A thoughtful tale that explores a friendship between two men trying to live authentic lives.
In Whitehouse’s debut novel, a man named Quentin “Q.” Yonally Dettweiler meets a mysterious and charismatic man who turns his life upside down—and helps him to discover his true calling.
The story’s protagonist is 26 years old and working as a health care consultant for a firm located near a California beach. Although nothing seems obviously amiss in his life, he feels unsatisfied. “I was wrapped in the carousel of a monotonous existence,” he reflects early on, “a life being lived incomplete.” However, an impromptu meeting at a coffee shop with a striking, wealthy man named James Jersig irrevocably changes the course of Q.’s life. Jersig impulsively invites him aboard his yacht for a lavish party, where he winds up hiring Q. as both an assistant and as his own personal scribe: “I’d like you to write for me each week. A piece that draws on the emotions, situations, and events from the week prior.” Working for Jersig provides Q. with a glimpse into a life of luxury, which also involves tense business dealings and potentially illegal associations. However, the major draw for Q. is the fact that Jersig seems to see him for who he is—and that he recognizes the man that he hopes to become: “What you search for is authenticity,” Jersig observes; for far too long, Q. realizes, he’s lived the life he thought he should rather than the one he wanted. Overall, this is a relatively brief book, but Whitehouse maintains a clipped pace throughout the narrative that keeps it moving forward. The story is part mystery, part philosophical musing, and it explores what it means to get a second chance at life and to seize opportunity when it comes one’s way. Much of this message is conveyed through conversations between the characters—particularly between Q., Jersig, and Jersig’s partner, Cadence. Although the text sometimes feels heavily freighted with gravitas—as when Q. writes down the question, “Is there a place in the world for a man such as me?”—it also helps propel the story and clarify plot points that might have otherwise been murky.
A thoughtful tale that explores a friendship between two men trying to live authentic lives.Pub Date: July 4, 2020
ISBN: 978-0578721255
Page Count: 112
Publisher: John Barnabus Whitehouse
Review Posted Online: July 10, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2020
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
An eccentric, well-written small-town novel jam-packed with appealing characters and their dreams.
When a photo booth–type machine in the grocery store starts spitting out predictions of people’s true callings, the residents of Deerfield, Louisiana, are deeply affected.
“In the way that aspiring novelists might like to imagine their work someday being discussed in a sophomore literature class…or the way philosophers like to chart the evolution of thought from Socrates to Plato to Jay-Z…Douglas also liked to imagine himself one day becoming part of some traceable lineage.” Douglas Hubbard, a happily married high school history teacher, has a fantasy of becoming a famous jazz trombone player. He’s even signed up for lessons. Unlike the other dreamers in his little town, he came up with this idea all by himself, on his 40th birthday. His wife and many of his neighbors, on the other hand, are carrying around little blue slips of paper produced by a machine called the DNAMIX. They say things like ROYALTY, CARPENTER, LOVER, and MAGICIAN, and because of them the school principal, the mayor, and many others in Deerfield are quitting their jobs, buying costumes, and planning major life changes. There’s something a little strange about Walsh’s follow-up to his remarkable first novel, My Sunshine Away (2015). On one hand, it has a warm, folksy, Fannie Flagg–type feeling, complete with John Prine references galore (the title is one) and a goofy touch of magic. On the other hand, like the author’s debut, it addresses very serious and disturbing issues. It opens with the death of a teenager, as experienced by his twin, and later adds intimations of a school shooting, a gang rape, and a terrible revenge plot. Both aspects are well handled, but do they really go together? When you get a bereaved dad dressed up in a ludicrous cowboy outfit intervening to rescue his son from being gunned down by the police you have to wonder.
An eccentric, well-written small-town novel jam-packed with appealing characters and their dreams.Pub Date: Sept. 8, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-7352-1848-2
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: April 12, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
Strangely stuffy and muted.
The little-known story of the Black woman who supervised J. Pierpont Morgan’s storied library.
It's 1905, and financier J.P. Morgan is seeking a librarian for his burgeoning collection of rare books and classical and Renaissance artworks. Belle da Costa Greene, with her on-the-job training at Princeton University, seems the ideal candidate. But Belle has a secret: Born Belle Marion Greener, she is the daughter of Richard Greener, the first Black graduate of Harvard, and she's passing as White. Her mother, Genevieve, daughter of a prominent African American family in Washington, D.C., decided on moving to New York to live as White to expand her family’s opportunities. Richard, an early civil rights advocate, was so dismayed by Genevieve’s decision that he left the family. As Belle thrives in her new position, the main source of suspense is whether her secret will be discovered. But the stakes are low—history discloses that the career-ending exposure she feared never came. There are close calls. J.P. is incensed with her but not because of her race: She considered buying a Matisse. Anne Morgan, J.P.’s disgruntled daughter, insinuates that Belle has “tropical roots,” but Belle is perfectly capable of leveraging Anne’s own secrets against her. Leverage is a talent of Belle’s, and her ruthless negotiating prowess—not to mention her fashion sense and flirtatious mien—wins her grudging admiration and a certain notoriety in the all-White and male world of curators and dealers. Though instructive about both the Morgan collection and racial injustice, the book is exposition-laden and its dialogue is stilted—the characters, particularly Belle, tend to declaim rather than discuss. The real Belle left scant records, so the authors must flesh out her personal life, particularly her affair with Renaissance expert Bernard Berenson and the sexual tension between Belle and Morgan. But Belle’s mask of competence and confidence, so ably depicted, distances readers from her internal clashes, just as her veneer must have deterred close inquiry in real life.
Strangely stuffy and muted.Pub Date: June 29, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-593-10153-7
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Berkley
Review Posted Online: March 30, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2021
SEEN & HEARD
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