A rich but undisciplined tale of modern troubadours, full of heart and too much talk.
A fading Canadian band is revitalized by a young vagabond in this rollicking showbiz novel.
Gordon’s romp follows Miles Gerber and the Shit Disturbers, a trio of middle-aged country rockers comprising singer/songwriter Miles, still pining for his ex-wife, Maddie Myles, since she left the band, and him, 20 years ago; taciturn bassist Dougie Morrison; and a Cree drummer called Drummer who narrates much of the story. The three drive a sentient van dubbed Nelly-Belle—which also narrates part of the story—from one lousy dive-bar gig to the next while bemoaning the state of Canada in general and the unremunerative music industry in particular. They’re jarred out of their rut when, while cruising a Manitoba highway, they happen upon MG (standing for “Merch Girl”), a foulmouthed 20-year-old woman with a shaved head. She becomes their own merch girl, selling CDs and T-shirts at gigs; she soon starts a website to sell their tunes, takes over managing and booking, and even sings for them. Flummoxed but invigorated, Miles starts writing new songs based on hard-luck stories he hears in the farm towns they play, and thanks to MG’s promotion, their fan base swells and they attract a caravan of acolytes who follow them from show to show. MG shepherds the scene to Lake Huron’s Manitoulin Island, where it takes root as a summer arts festival and be-in called the Ark of the Oven Mitt, complete with drum circles, stilt walkers, and whimsical anti-capitalism. The Ark’s gravitational field pulls in all manner of strangers and finally reveals deep connections in Miles’ and MG’s pasts.
Gordon’s yarn is partly a love letter to small-town Canada, with its greasy spoons, wind-swept plains, un-chic shops, and regular folks who keep on going despite their troubles. He maps this terrain well in beautifully crafted scenes of savory characters sharing honky-tonk conviviality: “Late at night after a gig, Dougie could draw attention to himself by saying something like, ‘Be that as it may gents,’ then he’d get a real dramatic pause while he inhaled, squinted, then exhaled towards the nearest non-smoker….” As the novel goes on, though, its prairie populism takes on a discordant vibe of tribalism; later chapters are less about believable places with grounded characters and more about gawking at the Burning Man–esque folderol of the Ark. They’re also about long-winded speeches—“the growth-for-growth’s-sake mentality that is driven by this new kind of ‘capitalism on steroids’ is not sustainable”—that are usually punctuated by jibes (“She was a bit preachy”) that don’t really cut the preachiness. Miles’ song lyrics are written out—they can also be heard at the author’s Bandcamp site—and feature a similar mix of vivid atmospherics (“Took the long way home / Past the Discount Auto Parts / The empty lot full of shopping carts / Along a trail of broken hearts”) and soapboxing. Gordon is a talented writer with a punchy, resonant prose style, but his unfocused narrative and billowing dialogue could use some tightening.
A rich but undisciplined tale of modern troubadours, full of heart and too much talk.Pub Date: Sept. 23, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-990330-05-6
Page Count: -
Publisher: Pipe Street Publishing
Review Posted Online: Dec. 23, 2021
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A boarding-school fantasia, with Hilderbrand’s signature upgrades to the cuisine and decor. Sign us up for next term.
A year in the life of the No. 2 boarding school in America—up from No. 19 last year!
Rumors of Hilderbrand’s retirement were greatly exaggerated, it turns out, since not only has she not gone out to pasture, she’s started over in high school, with her daughter Shelby Cunningham as co-author. As their delicious new book opens, it’s Move-In Day at Tiffin Academy, and Head of School Audre Robinson is warmly welcoming the returning and new students to the New England campus, the latter group including a rare midstream addition to the junior class. Brainiac Charley Hicks is transferring from public school in Maryland to a spot that opened up when one of the school’s most beloved students died by suicide the preceding year. She will be joining a large, diverse cast of adult and teenage characters—queen bees, jealous second-stringers, boozehounds young and old, secret lesbians, people chasing the wrong people chasing other wrong people—all of them royally screwed when an app called Zip Zap appears and starts blasting everyone’s secrets all over campus. How the heck…? Meanwhile, it seems so unlikely that Tiffin has jumped up to the No. 2 spot in the boarding-school rankings that a high-profile magazine launches an investigation, and even the head is worried that there may have been payola involved. The school has a reputation for being more social than academic, and this quality gets an exciting new exclamation point when the resident millionaire bad boy opens a high-style secret speakeasy for select juniors in a forgotten basement. It’s called Priorities. Exactly. One problem: Cinnamon Peters’ mysterious suicide hangs over the book in an odd way, especially since the note she left for her closest male friend is not to be opened for another year—and isn’t. This is surely a setup for a sequel, but it’s a bit frustrating here, and bobs sort of shallowly along amid the general high spirits.
A boarding-school fantasia, with Hilderbrand’s signature upgrades to the cuisine and decor. Sign us up for next term.Pub Date: Sept. 16, 2025
ISBN: 9780316567855
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: July 4, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2025
SEEN & HEARD
Vintage Follett. His fans will be pleased.
A dramatic, complex imagining of the origins of Stonehenge.
In about 2500 B.C.E. on the Great Plain, Seft and his family collect flints in a mine. He dislikes the work, and the motherless lad hates the abuse he gets from his father and brothers. He leaves them and arrives at a wooden monument where sacred events such as the Midsummer Rite take place. There are also circles of stones that help predict equinoxes, solstices, even eclipses. This is a world where the customary greeting is “May the Sun God smile on you,” and everyone is a year older on Midsummer Day. Except for a priestess or two, no one can count beyond fingers and toes—to indicate 30, they show both hands, point to both feet, then show both hands again. Casual sex is common, and sex between women is less common but not taboo. Joia, a young woman who becomes a priestess, wonders about her sexuality. After a fire destroys the Monument, she leads a bold effort to rebuild it in stone. To please the gods, they must haul 10 giant stones from distant Stony Valley. Of course neither machinery nor roads exist, so the difficulties are extraordinary. Although the project has its detractors, hundreds of able-bodied people are willing to help. Craftspeople known as cleverhands construct a sled and a road, and they make the rope to wrap around the stones. Many, many others pull. And pull. Meanwhile, the three principal groups—farmers, woodlanders, and herders—all have their separate interests. There is talk of war, which Joia has never seen in her lifetime. Soon it seems inevitable that the powerful farmers will not only start one but win it, unless heroes like Seft and Joia can come up with a creative plan. But there is also the matter of love for Joia in this well-plotted and well-told yarn. The story has a lot of characters from multiple tribes, and they can be hard to keep track of. A page in the front of the book listing who’s who would be helpful.
Vintage Follett. His fans will be pleased.Pub Date: Sept. 23, 2025
ISBN: 9781538772775
Page Count: 704
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Review Posted Online: July 4, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2025
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