A gleefully and wonderfully odd protagonist eases readers into a bare-bones plot.
Mulhern’s (Assumptions and Other Stories, 2016, etc.) drama covers years in the life of Molly Bonamici, who’s indifferent to death and whose most discernible emotion is emptiness.
There are those who consider Molly weird. Even her own parents, who raised her Roman Catholic, are bothered by the fact that she doesn’t believe in God. As a teenager in 1980, Molly is closest to her Nonna, who recognizes that her granddaughter is a bright, beautiful girl. Molly is intrigued by death, if not outright fascinated, but is disturbed when a reputed faith healer tells her that she’ll be “surrounded by death” throughout her life. Soon thereafter, she witnesses her first dead body, an apparent suicide. This incident doesn’t faze Molly, which is apparent to others who see that she isn’t visibly distraught. The 17-year-old graduates early and heads to Boston University, where death follows: a prank apparently results in a student’s fatal heart attack, and Molly loses someone closer to home. A couple of decades later, Molly is a high school English teacher and self-professed asexual woman. She moves from Boston to Florida with new best friend, gay fitness trainer Gabe Callaghan. The still faithless woman becomes a bit reclusive, but Gabe is determined to make a believer out of her. Molly, however, will soon have an epiphany of a thoroughly different sort. The novel, compiled at least in part of previously published short stories, reads like snippets—though the best ones—from a larger tale. Molly’s apathy toward death isn’t as strange as other characters think, more a curiosity than an obsession. This is likewise true for her religious views; Molly doesn’t reject religion but continually (and interestingly) questions it, like why would God allow horrible things to happen. And she’s forever debating her belief: she’s agnostic, then atheist, then unsure. Mulhern’s narrative hits the occasional standstill, where Molly repeatedly ponders the same issues with Nonna or Gabe. But while she may have a cold exterior, her distinctiveness is an appealing quality and often amusing. Molly, for example, discussing a dead body, tells a store clerk: “[M]aggots are a good source of protein....Do you sell word processors?”
A gleefully and wonderfully odd protagonist eases readers into a bare-bones plot.Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-5238-0780-2
Page Count: 260
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Feb. 25, 2016
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A mind-bending mystery, an insightful exploration of parent-child relationships, and a cautionary tale about bitterness and...
A young man seeking catharsis probes old wounds and unleashes fresh pain in this expertly crafted stand-alone from Edgar finalist Gaylin (If I Die Tonight, 2018, etc.).
Quentin Garrison is an accomplished true-crime podcaster, but it’s not until his troubled mother, Kate, fatally overdoses that he tackles the case that destroyed his family. In 1976, teenagers Gabriel LeRoy and April Cooper murdered 12 people in Southern California—Kate’s little sister included—before dying in a fire. Kate’s mother committed suicide, and her father withdrew, neglecting Kate, who in turn neglected Quentin. Quentin intends for Closure to examine the killings’ ripple effects, but after an interview with his estranged grandfather ends in a fight, he resolves to find a different angle. When a source alleges that April is alive and living in New York as Renee Bloom, Quentin is dubious, but efforts to debunk the claim only uncover more supporting evidence, so he flies east to investigate. Renee’s daughter, online film columnist Robin Diamond, is preoccupied with Twitter trolls and marital strife when Quentin calls to inquire about her mom’s connection to April Cooper. Robin initially dismisses Quentin but, upon reflection, realizes she knows nothing of Renee’s past. Before she can ask, a violent home invasion hospitalizes her parents and leaves Robin wondering whom she can trust. Artfully strewn red herrings and a kaleidoscopic narrative heighten tension while sowing seeds of distrust concerning the characters’ honesty and intentions. Letters from April to her future daughter written mid–crime spree punctuate chapters from Quentin's and Robin’s perspectives, humanizing her and Gabriel in contrast with sensationalized accounts from Hollywood and the media.
A mind-bending mystery, an insightful exploration of parent-child relationships, and a cautionary tale about bitterness and blame.Pub Date: July 2, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-06-284454-5
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Morrow/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: April 13, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Reid’s tightly crafted tale toys with the nature of identity and comes by its terror honestly, building a wall of...
A road trip in a snowstorm takes a sinister turn for a man and his girlfriend, the novel’s unnamed narrator.
Reid’s preternaturally creepy debut unfolds like a bad dream, the kind from which you desperately want to wake up yet also want to keep dreaming so you can see how everything fits together—or, rather, falls apart. The narrator, known only as the girlfriend, is driving with her beau, Jake, a scientist, to meet his parents at the family farm. The relationship is new, but, as the title implies, she’s already thinking of calling it quits. Jake is somewhat strange and fond of philosophizing, though the tendency to speak in the abstract is something that unites the pair. The weather outside turns nastier, and Reid intercuts the couple’s increasingly tense journey with short interstitial chapters that imply a crime has been committed, though the details are vague. Matters don’t improve when Jake and the narrator arrive at the farm, a hulking collection of buildings in the middle of nowhere. The meeting with her potential in-laws is as awkward as it is frightening, with Reid expertly needling the reader—and the narrator—into a state of near-blind panic with every footfall on a basement step. On the drive back, Jake makes a detour to an empty high school, which will take the couple to new heights of the terrifying and the bizarre.
Reid’s tightly crafted tale toys with the nature of identity and comes by its terror honestly, building a wall of intricately layered psychological torment so impenetrable it’s impossible to escape.Pub Date: June 14, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-5011-2692-5
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Scout Press/Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: March 15, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2016
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
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