Beautifully written and real to the core.
An engaging novel about overcoming loss and picking up the pieces.
When Judy’s husband, Jack, dies of cancer, she takes off in her RV in hopes of piecing together her shattered heart piece by piece and state by state as she travels across the country. She temporarily leaves her home and grooming business behind in sunny California and makes her way out to a friend in Florida. In addition to the radio, she’s joined by her new cat and a man-sized doll she made (whom she refers to as Jack Incarnate) for the 5,000 miles to Florida and back. In between new places and new faces, Judy thinks back to the relationship she had with Jack: when they first met at an AA meeting while drinking coffee, the time he was almost put behind bars for spousal abuse, etc. Though rough-around-the-edges Jack certainly had his fair share of baggage, he truly loved Judy, and she loved him back. Now that he’s gone, Judy has to make her way without him and count up all the good and bad that came with their relationship. In her debut novel, Howard conveys pitiless reality with beauty and eloquence. “I felt like a dried leaf clinging to a branch, hoping to hang on as the cold harsh wind blew cruelly against my brittle spine,” she writes. Despite the numerous brutal, intense battles between Judy and Jack, it’s nearly impossible not to relate to her on some level, as she’s so real and vulnerable. Most of all, she’s a survivor who manages to move on from the relationship that dictated much of her life. Though it could be easy to write off Jack as a villain, Howard portrays in him the many layers that each of us contend with—it’s what makes us all so complex. She doesn’t make excuses for his behavior, but there’s a sense of sadness in everything he himself suffered, which, to a certain degree, made him who he was. The frivolous title doesn’t capture the mature spirit of Judy’s mindset.
Beautifully written and real to the core.Pub Date: July 18, 2011
ISBN: 978-1461153788
Page Count: 260
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Sept. 27, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2012
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A marvelously tender memoir on suicide and loss.
An essayist and novelist turns her attention to the heartache of a friend’s suicide.
Crosley’s memoir is not only a joy to read, but also a respectful and philosophical work about a colleague’s recent suicide. “All burglaries are alike, but every burglary is uninsured in its own way,” she begins, in reference to the thief who stole the jewelry from her New York apartment in 2019. Among the stolen items was her grandmother’s “green dome cocktail ring with tiers of tourmaline (think kryptonite, think dish soap).” She wrote those words two months after the burglary and “one month since the violent death of my dearest friend.” That friend was Russell Perreault, referred to only by his first name, her boss when she was a publicist at Vintage Books. Russell, who loved “cheap trinkets” from flea markets, had “the timeless charm of a movie star, the competitive edge of a Spartan,” and—one of many marvelous details—a “thatch of salt-and-pepper hair, seemingly scalped from the roof of an English country house.” Over the years, the two became more than boss and subordinate, teasing one another at work, sharing dinners, enjoying “idyllic scenes” at his Connecticut country home, “a modest farmhouse with peeling paint and fragile plumbing…the house that Windex forgot.” It was in the barn at that house that Russell took his own life. Despite the obvious difference in the severity of robbery and suicide, Crosley fashions a sharp narrative that finds commonality in the dislocation brought on by these events. The book is no hagiography—she notes harassment complaints against Russell for thoughtlessly tossed-off comments, plus critiques of the “deeply antiquated and often backward” publishing industry—but the result is a warm remembrance sure to resonate with anyone who has experienced loss.
A marvelously tender memoir on suicide and loss.Pub Date: Feb. 27, 2024
ISBN: 9780374609849
Page Count: 208
Publisher: MCD/Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: Sept. 19, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2023
PERSPECTIVES
PERSPECTIVES
An intriguing but uneven family memoir and travelogue.
An author’s trip to Venice takes a distinctly Borgesian turn.
In November 2020, soccer club Venizia F.C. offered Nigerian American author Madu a writing residency as part of its plan “to turn the team into a global entity of fashion, culture, and sports.” Flying to Venice for the fellowship, he felt guilty about leaving his immigrant parents, who were shocked to learn upon moving to the U.S. years earlier that their Nigerian teaching certifications were invalid, forcing his father to work as a stocking clerk at Rite Aid to support the family. Madu’s experiences in Venice are incidental to what is primarily a story about his family, especially his strained relationship with his father, who was disappointed with many of his son’s choices. Unfortunately, the author’s seeming disinterest in Venice renders much of the narrative colorless. He says the trip across the Ponte della Libertà bridge was “magical,” but nothing he describes—the “endless water on both sides,” the nearby seagulls—is particularly remarkable. Little in the text conveys a sense of place or the unique character of his surroundings. Madu is at his best when he focuses on family dynamics and his observations that, in the largely deserted city, “I was one of the few Black people around.” He cites Borges, giving special note to the author’s “The House of Asterion,” in which the minotaur “explains his situation as a creature and as a creature within the labyrinth” of multiple mirrors. This notion leads to the Borgesian turn in the book’s second half, when, in an extended sequence, Madu imagines himself transformed into a minotaur, with “the head of a bull” and his body “larger, thicker, powerful but also cumbersome.” It’s an engaging passage, although stylistically out of keeping with much of what has come before.
An intriguing but uneven family memoir and travelogue.Pub Date: April 2, 2024
ISBN: 9781953368669
Page Count: 144
Publisher: Belt Publishing
Review Posted Online: Nov. 17, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2023
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