A sometimes fun, sometimes serious love story with two engaging characters in search of love.
In Gensic’s romance novel, co-workers in a university’s English department become lovers.
Lucy O’Shields, aged 32, is an office administrator at Paducah State University. Lucy was an English major at Paducah some 10 years prior to her current position in the department. It was during her undergraduate days that she met English professor Forrest Graham. Forrest, now 37, still teaches at Paducah. He and Lucy work together closely; in addition to performing administrative duties, she also edits Forrest’s papers. Lucy has long had a crush on Forrest, though she’s never acted upon it. Lucy is offered a new job at the university president’s office, which would mean a significant pay increase, new responsibilities, and not working so closely with Forrest. For Forrest’s part, he’s recently ended a six-month relationship with a biology professor who was “Not bad. Just boring.” His relationships never seem to last very long; perhaps it really is Lucy he’s meant to be with. (Early in the story, when Forrest’s fingertips accidentally brush Lucy’s, “a shock [runs] up his arms.”) Of course, it’s not hard to predict that Lucy and Forrest will get together eventually, even if Forrest feels that “Lucy deserve[s] better, and that he [isn’t] the right person for her.” (Unlike many novelistic romantic scenarios, these two already like each other.) The excitement comes in seeing them learn more about each other and watching them navigate significant events like the death of Forrest’s father. Some playful silliness around the topic of books comes up, such as Lucy’s secret penchant for romance novels and Forrest’s love of the Lord of the Rings series. They are believable, likable individuals. Some dull exchanges unnecessarily lengthen scenes—such is the case when Lucy meets her father and blandly tells him, “I’m good, Dad. It’s nice to see you.” Still, the central relationship maintains an intriguing charm.
A sometimes fun, sometimes serious love story with two engaging characters in search of love.Pub Date: Sept. 16, 2024
ISBN: 9798894963419
Page Count: 297
Publisher: Staten House
Review Posted Online: April 30, 2025
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
SEEN & HEARD
A welcome literary resurrection that deserves a place alongside Wright’s best-known work.
A falsely accused Black man goes into hiding in this masterful novella by Wright (1908-1960), finally published in full.
Written in 1941 and '42, between Wright’s classics Native Son and Black Boy, this short novel concerns Fred Daniels, a modest laborer who’s arrested by police officers and bullied into signing a false confession that he killed the residents of a house near where he was working. In a brief unsupervised moment, he escapes through a manhole and goes into hiding in a sewer. A series of allegorical, surrealistic set pieces ensues as Fred explores the nether reaches of a church, a real estate firm, and a jewelry store. Each stop is an opportunity for Wright to explore themes of hope, greed, and exploitation; the real estate firm, Wright notes, “collected hundreds of thousands of dollars in rent from poor colored folks.” But Fred’s deepening existential crisis and growing distance from society keep the scenes from feeling like potted commentaries. As he wallpapers his underground warren with cash, mocking and invalidating the currency, he registers a surrealistic but engrossing protest against divisive social norms. The novel, rejected by Wright’s publisher, has only appeared as a substantially truncated short story until now, without the opening setup and with a different ending. Wright's take on racial injustice seems to have unsettled his publisher: A note reveals that an editor found reading about Fred’s treatment by the police “unbearable.” That may explain why Wright, in an essay included here, says its focus on race is “rather muted,” emphasizing broader existential themes. Regardless, as an afterword by Wright’s grandson Malcolm attests, the story now serves as an allegory both of Wright (he moved to France, an “exile beyond the reach of Jim Crow and American bigotry”) and American life. Today, it resonates deeply as a story about race and the struggle to envision a different, better world.
A welcome literary resurrection that deserves a place alongside Wright’s best-known work.Pub Date: April 20, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-59853-676-8
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Library of America
Review Posted Online: March 16, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2021
BOOK TO SCREEN
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