A thoughtfully conceived and boldly described drug tale.
A rebellious dropout rejects normalcy and finds himself immersed in the 1970s drug scene in this novel.
Owens’ story opens with a distraught ninth grader barreling through the corridors of his high school convinced that “Christian Cannibals” are intent on devouring him. The boy is Wilbert Stokes, who his teachers discover is in the midst of a drug overdose. After undergoing court-ordered substance abuse therapy, Wilbert, now 18, finds himself sitting before a psychiatrist explaining that he has no intention of “running with the straight crowd” and that he strives for absolute freedom. Wilbert sets up as a dealer selling PCP out of a filthy, broken-down cottage in the dying railroad town of Hampton, Indiana. The novel is a mournful waltz through the seamy underbelly of ’70s America—one of skid rows and strip clubs. Wilbert’s position is a precarious one as he observes his own deterioration, succinctly described as the “haunted merry-go-round” of addiction. Surrounded by decay, will Wilbert persevere on the deadly path he believes leads to freedom, or will salvation mean turning “straight”? This is an unflinchingly grimy book, containing unpleasant imagery that readers will struggle to forget, from the “weathered whore” seen “smoking a cigarette from a hole in her cancerous neck” to the “scattered trio of feminine napkins whose ‘period’ of usefulness had long expired.” Owens provides an energetic taxonomy of demimonde habitués: “Sexed-up sugar-daddy-seeking hopefuls, scraggly sots, horny hags, and a variety of other swizzled low-brows.” Wild bouts of vivid descriptions are countered with a contrastingly sober narrative that pinpoints the social, economic, and historical forces that shape the characters’ lives: “The former participated in white flight; the latter could not afford the jump to the burgeoning southern suburbs, where white utopia was experiencing a renaissance of sorts.” The result is a multifaceted view of life “on the skids” given a further psychological dimension by the insertion of extracts from Wilbert’s journal: “I kill the capitalist pigs in my mind every day, until the rest of my poor friends rise up to join me, and we slay the beast in flesh.” The author’s prose may turn some readers’ stomachs, but this is a compellingly written, richly textured story that penetrates the heart of ’70s drug culture.
A thoughtfully conceived and boldly described drug tale.Pub Date: May 14, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-578-67508-4
Page Count: 570
Publisher: Self
Review Posted Online: March 17, 2021
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Recommended reading for every paranoid suburbanite who’s considering a move to the city, or to the Arctic wilds.
Character assassination reigns supreme, if not uncontested, in a Long Island suburb.
April Masterson loves her husband, corporate attorney Elliott; their 7-year-old, Bobby; and her YouTube channel, “April’s Sweet Secrets.” What she doesn’t love is whoever’s texting her warnings about how Bobby isn’t really in their backyard while she’s busy filming her videos or withering critiques of her baking show or veiled accusations about her past and threats about her present. Her best friend, former prosecutor Julie Bressler, may be bossy and opinionated, but surely she’d never turn on April this way. Who else might know enough to send April goodies like a picture of her kissing Mark Tanner, Bobby’s soccer coach? Though April struggles to get Elliot to take her ordeal seriously, even when she shows up at his office for a lunch date, he’s protected by his receptionist, Brianna Anderson, whose attachment to her boss goes far beyond loyalty. Then Julie turns on her; Maria Cooper, her friendly new next-door neighbor, turns on her; and in the most mind-boggling scene, Doris Kirkland, April’s mother, whose dementia has brought her to a nursing home, turns on her. McFadden releases an escalating series of toxins so deftly into the suburban atmosphere that it’s practically an anticlimax when someone gets killed and April instantly becomes the prime suspect. But that’s only a setup for the tale’s boldest move: switching its narrator from April to a fair-weather friend who frames the whole nightmare in dramatically different terms. As a special gift to her savviest fans, the author throws in an even more jolting epilogue that’s as hard to forget as it is to believe.
Recommended reading for every paranoid suburbanite who’s considering a move to the city, or to the Arctic wilds.Pub Date: March 3, 2026
ISBN: 9781464249600
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Poisoned Pen
Review Posted Online: Dec. 6, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2026
Amateurish, with a twist savvy readers will see coming from a mile away.
A woman accused of shooting her husband six times in the face refuses to speak.
"Alicia Berenson was thirty-three years old when she killed her husband. They had been married for seven years. They were both artists—Alicia was a painter, and Gabriel was a well-known fashion photographer." Michaelides' debut is narrated in the voice of psychotherapist Theo Faber, who applies for a job at the institution where Alicia is incarcerated because he's fascinated with her case and believes he will be able to get her to talk. The narration of the increasingly unrealistic events that follow is interwoven with excerpts from Alicia's diary. Ah, yes, the old interwoven diary trick. When you read Alicia's diary you'll conclude the woman could well have been a novelist instead of a painter because it contains page after page of detailed dialogue, scenes, and conversations quite unlike those in any journal you've ever seen. " 'What's the matter?' 'I can't talk about it on the phone, I need to see you.' 'It's just—I'm not sure I can make it up to Cambridge at the minute.' 'I'll come to you. This afternoon. Okay?' Something in Paul's voice made me agree without thinking about it. He sounded desperate. 'Okay. Are you sure you can't tell me about it now?' 'I'll see you later.' Paul hung up." Wouldn't all this appear in a diary as "Paul wouldn't tell me what was wrong"? An even more improbable entry is the one that pins the tail on the killer. While much of the book is clumsy, contrived, and silly, it is while reading passages of the diary that one may actually find oneself laughing out loud.
Amateurish, with a twist savvy readers will see coming from a mile away.Pub Date: Feb. 5, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-250-30169-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Celadon Books
Review Posted Online: Nov. 3, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2018
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