Accomplished achronological storytelling with a fabulous final twist.
A group of former sorority sisters harboring secrets and struggles reunites to finish a cross-country road trip cut short by tragedy 20 years earlier in Klepper’s novel.
In 2019, physician Lisa Callihan is nervous as her husband answers their ringing landline. Thankfully, it’s not the reporter who recently left a voicemail on her cell asking about the 1999 car crash in Texas that killed driver Parker Harrison, whose older brother Tripp is now intending to run for the U.S. Senate; Lisa had secretly “signed away her integrity” regarding that event. The call is, however, a different trigger stirring up the past: It’s from recent divorcée Mary Blake, inviting Lisa to join her and her fellow former college sorority sisters Helen, Annesley, and Charlie to complete their Virginia-to-California road trip that halted abruptly—in Texas, in 1999. Chapters of the book then alternate between 2019 and 1999 and the third-person viewpoints of each woman. Various past and present issues are conveyed (including problematic parents, a suppressed college rape, and a recent recurrence of cancer) amidst the unspooling of the series of events on the 1999 trip that led to the rupture in Texas. By the novel’s end, the “do-over” trip has brought forth renewed bonds and several disclosures, although Lisa still remains silent about the motivations that fueled her long-ago choice. Klepper deploys admirable and engaging craft in this weaving together of five women’s backstories, their assorted interpersonal dynamics, and the two time periods. While readers will naturally root for or relate to some of the women more than others, the author effectively depicts the coming-of-age and adult concerns of each to make all past and present actions understandable. Her final full recounting of what happened that deadly night in Texas is particularly masterful, offering suspense as readers brace for the established upcoming crash, and surprises as Klepper reveals why Lisa will continue to keep some elements of the story to herself.
Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: -
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: Dec. 20, 2024
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
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 fresh and clever whodunit with an engaging twist.
A 16-year-old savant uses his Groundhog Day gift to solve his grandfather’s murder.
Nishizawa’s compulsively readable puzzle opens with the discovery of the victim, patriarch Reijiro Fuchigami, sprawled on a futon in the attic of his elegant mansion, where his family has gathered for a consequential announcement about his estate. The weapon seems to be a copper vase lying nearby. Given this setup, the novel might have proceeded as a traditional whodunit but for two delightful features. The first is the ebullient narration of Fuchigami’s youngest grandson, Hisataro, thrust into the role of an investigator with more dedication than finesse. The second is Nishizawa’s clever premise: The 16-year-old Hisataro has lived ever since birth with a condition that occasionally has him falling into a time loop that he calls "the Trap," replaying the same 24 hours of his life exactly nine times before moving on. And, of course, the murder takes place on the first day of one of these loops. Can he solve the murder before the cycle is played out? His initial strategies—never leaving his grandfather’s side, focusing on specific suspects, hiding in order to observe them all—fall frustratingly short. Hisataro’s comical anxiety rises with every failed attempt to identify the culprit. It’s only when he steps back and examines all the evidence that he discovers the solution. First published in 1995, this is the first of Nishizawa’s novels to be translated into English. As for Hisataro, he ultimately concludes that his condition is not a burden but a gift: “Time’s spiral never ends.”
A fresh and clever whodunit with an engaging twist.Pub Date: July 29, 2025
ISBN: 9781805335436
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Pushkin Vertigo
Review Posted Online: July 4, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2025
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