A neatly executed but somewhat thin tale that revolves around classic plays.
In Blake’s time-skipping novel, a Shakespearean actor from the past ends up at the modern Globe Theatre.
In 1613 London, Jon Henry has set the theatrical world alight with his convincing performance of Anne Boleyn in his friend William Shakespeare’s latest play. Unfortunately, the Globe Theatre is literally set alight during a performance, and the entire building burns to the ground. Still wearing his Anne Boleyn dress—his street clothes were destroyed by the flames—Jon joins some of the other King’s Men for a drink. After imbibing some strange potables, Jon drunkenly ends up in the Thames, where he climbs into a floating barrel of freezing brine and sinks to the bottom of the river. He spends four centuries entombed in the concrete foundation of a quay until he’s dislodged by a dredger. The actor, who’s been cryogenically preserved,floats to the surface and awakens in a nearby hospital, confused. He soon realizes that he’s in the 21st century: “Will was gone….everyone Jon had ever known were dead and had been dead for so long, not even their bones remained.” At a loss, he hits the London streets, searching for something familiar. Luckily, he soon meets Emma Morgan, a performer at the modern Globe Theatre, and she has a generous heart. It turns out the Globe is about to begin production on Henry VIII—a play that Jon knows very well, though by its alternate name, All Is True.Can Jon fit in among modern people who would never believe him if he told them his true story? And is Emma, a fine actor herself, hiding secrets of her own?
Blake’s love of Shakespeare is apparent on every page of this book, and fans of the Bard of Avon will surely recognize numerous clever allusions to the plays; when Jon is unconscious in the hospital, for instance, his nickname among the staff is “Ophelia,” as he was found dressed as a woman while floating in the water. However, Blake’s tendency to cater to Shakespeare fandom often has the effect of taking the reader out of the story, as when the novel clumsily introduces the playwright into the narrative: “ ‘William Shakespeare at your service,’ he said with a swooping bow that revealed his balding pate.” Later, when Jon tells Shakespeare that his plays will be read for centuries, the man responds in a manner that shows far too much foresight: “For everything there is a season. The English language is growing, vowel sounds are changing, and some day people will not understand my rhymes and puns.” The modern-day material is a bit more fun: Emma has just played Viola and Cesario in Twelfth Night, and she and Jon both make use of disguise during the story. Unfortunately, the novel never really escapes the Shakespearean framework to find its own reason for being. Bardolators will enjoy keeping track of all of the references, but these won’t likely be enough to sustain the interest of general readers.
A neatly executed but somewhat thin tale that revolves around classic plays.Pub Date: Nov. 10, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-9858081-9-8
Page Count: 258
Publisher: Morgan Online Media
Review Posted Online: March 29, 2021
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
Suspenseful, frightening, and sometimes poignant—provided the reader has a generously willing suspension of disbelief.
A man walks out of a bar and his life becomes a kaleidoscope of altered states in this science-fiction thriller.
Crouch opens on a family in a warm, resonant domestic moment with three well-developed characters. At home in Chicago’s Logan Square, Jason Dessen dices an onion while his wife, Daniela, sips wine and chats on the phone. Their son, Charlie, an appealing 15-year-old, sketches on a pad. Still, an undertone of regret hovers over the couple, a preoccupation with roads not taken, a theme the book will literally explore, in multifarious ways. To start, both Jason and Daniela abandoned careers that might have soared, Jason as a physicist, Daniela as an artist. When Charlie was born, he suffered a major illness. Jason was forced to abandon promising research to teach undergraduates at a small college. Daniela turned from having gallery shows to teaching private art lessons to middle school students. On this bracing October evening, Jason visits a local bar to pay homage to Ryan Holder, a former college roommate who just received a major award for his work in neuroscience, an honor that rankles Jason, who, Ryan says, gave up on his career. Smarting from the comment, Jason suffers “a sucker punch” as he heads home that leaves him “standing on the precipice.” From behind Jason, a man with a “ghost white” face, “red, pursed lips," and "horrifying eyes” points a gun at Jason and forces him to drive an SUV, following preset navigational directions. At their destination, the abductor forces Jason to strip naked, beats him, then leads him into a vast, abandoned power plant. Here, Jason meets men and women who insist they want to help him. Attempting to escape, Jason opens a door that leads him into a series of dark, strange, yet eerily familiar encounters that sometimes strain credibility, especially in the tale's final moments.
Suspenseful, frightening, and sometimes poignant—provided the reader has a generously willing suspension of disbelief.Pub Date: July 26, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-101-90422-0
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: May 3, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2016
PROFILES
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
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