An ambitious but ultimately unsatisfying coming-of-spirituality tale.
A young man grows up to discover a connection to the paranormal in Deur’s debut novel.
As the story begins, 12-year-old Angelo Novakis haunted by thoughts of suicide by gun. Over the course of the novel, he not only confronts his own dark desires, but also bears witness to how such urges play out in others’ lives. As the tale follows Angelo from his youth to adulthood, it becomes a broader investigation of what makes his life meaningful. Early on, he has visions of himself as a knight fighting a shadowy opponent in a forest long ago; these visions soon inspire a long education in the occult. Angelo becomes versed in multiple religions and possible theories to explain his apparently fantastical experiences. The hero becomes a Platonic inquisitor as he challenges ideas that he encounters over the years—eventually writing a memoir of his visions called Somnia Praeterita. The novel’s second half is that very book, which concerns Luka Dragovic, who lived in the 16th and 17th centuries; it turns out that Angelo has been having visions of events in Luka’s life ever since he was a child. Deur experiments with form in this novel, and the notion of a book within a book being the climax of a story is engaging. However, this experiment goes awry, as there are too many threads left untied in both halves of the book for it to feel like a unified whole. Although the opening of the novel teases Angelo’s self-destruction, in the end, he simply vanishes from the novel, with some parts of his story left incomplete and unresolved. Both sections, but especially the first half, suffer from overwriting, with large swaths of expository text where shorter scenes might have offered better illustrations of complex ideas; the book also tends to state its characters’ thoughts and feelings rather than showing them through action. Indeed, some sections simply feel like lists, and the dialogue often consists of wishful monologues and unrealistic diatribes rather than genuine conversation. There are definitely intriguing ideas here, but they’re lost in a sea of ramble.
An ambitious but ultimately unsatisfying coming-of-spirituality tale.Pub Date: Sept. 11, 2020
ISBN: 979-8677399909
Page Count: 229
Publisher: Self
Review Posted Online: April 13, 2022
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
The story unfolds so irresistibly that newcomers may think Grisham’s been writing thrillers like this his whole life.
What hasn’t legendary legal eagle Grisham tried yet? How about a thriller about serial kidnapping and international terrorism.
When Paul and Chelsea Tanner disappear during a day trip on their Paris honeymoon, their abductors demand a ransom of $2 million from Chelsea’s wealthy parents, and a few days later the same sum from Paul’s much less well-heeled parents. After orthopedist Lowell Clayburn, Chelsea’s father, ponies up the ransom without breathing a word to the authorities, his daughter is promptly released. But even though Paul’s parents sell their home, liquidate their assets, and borrow money from the Clayburns to meet the kidnappers’ demands, the villains hold on to Paul anyway. Asked whether he’s ever seen such an outcome in a double kidnapping, FBI deputy director Andrew Strong tells Lowell: “No, this is a new one.” But it’s not, as Strong knows all too well; it’s the third such active case, all involving honeymooning couples whose bridegrooms had served in the armed forces. After masterfully drawing readers in with his bare-knuckle account of the Tanners’ abduction and the attempt by their families and the CIA to tell the lies required to keep caring friends and the rapacious press at bay, Grisham effortlessly switches gears to follow CIA agent Rae Claire Russo and Stuart Nash, a former Department of Justice prosecutor at Guantanamo Bay who agrees to marry her so they can serve as bait for the kidnappers, whose motives include justice and revenge as well as cold hard cash. So much for the imprisoned Paul’s wistful reflection that “hopefully, it was only about money.”
The story unfolds so irresistibly that newcomers may think Grisham’s been writing thrillers like this his whole life.Pub Date: Sept. 29, 2026
ISBN: 9780385550543
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Aug. 17, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2026
Brilliant, affecting work from one of contemporary literature’s masters.
A phone call from her past disrupts the tenuously reconstructed life of a concert pianist turned farmer’s wife.
We know from the beginning that Livia Cable is the battered survivor of her brother Cyrus’ death by suicide, a devastating romance, and a career-ending injury. Only 11 when Cyrus stepped in front of a train, she was already marked out as different in her rural Tennessee hometown by her extraordinary musical ability. The siblings had huddled together against their angry mother’s frequent beatings, and Livia still feels abandoned by Cyrus years later, when she picks up the phone to hear the voice of Sigurd, the fiery labor organizer she loved and lost to “the revolution” while on scholarship at the Indiana University School of Music. Now married to kind, steady childhood friend Charlie, Livia looks back on her affair with Sigurd as she struggles to deal with the recent death of her mother, a compulsive hoarder who left a house stuffed with junk to be disposed of and bitter memories that haven’t faded over time. Kingsolver skillfully juggles the two time frames to unravel Livia’s complicated feelings about the life she lost when her right hand was crushed and the life she has now as a country piano teacher. A partita, she explains to Sigurd early on, “is a composition made of a lot of parts with a lot of different moods…the artist’s work is to make them all add up to something that feels whole.” That’s precisely what Kingsolver does in this beautifully paced and judged narrative, which builds to revelations uncovered amid the piles of trash in Livia’s childhood home about the reasons for Cyrus’ suicide (clearly foreshadowed) and their mother’s rage (startling and heartbreaking). A fierce belief that great art is for everyone joins Kingsolver’s familiar preoccupations with class distinctions, social injustice, and the complex bonds of family and community in a tender denouement.
Brilliant, affecting work from one of contemporary literature’s masters.Pub Date: Oct. 6, 2026
ISBN: 9780063577541
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: July 6, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2026
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