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RETROGRADE

A strongly written tale about resurrecting a marriage under the most unusual and mysterious of circumstances.

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A woman suffering from amnesia doesn’t realize she’s been separated for years from the husband who cares for her in this debut novel.

Helena Bachlein works in advertising in Berlin. Separated from her husband, Joachim, for almost three years, she begins to date again. But after a meeting at a local cafe, she is hit by a truck and lands in the hospital with broken ribs, a broken arm, a broken ankle, and amnesia. Joachim is called to the hospital, and since Helena can’t remember the accident or the past three years, she thinks that they are still together. He doesn’t tell her they are separated and is conflicted about when to break the news. He also neglects to inform her that she has her own apartment and brings her back to his place, explaining that most of her things were put in the basement after a water leak. The internet isn’t working; she doesn’t have a cellphone; and the apartment is on the fourth floor. He contacts Helena’s employer and arranges for her to telecommute, with Joachim returning work to the office via flash drive. A jarring visit from a co-worker named Doro changes everything since she hasn’t heard of Joachim. Helena discovers that she has her own apartment. While Joachim struggles to decide if his attempt at saving the marriage has backfired, the tension intensifies as Helena concludes that she must decide whether she should stay in a relationship that she left behind long ago. Hausler’s novel gives equal time to both Helena’s and Joachim’s thoughts, which is crucial in the sort of psychological drama she has crafted. Careful attention is paid to details that may jog Helena’s memory, including people and places, but also German language conventions. As the story dives deeper into the layers of memory, each word that is spoken or left unsaid becomes important in a cat-and-mouse mind game that gives this pensive story some elements of a thriller. The love that’s described is always on thin ice (“But the moment he touches her, the spell will break, and they’ll just be two people in bed together, without any enchantments”). Hausler’s ability to describe the precarious state of the emotions involved is consistently convincing.

A strongly written tale about resurrecting a marriage under the most unusual and mysterious of circumstances.

Pub Date: Sept. 26, 2017

ISBN: 978-1-946154-02-6

Page Count: 270

Publisher: Meerkat Press

Review Posted Online: Aug. 18, 2017

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2017

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CONCLAVE

An illuminating read for anyone interested in the inner workings of the Catholic Church; for prelate-fiction superfans, it...

Harris, creator of grand, symphonic thrillers from Fatherland (1992) to An Officer and a Spy (2014), scores with a chamber piece of a novel set in the Vatican in the days after a fictional pope dies.

Fictional, yes, but the nameless pontiff has a lot in common with our own Francis: he’s famously humble, shunning the lavish Apostolic Palace for a small apartment, and he is committed to leading a church that engages with the world and its problems. In the aftermath of his sudden death, rumors circulate about the pope’s intention to fire certain cardinals. At the center of the action is Cardinal Lomeli, Dean of the College of Cardinals, whose job it is to manage the conclave that will elect a new pope. He believes it is also his duty to uncover what the pope knew before he died because some of the cardinals in question are in the running to succeed him. “In the running” is an apt phrase because, as described by Harris, the papal conclave is the ultimate political backroom—albeit a room, the Sistine Chapel, covered with Michelangelo frescoes. Vying for the papal crown are an African cardinal whom many want to see as the first black pope, a press-savvy Canadian, an Italian arch-conservative (think Cardinal Scalia), and an Italian liberal who wants to continue the late pope’s campaign to modernize the church. The novel glories in the ancient rituals that constitute the election process while still grounding that process in the real world: the Sistine Chapel is fitted with jamming devices to thwart electronic eavesdropping, and the pressure to act quickly is increased because “rumours that the pope is dead are already trending on social media.”

An illuminating read for anyone interested in the inner workings of the Catholic Church; for prelate-fiction superfans, it is pure temptation.

Pub Date: Nov. 22, 2016

ISBN: 978-0-451-49344-6

Page Count: 304

Publisher: Knopf

Review Posted Online: Sept. 6, 2016

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2016

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THE SECRET HISTORY

The Brat Pack meets The Bacchae in this precious, way-too-long, and utterly unsuspenseful town-and-gown murder tale. A bunch of ever-so-mandarin college kids in a small Vermont school are the eager epigones of an aloof classics professor, and in their exclusivity and snobbishness and eagerness to please their teacher, they are moved to try to enact Dionysian frenzies in the woods. During the only one that actually comes off, a local farmer happens upon them—and they kill him. But the death isn't ruled a murder—and might never have been if one of the gang—a cadging sybarite named Bunny Corcoran—hadn't shown signs of cracking under the secret's weight. And so he too is dispatched. The narrator, a blank-slate Californian named Richard Pepen chronicles the coverup. But if you're thinking remorse-drama, conscience masque, or even semi-trashy who'll-break-first? page-turner, forget it: This is a straight gee-whiz, first-to-have-ever-noticed college novel—"Hampden College, as a body, was always strangely prone to hysteria. Whether from isolation, malice, or simple boredom, people there were far more credulous and excitable than educated people are generally thought to be, and this hermetic, overheated atmosphere made it a thriving black petri dish of melodrama and distortion." First-novelist Tartt goes muzzy when she has to describe human confrontations (the murder, or sex, or even the ping-ponging of fear), and is much more comfortable in transcribing aimless dorm-room paranoia or the TV shows that the malefactors anesthetize themselves with as fate ticks down. By telegraphing the murders, Tartt wants us to be continually horrified at these kids—while inviting us to semi-enjoy their manneristic fetishes and refined tastes. This ersatz-Fitzgerald mix of moralizing and mirror-looking (Jay McInerney shook and poured the shaker first) is very 80's—and in Tartt's strenuous version already seems dated, formulaic. Les Nerds du Mal—and about as deep (if not nearly as involving) as a TV movie.

Pub Date: Sept. 16, 1992

ISBN: 1400031702

Page Count: 592

Publisher: Knopf

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1992

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