This blistering look at the horrors of late capitalism manages to also be a wildly fun read.
An eco-activist group in New Zealand becomes entangled with an American billionaire in Catton's first novel since the Booker Prize–winning The Luminaries (2013).
Mira Bunting is the brainchild behind Birnam Wood, an “activist collective” of guerrilla gardeners who plant on unused land (sometimes with permission) and scavenge (or steal) materials to grow food. Mira is a “self-mythologising rebel” whose passions are tempered only somewhat by Shelley Noakes, who sees herself as Mira’s “sensible, dependable, predictable sidekick.” This role is starting to chafe—as is the lack of money—and Shelley plans to leave Birnam Wood. Just as Shelley’s about to cut ties, Mira makes an announcement: On a recent scouting trip near Korowai National Park, she located a farming property owned by a Kiwi farmer named Owen Darvish, temporarily abandoned due to a recent earthquake. This land is soon to transfer ownership from Darvish to an uber-rich tech CEO looking for a spot to doomstead. When the businessman, Robert Lemoine, catches Mira scouting on the land, he offers to bankroll the group to the tune of $100,000 since the act will help his bid for New Zealand citizenship. What could go wrong? Catton swirls among perspectives, including those of Mira, Shelley, Lemoine, Darvish and his wife, and a former Birnam Wood member called Tony, whose aspirations to fame look within reach as he suspects he’s got a major scoop concerning Lemoine’s real motives. In many ways, the novel is as saturated with moral scrutiny and propulsive plotting as 19th-century greats; it's a twisty thriller via Charles Dickens, only with drones. But where Dickens, say, revels in exposing moral bankruptcy, Catton is more interested in the ways everyone is cloudy-eyed with their own hubris in different ways. The result is a story that’s suspended on a tightrope just above nihilism, and readers will hold their breath until the last page to see whether Catton will fall.
This blistering look at the horrors of late capitalism manages to also be a wildly fun read.Pub Date: March 7, 2023
ISBN: 9780374110338
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: Dec. 23, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2023
BOOK REVIEW
PERSPECTIVES
PERSPECTIVES
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
An affecting portrait of a prickly woman.
A lifetime’s worth of letters combine to portray a singular character.
Sybil Van Antwerp, a cantankerous but exceedingly well-mannered septuagenarian, is the titular correspondent in Evans’ debut novel. Sybil has retired from a beloved job as chief clerk to a judge with whom she had previously been in private legal practice. She is the divorced mother of two living adult children and one who died when he was 8. She is a reader of novels, a gardener, and a keen observer of human nature. But the most distinguishing thing about Sybil is her lifelong practice of letter writing. As advancing vision problems threaten Sybil’s carefully constructed way of life—in which letters take the place of personal contact and engagement—she must reckon with unaddressed issues from her past that threaten the house of cards (letters, really) she has built around herself. Sybil’s relationships are gradually revealed in the series of letters sent to and received from, among others, her brother, sister-in-law, children, former work associates, and, intriguingly, literary icons including Joan Didion and Larry McMurtry. Perhaps most affecting is the series of missives Sybil writes but never mails to a shadowy figure from her past. Thoughtful musings on the value and immortal quality of letters and the written word populate one of Sybil’s notes to a young correspondent while other messages are laugh-out-loud funny, tinged with her characteristic blunt tartness. Evans has created a brusque and quirky yet endearing main character with no shortage of opinions and advice for others but who fails to excavate the knotty difficulties of her own life. As Sybil grows into a delayed self-awareness, her letters serve as a chronicle of fitful growth.
An affecting portrait of a prickly woman.Pub Date: May 6, 2025
ISBN: 9780593798430
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Feb. 15, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2025
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