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
Soapy, suspenseful fun.
A remembered horror plunges a pregnant woman into a waking nightmare.
Tegan Werner, 23, barely recalls her one-night stand with married real estate developer Simon Lamar; she only learns Simon’s name after seeing him on the local news five months later. Simon wants nothing to do with the resulting child Tegan now carries and tells his lawyer to negotiate a nondisclosure agreement. A destitute Tegan is all too happy to trade her silence for cash—until a whiff of Simon’s cologne triggers a memory of him drugging and raping her. Distraught and eight months pregnant, Tegan flees her Lewiston, Maine, apartment and drives north in a blizzard, intending to seek comfort and counsel from her older brother, Dennis; instead, she gets lost and crashes, badly injuring her ankle. Tegan is terrified when hulking stranger Hank Thompson stops and extricates her from the wreck, and becomes even more so when he takes her to his cabin rather than the hospital, citing hazardous road conditions. Her anxiety eases somewhat upon meeting Hank’s wife, Polly—a former nurse who settles Tegan in a basement hospital room originally built for Polly’s now-deceased mother. Polly vows to call 911 as soon as the phones and power return, but when that doesn’t happen, Tegan becomes convinced that Hank is forcing Polly to hold her prisoner. Tegan doesn’t know the half of it. McFadden unspools her twisty tale via a first-person-present narration that alternates between Tegan and Polly, grounding character while elevating tension. Coincidence and frustratingly foolish assumptions fuel the plot, but readers able to suspend disbelief are in for a wild ride. A purposefully ambiguous, forward-flashing prologue hints at future homicide, establishing stakes from the jump.
Soapy, suspenseful fun.Pub Date: Jan. 28, 2025
ISBN: 9781464227325
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Poisoned Pen
Review Posted Online: Feb. 1, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
A superior entry in the night-on-the-nightmare-ward genre.
A medical student is assigned an overnight shift to observe a Long Island hospital’s psychiatric ward and help with emergencies. You’d never guess what happens next.
Amy Brenner isn’t even interested in psychiatry, the one medical specialty she’s never considered for her own career. Nor is she interested any more in Cameron Berger, the classmate who ended their relationship so that he could spend more time studying, and she’s not pleased to learn that he’s switched his rotation with another student so he can spend some of the next 13 hours persuading Amy to rekindle their romance. Predictably, Cam will be the least of Amy’s troubles. Apart from Dr. Richard Beck and nurse Ramona Dutton, everyone else on Ward D is much more dangerous, from elderly Mary Cummings, whose knitting needles aren’t plastic but sharpened steel, to William Schoenfeld, who’s stopped taking the medications that were supposed to silence the voices telling him to kill people, to Damon Sawyer, who’s confined in Seclusion One and can’t possibly escape, unless a power outage neutralizes the locks. Most threatening of all is Jade Carpenter, whose close friendship with Amy ended eight years ago when Amy turned her in for what ended up being only one of a whole series of thrill crimes. McFadden measures out the complications, revelations, and betrayals with such an expert hand that readers anxiously trying to figure out whom Amy can trust as her goal shifts from ticking off a toilsome requirement to surviving the night may well end up wondering whom they can trust themselves. And isn’t provoking that kind of paranoia what medical thrillers are all about?
A superior entry in the night-on-the-nightmare-ward genre.Pub Date: March 4, 2025
ISBN: 9781464227271
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Poisoned Pen
Review Posted Online: Dec. 13, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
