A scattershot mix of cataloguing, introspection, and philosophizing.
In Bloom’s novel set in 2023, a man searches for meaning in his life and career after the death of his lifelong love.
As the story opens, Tokyo-based American Sebastian Reuter is an accountant, painter, former actor, and all-around learned man who finds out that Valeria, the woman he’s loved for 23 years, has died. He characterizes her demise in spiritual terms—specifically, as yet another in a long series of battles between God and the Devil: “The Devil killed her today.” Over the course of the novel, readers learn more details about Valeria and her backstory. It’s revealed that Reuter hadn’t seen her in three years when she died, ever since she married another man, but her passing still stings and sends him spiraling through memories of his past life when he returns to Los Angeles to attend her funeral. In LA, he meets a stranger named Freya, and they have a fun, light dalliance—exactly the kind of encounter that Reuter needs at the moment. However, he doesn’t stick around for very long, as he’s needed back in Tokyo, where he meets another woman, Famke, whose husband is unfaithful to her; she’s looking to have a fling of her own. Briefly, there is a hint of tension as Reuter weighs his encounters with Freya and Famke in his mind, ruminating on which relationship might suit him better. However, in both his encounters and his reflections, Reuter remains detached and clinical—a trait that he attributes to his earlier acting training in which he learned to separate himself from his emotions. This feeling of emotional separation, while consistent with his character, seeps into the rest of the novel.
What begins as a Bret Easton Ellis–style cataloguing of brands (“He had a Constantin Vacheron watch and Brunello Cucinelli shoes, a Tom Ford suit, and a black tie too skinny for the occasion”) descends into mantras that, unlike in Ellis’ work, never quite read as satiric: “I was quitting smoking. Whenever I stopped, I always became Terminator, the Viking Surfer Terminator Driver of the willpower to do all I was capable.” Halfway through the novel, its conventional structure breaks down as Reuter digs into his notions about religion (“The Devil is challenging. But I can’t be harmed under God’s protection. Then, is it God or the Devil in disguise?”) as well as his ongoing work involving quantum theory (“My quantum mechanics physics spatial geospatial intelligent general and special theory draft story work in progress was a train of thought frame of mind-body consciousness conceptual anchoring referential point…”). He also touches on a range of other topics, including investment strategy, resulting in tangents that often border on incoherency. Overall, the work offers an unusual glimpse into the mind of a modern man who’s clearly not doing very well. Some readers will find the novel’s breakdown of typical story structure and descent into hyperspecific rumination to be an offbeat and engaging choice. However, others are likely to find it tedious and off-putting.
A scattershot mix of cataloguing, introspection, and philosophizing.Pub Date: May 5, 2025
ISBN: 9781944527471
Page Count: 180
Publisher: Natural Press
Review Posted Online: June 10, 2025
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Uneven but fitfully amusing.
Betrayed by her husband, a severely depressed young woman gets drawn into the over-the-top festivities at a lavish wedding.
Phoebe Stone, who teaches English literature at a St. Louis college, is plotting her own demise. Her husband, Matt, has left her for another woman, and Phoebe is taking it hard. Indeed, she's determined just where and how she will end it all: at an oceanfront hotel in Newport, where she will lie on a king-sized canopy bed and take a bottle of her cat’s painkillers. At the hotel, Phoebe meets bride-to-be Lila, a headstrong rich girl presiding over her own extravagant six-day wedding celebration. Lila thought she had booked every room in the hotel, and learning of Phoebe's suicidal intentions, she forbids this stray guest from disrupting the nuptials: “No. You definitely can’t kill yourself. This is my wedding week.” After the punchy opening, a grim flashback to the meltdown of Phoebe's marriage temporarily darkens the mood, but things pick up when spoiled Lila interrupts Phoebe's preparations and sweeps her up in the wedding juggernaut. The slide from earnest drama to broad farce is somewhat jarring, but from this point on, Espach crafts an enjoyable—if overstuffed—comedy of manners. When the original maid of honor drops out, Phoebe is persuaded, against her better judgment, to take her place. There’s some fun to be had here: The wedding party—including groom-to-be Gary, a widower, and his 11-year-old daughter—takes surfing lessons; the women in the group have a session with a Sex Woman. But it all goes on too long, and the humor can seem forced, reaching a low point when someone has sex with the vintage wedding car (you don’t want to know the details). Later, when two characters have a meet-cute in a hot tub, readers will guess exactly how the marriage plot resolves.
Uneven but fitfully amusing.Pub Date: July 30, 2024
ISBN: 9781250899576
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: Sept. 13, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
Suspenseful, full of incident, and not obviously necessary.
Atwood goes back to Gilead.
The Handmaid’s Tale (1985), consistently regarded as a masterpiece of 20th-century literature, has gained new attention in recent years with the success of the Hulu series as well as fresh appreciation from readers who feel like this story has new relevance in America’s current political climate. Atwood herself has spoken about how news headlines have made her dystopian fiction seem eerily plausible, and it’s not difficult to imagine her wanting to revisit Gilead as the TV show has sped past where her narrative ended. Like the novel that preceded it, this sequel is presented as found documents—first-person accounts of life inside a misogynistic theocracy from three informants. There is Agnes Jemima, a girl who rejects the marriage her family arranges for her but still has faith in God and Gilead. There’s Daisy, who learns on her 16th birthday that her whole life has been a lie. And there's Aunt Lydia, the woman responsible for turning women into Handmaids. This approach gives readers insight into different aspects of life inside and outside Gilead, but it also leads to a book that sometimes feels overstuffed. The Handmaid’s Tale combined exquisite lyricism with a powerful sense of urgency, as if a thoughtful, perceptive woman was racing against time to give witness to her experience. That narrator hinted at more than she said; Atwood seemed to trust readers to fill in the gaps. This dynamic created an atmosphere of intimacy. However curious we might be about Gilead and the resistance operating outside that country, what we learn here is that what Atwood left unsaid in the first novel generated more horror and outrage than explicit detail can. And the more we get to know Agnes, Daisy, and Aunt Lydia, the less convincing they become. It’s hard, of course, to compete with a beloved classic, so maybe the best way to read this new book is to forget about The Handmaid’s Tale and enjoy it as an artful feminist thriller.
Suspenseful, full of incident, and not obviously necessary.Pub Date: Sept. 10, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-385-54378-1
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Nan A. Talese
Review Posted Online: Sept. 3, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2019
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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