Some pieces are stronger than others. The content of Wescott’s previously unpublished stories may be uncomfortable for some.
A posthumous collection of short stories and essays by Wescott (1901-1987), arranged to reflect autobiographical continuity, includes previously unpublished pieces with explicitly sexual and gay themes.
Poet, essayist and acclaimed novelist Wescott (Pilgrim Hawk, 1940, etc.) may not be as familiar to the average reader as many of his contemporaries, but his works live on thanks, in part, to editor and biographer Rosco. The Wisconsin farm boy ascended from humble beginnings to consort with the crème de la crème of literary and political society during the early years of his career. A prolific writer while abroad, Wescott moved comfortably among the expatriate community in Europe during the 1920s and early ’30s and published many of his observations in magazines—often using his fictional alter ego, Alwyn Tower, as narrator. In “Mr. Auerbach in Paris,” he depicts an elderly, sight-impaired Germanophile who laments Germany’s defeat during World War I as he buys copious amounts of French artwork. In the frankly sexual title story, the narrator travels by bus to pursue an encounter with a man who reputedly has physical attributes much like the mythical Greek god Priapus. France’s lack of preparedness on the eve of World War II is the subject of “The Frenchman Six Feet Three.” After donning an ill-fitting uniform and completing two weeks of reserve military service, Roger Gaumond despairingly tells his friends (who are preparing to leave the country) that France cannot survive the coming war without intervention from the U.S. and Great Britain. Also included in this collection is the heretofore unpublished “An Example of Suicide,” a meticulous examination of human thought processes and our belief that, once committed, we must follow through with actions. It’s an excellent story and worthy of inclusion in any top-notch anthology. But other pieces disappoint for their disproportionately heavy-handed, elliptical writing, including the tedious “The Odor of Rosemary” and the blurry “Sacre de Printemps.”
Some pieces are stronger than others. The content of Wescott’s previously unpublished stories may be uncomfortable for some.Pub Date: Nov. 7, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-299-29690-2
Page Count: 200
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: Sept. 17, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2013
BOOK REVIEW
A treat for fans of The Evil Dead or Zombieland, complete with affordable solutions for better living.
A hardy band of big-box retail employees must dig down for their personal courage when ghosts begin stalking them through home furnishings.
You have to give it up for the wave of paranormal novels that have plagued the last decade in literature; at least they’ve made writers up their games when it comes to finding new settings in which to plot their scary moments. That’s the case with this clever little horror story from longtime pop-culture journalist Hendrix (Satan Loves You, 2012, etc.). Set inside a disturbingly familiar Scandinavian furniture superstore in Cleveland called Orsk, the book starts as a Palahniuk-tinged satire about the things we own—the novel is even wrapped in the form of a retail catalog complete with product illustrations. Our main protagonist is Amy, an aimless 24-year-old retail clerk. She and an elderly co-worker, Ruth Anne, are recruited by their anal-retentive boss, Basil (a closet geek), to investigate a series of strange breakages by walking the showroom floor overnight. They quickly uncover two other co-workers, Matt and Trinity, who have stayed in the store to film a reality show called Ghost Bomb in hopes of catching a spirit on tape. It’s cute and quite funny in a Scooby Doo kind of way until they run across Carl, a homeless squatter who's just trying to catch a break. Following an impromptu séance, Carl is possessed by an evil spirit and cuts his own throat. It turns out the Orsk store was built on the remains of a brutal prison called the Cuyahoga Panopticon, and its former warden, Josiah Worth, has returned from the dead to start up operations again. It sounds like an absurd setting for a haunted-house novel, but Hendrix makes it work to the story’s advantage, turning the psychological manipulations and scripted experiences that are inherent to the retail experience into a sinister fight for survival.
Pub Date: Sept. 23, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-59474-526-3
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Quirk Books
Review Posted Online: July 22, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2014
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Kin “[find] each other’s lives inscrutable” in this rich, sharp story about the way identity is formed.
Inseparable identical twin sisters ditch home together, and then one decides to vanish.
The talented Bennett fuels her fiction with secrets—first in her lauded debut, The Mothers (2016), and now in the assured and magnetic story of the Vignes sisters, light-skinned women parked on opposite sides of the color line. Desiree, the “fidgety twin,” and Stella, “a smart, careful girl,” make their break from stultifying rural Mallard, Louisiana, becoming 16-year-old runaways in 1954 New Orleans. The novel opens 14 years later as Desiree, fleeing a violent marriage in D.C., returns home with a different relative: her 8-year-old daughter, Jude. The gossips are agog: “In Mallard, nobody married dark....Marrying a dark man and dragging his blueblack child all over town was one step too far.” Desiree's decision seals Jude’s misery in this “colorstruck” place and propels a new generation of flight: Jude escapes on a track scholarship to UCLA. Tending bar as a side job in Beverly Hills, she catches a glimpse of her mother’s doppelgänger. Stella, ensconced in White society, is shedding her fur coat. Jude, so Black that strangers routinely stare, is unrecognizable to her aunt. All this is expertly paced, unfurling before the book is half finished; a reader can guess what is coming. Bennett is deeply engaged in the unknowability of other people and the scourge of colorism. The scene in which Stella adopts her White persona is a tour de force of doubling and confusion. It calls up Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye, the book's 50-year-old antecedent. Bennett's novel plays with its characters' nagging feelings of being incomplete—for the twins without each other; for Jude’s boyfriend, Reese, who is trans and seeks surgery; for their friend Barry, who performs in drag as Bianca. Bennett keeps all these plot threads thrumming and her social commentary crisp. In the second half, Jude spars with her cousin Kennedy, Stella's daughter, a spoiled actress.
Kin “[find] each other’s lives inscrutable” in this rich, sharp story about the way identity is formed.Pub Date: June 2, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-525-53629-1
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Riverhead
Review Posted Online: March 14, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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