by Eric Giroux ‧ RELEASE DATE: Aug. 11, 2020
A well-balanced comic tale that deftly grapples with larger contemporary themes.
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In this debut novel, a pair of brothers weathers the changing fortunes of a failing New England town.
Pennacook, Massachusetts, has seen better days: “What they’d soon call the Great Recession had just unmasked itself to the world, but it seemed to have gotten a head start here.” The depressed mill town’s affordability is why Ray Markham chose to settle there five years ago, after his parents were killed in a car accident and the recent high school graduate became the legal guardian of his younger brother, Patrick. Since then, Ray has worked at the deli counter of the local chain grocery store, Bounty Bag, while Patrick has made his way through the town’s not-so-good public school system. Bounty Bag happens to be the largest employer and the primary landowner in Pennacook. (The chain may also be partially responsible for the town’s substantial population of wild boars.) Dr. Regina Chong, principal of Patrick’s high school, is supporting a referendum to override the local tax cap to fund a desperately needed new school building, but for her plan to work, she needs to spur voter turnout among the generally disengaged electorate. Her scheme is thrown into jeopardy when a management shake-up at Bounty Bag—and the resulting push for automation—inspires the workers to rise up in protest. Meanwhile, 16-year-old Patrick has been getting into trouble, showing up to track practice drunk, dyeing his hair electric blue, and “running away” to stay in a friend’s basement. While Ray navigates the changing landscape of Bounty Bag with his colorful co-workers—odd characters like Muscles Carbonara, Toothless Mary, and The Alfredo—Patrick learns a bit of American history from his terminally ill teacher Mr. Grant, who helps him put the instabilities of capitalism and democracy in perspective. Can the Markhams manage to stay afloat, even if Pennacook itself is going down?
Giroux’s prose is reminiscent of Richard Russo’s writing: intricate and incisive, though always full of warmth and humor. Giroux particularly shines when chronicling the rules and rule breakers of Bounty Bag: “Every law and the Bounty Bag Code were against Toothless Mary’s smoking in Deli, but before the store opened she did it anyway and left her hair unwrapped too. During business hours, she smoked on the Golden Mile, the long, wide lane out back used for trash and Deliveries. Sometimes she returned from the Golden Mile with little pieces of garbage attached to her.” The author ambitiously sets out to say something about the state of the contemporary American town, subject to the whims of corporations, distracted voters, and shortsighted politicians. He manages to achieve that goal without drifting too far into didacticism or oversimplification. The characters are believable even as they are peculiar, and readers will have no trouble sympathizing with their various attempts to stay employed—or simply to remain sane. Patrick is a particularly well-drawn figure. Readers will not regret their time spent in Pennacook and will likely keep an eye out for whatever lighthearted dramas Giroux puts his pen to in the future.
A well-balanced comic tale that deftly grapples with larger contemporary themes.Pub Date: Aug. 11, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-73422-400-9
Page Count: 290
Publisher: New Salem Books
Review Posted Online: July 10, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2020
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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by Barbara Kingsolver ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 18, 2022
An angry, powerful book seething with love and outrage for a community too often stereotyped or ignored.
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New York Times Bestseller
Pulitzer Prize Winner
Inspired by David Copperfield, Kingsolver crafts a 21st-century coming-of-age story set in America’s hard-pressed rural South.
It’s not necessary to have read Dickens’ famous novel to appreciate Kingsolver’s absorbing tale, but those who have will savor the tough-minded changes she rings on his Victorian sentimentality while affirming his stinging critique of a heartless society. Our soon-to-be orphaned narrator’s mother is a substance-abusing teenage single mom who checks out via OD on his 11th birthday, and Demon’s cynical, wised-up voice is light-years removed from David Copperfield’s earnest tone. Yet readers also see the yearning for love and wells of compassion hidden beneath his self-protective exterior. Like pretty much everyone else in Lee County, Virginia, hollowed out economically by the coal and tobacco industries, he sees himself as someone with no prospects and little worth. One of Kingsolver’s major themes, hit a little too insistently, is the contempt felt by participants in the modern capitalist economy for those rooted in older ways of life. More nuanced and emotionally engaging is Demon’s fierce attachment to his home ground, a place where he is known and supported, tested to the breaking point as the opiate epidemic engulfs it. Kingsolver’s ferocious indictment of the pharmaceutical industry, angrily stated by a local girl who has become a nurse, is in the best Dickensian tradition, and Demon gives a harrowing account of his descent into addiction with his beloved Dori (as naïve as Dickens’ Dora in her own screwed-up way). Does knowledge offer a way out of this sinkhole? A committed teacher tries to enlighten Demon’s seventh grade class about how the resource-rich countryside was pillaged and abandoned, but Kingsolver doesn’t air-brush his students’ dismissal of this history or the prejudice encountered by this African American outsider and his White wife. She is an art teacher who guides Demon toward self-expression, just as his friend Tommy provokes his dawning understanding of how their world has been shaped by outside forces and what he might be able to do about it.
An angry, powerful book seething with love and outrage for a community too often stereotyped or ignored.Pub Date: Oct. 18, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-06-325-1922
Page Count: 560
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: July 13, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2022
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SEEN & HEARD
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SEEN & HEARD
by Colleen Hoover ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 18, 2022
Through palpable tension balanced with glimmers of hope, Hoover beautifully captures the heartbreak and joy of starting over.
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New York Times Bestseller
The sequel to It Ends With Us (2016) shows the aftermath of domestic violence through the eyes of a single mother.
Lily Bloom is still running a flower shop; her abusive ex-husband, Ryle Kincaid, is still a surgeon. But now they’re co-parenting a daughter, Emerson, who's almost a year old. Lily won’t send Emerson to her father’s house overnight until she’s old enough to talk—“So she can tell me if something happens”—but she doesn’t want to fight for full custody lest it become an expensive legal drama or, worse, a physical fight. When Lily runs into Atlas Corrigan, a childhood friend who also came from an abusive family, she hopes their friendship can blossom into love. (For new readers, their history unfolds in heartfelt diary entries that Lily addresses to Finding Nemo star Ellen DeGeneres as she considers how Atlas was a calming presence during her turbulent childhood.) Atlas, who is single and running a restaurant, feels the same way. But even though she’s divorced, Lily isn’t exactly free. Behind Ryle’s veneer of civility are his jealousy and resentment. Lily has to plan her dates carefully to avoid a confrontation. Meanwhile, Atlas’ mother returns with shocking news. In between, Lily and Atlas steal away for romantic moments that are even sweeter for their authenticity as Lily struggles with child care, breastfeeding, and running a business while trying to find time for herself.
Through palpable tension balanced with glimmers of hope, Hoover beautifully captures the heartbreak and joy of starting over.Pub Date: Oct. 18, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-668-00122-6
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Atria
Review Posted Online: July 26, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2022
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