The back-from-the-dead premise is such a stretch, and Louise is so whining, wheedling, groveling, and desperately seeking...
Novelist/nonfiction author Schulman (The Revisionist, 1998, etc.) offers yet another tale of an angst-ridden late-thirtysomething obsessing about relationships.
She’s smart, she’s attractive, she’s got a good job, and none of that means much to Louise Harrington because the men in her life . . . aren’t. That is, either they’re not actually in her life, or they don’t really qualify as men in any grown-up sense of the word. Two exceptions: (1) physics professor Peter Harrington (good, kind), but Louise divorced him four years ago for reasons she still can’t quite come to grips with, and (2) Scott Feinstadt. The trouble with Scott is that he died in 1960. Or did he? Suddenly, mysteriously, there’s reason to wonder. Louise, acting admissions coordinator at Columbia University, comes across a startling, unnerving application—from Scott Feinstadt. Flashback to her senior year at suburban Larchmont High, when the adored if elusive Feinstadt was her very reason for being, when she stalked him assiduously enough to convert detachment into something that could pass for responsiveness. Never mind that she subsequently lost him to her unscrupulous best friend, then lost him permanently in a highway accident. He remained the one, true love of her life. And now, incredibly here’s this “recycled” Feinstadt, a painter, too, exactly like his forerunner. Born on the very same day, would you believe. Residing in Mamaroneck, a stone’s throw from Larchmont. But, lucky Louise, this one turns out to be an improved Feinstadt: equally handsome, more erotically adept, and sweeter-natured to boot. If only she could be absolutely certain he wasn’t a ghost.
The back-from-the-dead premise is such a stretch, and Louise is so whining, wheedling, groveling, and desperately seeking that—in her own description—she lacks dignity. Which goes to the heart of why it’s so hard to like her.Pub Date: May 10, 2001
ISBN: 1-58234-157-5
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Bloomsbury
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2001
Though Christie fans may be particularly delighted, this propulsive, pitch-perfect thriller has something for everyone.
A group of friends at a British college, all connected to the same charismatic scholar of Agatha Christie’s work, are torn apart by secrets and deceptions.
When Jess Walker begins to contemplate going to college, there is only one clear choice: She has to attend the university where Dr. Lorna Clay teaches. Lorna is the author of The Truants, a brilliant work arguing that great artists must destroy their personal lives to create, which has captured Jess’ imagination ever since she was given the book by her uncle. Once Jess starts college in East Anglia, she strikes up a friendship with Georgie, a wealthy socialite with a proclivity to dipping into her mother’s pill drawer; Alec, a 20-something white South African journalist on fellowship at the university; and Nick, a geology student who quickly falls for Jess. A middle child from a farming village, Jess instantly feels her life become more vibrant in the company of her exotic companions. And at the head of it all is the brilliant Lorna, who permeates the boundaries of their lives as students to attend their parties and become their confidante and, eventually, their friend, especially to Jess, who wants to follow in Lorna’s footsteps professionally and personally. But as the relationships among the five become more and more tangled, a tragedy suddenly shatters their lives, forcing Jess to confront the illusory nature of really knowing another. Aside from some slight plausibility issues (if only teenagers’ lives were changed by works of literary scholarship!), Weinberg has written one of the best thriller debuts in recent years, with all the cleverness of Ruth Ware (and, yes, even Christie herself) and a dash of Donna Tartt’s edgy darkness.
Though Christie fans may be particularly delighted, this propulsive, pitch-perfect thriller has something for everyone.Pub Date: Jan. 28, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-525-54196-7
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: Sept. 1, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2019
A fascinating novel that fails to stick its landing.
A debut novel about class strife, masculinity, and brotherhood in contemporary Trinidad.
Adam—herself a native of Trinidad—tells the story of Paul and Peter Deyalsingh, twins of Indian descent whose lives rapidly diverge. Paul is socially awkward, a bundle of nervous tics and strange habits, and from a young age he is dubbed unhealthy by his industrious father, Clyde, who works tirelessly doing physical labor at a petroleum plant in order to afford a better life for his children—or, at least, one of them. As he ages, his family becomes convinced that he is "slightly retarded," and he is marked as doomed in comparison to his precociously intelligent brother, Peter—the "healthy" child. After Peter's unexpected success on a standardized test, Clyde and his wife, Joy, single him out as gifted while communicating to Paul that his possibilities are far more limited. Joy works hard to keep her children together—"The boys are twins. They must stay together," she frequently demands—but Peter's intellectual gifts create a chasm between him and Paul. Peter is destined to leave the island, while Paul's horizon never exceeds hard labor, like his father before him. Despite the efforts of Father Kavanagh, a kindly Irish Catholic priest who takes it upon himself to teach Paul, the family is forced to make an irrevocable decision that will determine the boys' fates. Adam excels at sympathetically depicting the world of economic insecurity, unpredictable violence, limited opportunity, and mutual distrust that forces Clyde and Joy to make their fateful decision. Unfortunately, however, the novel telegraphs its biggest plot twist. One can see the narrative gears turning very early, and as a result Clyde's decision isn't harrowing; by the time its necessary consequences unfold, a reader might be less moved than Adam hopes. It doesn't help that many of the characters are sketchily drawn at best. Clyde, Joy, and Peter are not vividly depicted, and the decision that renders Paul disposable seems to emanate out of a psychological vacuum. In the absence of any emotional stakes, the last third of the novel unfolds like a generic thriller. That's unfortunate, as Adam has otherwise written an incisive and loving portrait of contemporary Trinidad. Paul is the most fully realized character: Adam movingly depicts his struggle to break free of his family's conceptions of his abilities. As a result, the novel is most moving when it becomes a heart-rending character study of post-colonial adolescence that recalls V.S. Naipaul and George Lamming.
A fascinating novel that fails to stick its landing.Pub Date: Jan. 29, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-525-57299-2
Page Count: 304
Publisher: SJP for Hogarth
Review Posted Online: Dec. 10, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2019
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