A diverse and diverting anthology for fans of short fiction, verse, and long-form essays.
First in a new semiannual series from critic, editor, and author Freeman (Tales of Two Cities, 2014; How to Read a Novelist, 2013).
Freeman’s writing has appeared in the New York Times Book Review, the Guardian, and the Wall Street Journal, among other publications. As the editor of Granta, he worked with writers like Jeanette Winterson, Kenzaburo Oe, and George Saunders. It can safely be said that Freeman is a guide whom a savvy subset of passionate readers trust. His plan for this new project is simple: twice a year, he’ll present “a collection of writing grouped loosely around a theme.” This first installment of poems, stories, and narrative nonfiction does not disappoint. There’s excellent work by literary luminaries and popular favorites—Lydia Davis and Haruki Murakami, Louise Erdrich and Dave Eggers—as well as work from writers who will be new to many. The geographic range represented here is impressive, with authors from such far-flung locales as Iceland, Sudan, and the West Bank. Freeman’s first theme is “arrival,” and part of the pleasure of exploring this volume is discovering the various ways in which contributors interpret the concept. David Mitchell describes an encounter with one of Hiroshima’s ghosts. Garnette Cadogan offers a quietly devastating meditation on wandering the streets of Kingston as a boy and the impossibility of being a black flâneur in America, where the perception that he’s a threat exposes him to real danger every time he steps outside. In Helen Simpson’s “ARIZONA,” an acupuncturist and an academic imagine life beyond menopause. And, in one of the most satisfying entries in this collection, Laura van den Berg tells the story of a woman who becomes unmoored—wonderfully so—when her husband leaves her to sail around the world.
A diverse and diverting anthology for fans of short fiction, verse, and long-form essays.Pub Date: Oct. 6, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-8021-2441-8
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Grove
Review Posted Online: July 29, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.
A violent surfacing of adolescence (which has little in common with Tarkington's earlier, broadly comic, Seventeen) has a compulsive impact.
"Nobody big except me" is the dream world of Holden Caulfield and his first person story is down to the basic, drab English of the pre-collegiate. For Holden is now being bounced from fancy prep, and, after a vicious evening with hall- and roommates, heads for New York to try to keep his latest failure from his parents. He tries to have a wild evening (all he does is pay the check), is terrorized by the hotel elevator man and his on-call whore, has a date with a girl he likes—and hates, sees his 10 year old sister, Phoebe. He also visits a sympathetic English teacher after trying on a drunken session, and when he keeps his date with Phoebe, who turns up with her suitcase to join him on his flight, he heads home to a hospital siege. This is tender and true, and impossible, in its picture of the old hells of young boys, the lonesomeness and tentative attempts to be mature and secure, the awful block between youth and being grown-up, the fright and sickness that humans and their behavior cause the challenging, the dramatization of the big bang. It is a sorry little worm's view of the off-beat of adult pressure, of contemporary strictures and conformity, of sentiment….
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.Pub Date: June 15, 1951
ISBN: 0316769177
Page Count: -
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1951
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
APPRECIATIONS
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.
Sisters work together to solve a child-abandonment case.
Ellie and Julia Cates have never been close. Julia is shy and brainy; Ellie gets by on charm and looks. Their differences must be tossed aside when a traumatized young girl wanders in from the forest into their hometown in Washington. The sisters’ professional skills are put to the test. Julia is a world-renowned child psychologist who has lost her edge. She is reeling from a case that went publicly sour. Though she was cleared of all wrongdoing, Julia’s name was tarnished, forcing her to shutter her Beverly Hills practice. Ellie Barton is the local police chief in Rain Valley, who’s never faced a tougher case. This is her chance to prove she is more than just a fading homecoming queen, but a scarcity of clues and a reluctant victim make locating the girl’s parents nearly impossible. Ellie places an SOS call to her sister; she needs an expert to rehabilitate this wild-child who has been living outside of civilization for years. Confronted with her professional demons, Julia once again has the opportunity to display her talents and salvage her reputation. Hannah (The Things We Do for Love, 2004, etc.) is at her best when writing from the girl’s perspective. The feral wolf-child keeps the reader interested long after the other, transparent characters have grown tiresome. Hannah’s torturously over-written romance passages are stale, but there are surprises in store as the sisters set about unearthing Alice’s past and creating a home for her.
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.Pub Date: March 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-345-46752-3
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2005
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