. Even so, Ledger is afraid that if he surrenders to his feelings, Scotty’s parents will kick him out of Diem’s life. As Kenna and Ledger continue to mourn for Scotty, they also grieve the future they cannot have with each other. Told alternatively from Kenna’s and Ledger’s perspectives, the story explores the myriad ways in which snap judgments based on partial information can derail people’s lives. Built on a foundation of death and grief, this story has an undercurrent of sadness. As usual, however, the author has created compelling characters who are magnetic and sympathetic enough to pull readers in. In addition to grief, the novel also deftly explores complex issues such as guilt, self-doubt, redemption, and forgiveness.
With captivating dialogue, angst-y characters, and a couple of steamy sex scenes, Hoover has done it again.Pub Date: Jan. 18, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-5420-2560-7
Page Count: 335
Publisher: Montlake Romance
Review Posted Online: Oct. 12, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2021
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
A boarding-school fantasia, with Hilderbrand’s signature upgrades to the cuisine and decor. Sign us up for next term.
A year in the life of the No. 2 boarding school in America—up from No. 19 last year!
Rumors of Hilderbrand’s retirement were greatly exaggerated, it turns out, since not only has she not gone out to pasture, she’s started over in high school, with her daughter Shelby Cunningham as co-author. As their delicious new book opens, it’s Move-In Day at Tiffin Academy, and Head of School Audre Robinson is warmly welcoming the returning and new students to the New England campus, the latter group including a rare midstream addition to the junior class. Brainiac Charley Hicks is transferring from public school in Maryland to a spot that opened up when one of the school’s most beloved students died by suicide the preceding year. She will be joining a large, diverse cast of adult and teenage characters—queen bees, jealous second-stringers, boozehounds young and old, secret lesbians, people chasing the wrong people chasing other wrong people—all of them royally screwed when an app called Zip Zap appears and starts blasting everyone’s secrets all over campus. How the heck…? Meanwhile, it seems so unlikely that Tiffin has jumped up to the No. 2 spot in the boarding-school rankings that a high-profile magazine launches an investigation, and even the head is worried that there may have been payola involved. The school has a reputation for being more social than academic, and this quality gets an exciting new exclamation point when the resident millionaire bad boy opens a high-style secret speakeasy for select juniors in a forgotten basement. It’s called Priorities. Exactly. One problem: Cinnamon Peters’ mysterious suicide hangs over the book in an odd way, especially since the note she left for her closest male friend is not to be opened for another year—and isn’t. This is surely a setup for a sequel, but it’s a bit frustrating here, and bobs sort of shallowly along amid the general high spirits.
A boarding-school fantasia, with Hilderbrand’s signature upgrades to the cuisine and decor. Sign us up for next term.Pub Date: Sept. 16, 2025
ISBN: 9780316567855
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: July 4, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2025
SEEN & HEARD
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