An extremely talky, allergy-obsessed novel impressed with its own wackiness.
A novel of unrequited love and rhetorical fireworks in the Midwest.
The story, told by a garrulous and interrupting narrator known only as Chip, takes place in the college town of Iowa City, Iowa, and begins at the Jones family barbecue, where a group of friends and family are assembled by the tables of food, some awaiting the arrival of beautiful young Sally Jones. One of these men is a character the narrator repeatedly tells us he’ll refer to as Sparky T. Ganja, an “undeniably stupid” figure, “jowly, asthmatic, overweight, middle-aged,” who is smitten with Sally and is hoping to meet her at the barbecue. The narrator informs readers that Sparky and Sally met just a little while ago in Iowa City’s pedestrian mall one morning when the giant chicken costume Sparky was wearing (for his job at the Crusty Chicken) became stuck on a bench. Sally rescued him, and he fell instantly in love. But subsequently, at the barbecue, she innocently confesses that she’s smitten with another man, stopping only to remind Sparky that he’s deathly allergic to potato salad (“My rib cage would shatter like plate glass,” Sparky tells other barbecue-goers, “my testicles would shoot out of my nose, my heart would be jettisoned into the air, and my head would explode, sending forth a rain of carnage over Iowa City”). Smith writes the ensuing story with an enormous amount of very self-conscious gusto; single sentences curl on for whole paragraphs, and a few of the book’s hundreds of jokes actually land. But no amount of gonzo literary hijinks can counteract the fact that about 100 pages later, all the characters are still talking about potato salad. The wry, baroque phrasings and elaborations about nothing give the reader the dreary feeling of being trapped on the outside of a very long in-joke.
An extremely talky, allergy-obsessed novel impressed with its own wackiness.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: 244
Publisher: Manuscript
Review Posted Online: July 12, 2022
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A tender and moving portrait about the transcendent power of art and friendship.
An artwork’s value grows if you understand the stories of the people who inspired it.
Never in her wildest dreams would foster kid Louisa dream of meeting C. Jat, the famous painter of The One of the Sea, which depicts a group of young teens on a pier on a hot summer’s day. But in Backman’s latest, that’s just what happens—an unexpected (but not unbelievable) set of circumstances causes their paths to collide right before the dying 39-year-old artist’s departure from the world. One of his final acts is to bequeath that painting to Louisa, who has endured a string of violent foster homes since her mother abandoned her as a child. Selling the painting will change her life—but can she do it? Before deciding, she accompanies Ted, one of the artist’s close friends and one of the young teens captured in that celebrated painting, on a train journey to take the artist’s ashes to his hometown. She wants to know all about the painting, which launched Jat’s career at age 14, and the circle of beloved friends who inspired it. The bestselling author of A Man Called Ove (2014) and other novels, Backman gives us a heartwarming story about how these friends, set adrift by the violence and unhappiness of their homes, found each other and created a new definition of family. “You think you’re alone,” one character explains, “but there are others like you, people who stand in front of white walls and blank paper and only see magical things. One day one of them will recognize you and call out: ‘You’re one of us!’” As Ted tells stories about his friends—how Jat doubted his talents but found a champion in fiery Joar, who took on every bully to defend him; how Ali brought an excitement to their circle that was “like a blinding light, like a heart attack”—Louisa recognizes herself as a kindred soul and feels a calling to realize her own artistic gifts. What she decides to do with the painting is part of a caper worthy of the stories that Ted tells her. The novel is humorous, poignant, and always life-affirming, even when describing the bleakness of the teens’ early lives. “Art is a fragile magic, just like love,” as someone tells Louisa, “and that’s humanity’s only defense against death.”
A tender and moving portrait about the transcendent power of art and friendship.Pub Date: May 6, 2025
ISBN: 9781982112820
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Atria
Review Posted Online: July 4, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2025
SEEN & HEARD
A beautiful meditation on queer identity against a supernatural backdrop.
Three women deal very differently with vampirism in Schwab’s era-spanning follow-up to The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue (2020).
In 16th-century Spain, Maria seduces a wealthy viscount in an attempt to seize whatever control she can over her own life. It turns out that being a wife—even a wealthy one—is just another cage, but then a mysterious widow offers Maria a surprising escape route. In the 19th century, Charlotte is sent from her home in the English countryside to live with an aunt in London when she’s found trying to kiss her best friend. She’s despondent at the idea of marrying a man, but another mysterious widow—who has a secret connection to Maria’s widow from centuries earlier—appears and teaches Charlotte that she can be free to love whomever she chooses, if she’s brave enough. In 2019, Alice’s memories of growing up in Scotland with her mercurial older sister, Catty, pull her mind away from her first days at Harvard University. And though she doesn’t meet any mysterious widows, Alice wakes up alone after a one-night stand unable to tolerate sunlight, sporting two new fangs, and desperate to drink blood. Horrified at her transformation, she searches Boston for her hookup, who was the last person she remembers seeing before she woke up as a vampire. Schwab delicately intertwines the three storylines, which are compelling individually even before the reader knows how they will connect. Maria, Charlotte, and Alice are queer women searching for love, recognition, and wholeness, growing fangs and defying mortality in a world that would deny them their very existence. Alice’s flashbacks to Catty are particularly moving, and subtly play off themes of grief and loneliness laid out in the historical timelines.
A beautiful meditation on queer identity against a supernatural backdrop.Pub Date: June 10, 2025
ISBN: 9781250320520
Page Count: 544
Publisher: Tor
Review Posted Online: March 22, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2025
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BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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PERSPECTIVES
SEEN & HEARD
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