A literary mystery with dynamic characters and an investigation that’s more intriguing than its subject.
In this novel, a New York City book editor tries to track down the identity of the author of a long suicide note she wants to publish.
Liz is working as an editorial assistant at a New York publishing house and is conflicted about her job. She wants to be an executive, but the path upward is unclear. As it is, she’s in a cubicle poring through submissions from the slush pile and not finding anything good. It’s a lonely existence, and as a young immigrant from Jamaica, she doesn’t have family in town (“This toothless city is crushing me in its gummy jaws, slowly boring me to death with the whining of all the pretentious New Yorkers who think that title affords them some presumption of ‘toughness’ ”). An envelope arrives from Pittsburgh with a notebook inside, and a curious Liz finds it to be a long-form suicide note. The anonymous author asks if the house will publish the manuscript, but Liz is committed to a truly awful romance that her boss’s boss, Marcus, wants printed. Intrigued, Liz looks up recent obituaries in Pittsburgh, hoping to identify the author. Fatefully, she tells Marcus about the note, and he imagines it as a full-length book. Feeling burdened by the project, Liz travels to Pittsburgh to meet with families of the recently departed to see if they can help name the enigmatic author. Gordon’s premise for her novel is a perfect setup for a story involving sleuthing, self-doubt, and sometimes-unwanted success. Liz is an insightful character with a razor-sharp mind who has plenty to say, and her origins in the Caribbean distance her a little from some of the worn-out American takes on issues. But her frequent complaints about work don’t add up, as her bosses seem to cater to her and give her a significant promotion. The tale’s biggest flaw, though, is the mysterious notebook itself, whose writing is vague, endlessly philosophical, and not very engaging.
A literary mystery with dynamic characters and an investigation that’s more intriguing than its subject.Pub Date: Dec. 1, 2021
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: 266
Publisher: Jarvis Publishers
Review Posted Online: Nov. 10, 2021
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
A quick, biting critique of the publishing industry.
What happens when a midlist author steals a manuscript and publishes it as her own?
June Hayward and Athena Liu went to Yale together, moved to D.C. after graduation, and are both writers, but the similarities end there. While June has had little success since publication and is struggling to write her second novel, Athena has become a darling of the publishing industry, much to June’s frustration. When Athena suddenly dies, June, almost accidentally, walks off with her latest manuscript, a novel about the World War I Chinese Labour Corps. June edits the novel and passes it off as her own, and no one seems the wiser, but once the novel becomes a smash success, cracks begin to form. When June faces social media accusations and staggering writer’s block, she can’t shake the feeling that someone knows the truth about what she’s done. This satirical take on racism and success in the publishing industry at times veers into the realm of the unbelievable, but, on the whole, witnessing June’s constant casual racism and flimsy justifications for her actions is somehow cathartic. Yes, publishing is like this; finally someone has written it out. At times, the novel feels so much like a social media feed that it’s impossible to stop reading—what new drama is waiting to unfold. and who will win out in the end? An incredibly meta novel, with commentary on everything from trade reviews to Twitter, the ultimate message is clear from the start, which can lead to a lack of nuance. Kuang, however, does manage to leave some questions unanswered: fodder, perhaps, for a new tweetstorm.
A quick, biting critique of the publishing industry.Pub Date: May 16, 2023
ISBN: 9780063250833
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Morrow/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Feb. 22, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2023
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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