An interior, prismatic tale of writerly defiance.
A poet's collision with a tyrant, from 13 points of view.
Kadare, Albania’s preeminent poet and novelist, often makes the short list of candidates for the Nobel Prize in Literature, and this slim, melancholy tale is in part about the perils of international acclaim in the shadow of repressive regimes. The core of the story concerns a 1934 phone call Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin made to Boris Pasternak, who had lifelong battles with Soviet leadership. (His most famous work, the 1957 novel Doctor Zhivago, was published in the West against the state’s wishes, propelling him to the Nobel.) Stalin called to ask about the dissident poet Osip Mandelstam, who’d been arrested for writing a poem criticizing Stalin. But what exactly was Stalin asking? How did Pasternak respond? And what was Mandelstam critiquing, exactly? The narrator—a Kadare manqué who’s had his own troubles with state censorship—considers the question by exploring the multiple variations of the story of the call. Pasternak’s wife recalls her husband as poised on the phone, requesting Mandelstam’s release; his lover suggests he was more fearful and equivocating. Other versions characterize Pasternak as alternately more timid or defiant, Stalin as more opaque or threatening. “Anybody who takes the plunge in search of the truth, who thinks at first that thirteen versions are too many, may by the end of the case think that these are insufficient!” the narrator writes. But 13 are enough to convey the sense that a writer under totalitarianism has reasons to cloak emotions and massage details, and the variety of stories speaks to how widely Stalin’s intimidation spread. Kadare’s novel is an appealingly plainspoken lament, and Hodgson’s translation captures a somber mood. The run-through of variations leaves the story without an arc, but delivers a strong case against dictatorial meddling in art.
An interior, prismatic tale of writerly defiance.Pub Date: Sept. 19, 2023
ISBN: 9781640096080
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Counterpoint
Review Posted Online: July 26, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2023
PERSPECTIVES
IN THE NEWS
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
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
