A finely crafted work about the inevitability of aging and loss.
The death of a lawyer’s wife causes him to look back—and forward—in McWalter’s novel.
Conrad Burrell meets and falls in love with Sarah Bergman while she’s still married. He’s long divorced from his first wife, Megan, though he maintains a friendly relationship with her and her second husband, due in part to the fact that they raised his daughter, Madeleine, who’s now an adult. After Sarah’s marriage ends, she and Conrad marry, and it’s a comfortable, mature relationship that doesn’t cause much stress for either of them. Death is never far away, however; it comes for their parents, their siblings, and their friends’ spouses. Conrad can’t help but think of what would happen to each of them if the other died first: “Please don’t let her be a widow,” he thinks, watching Sarah at the funeral of Megan ’s second husband. “Let her go first.” When Sarah dies in a car accident, Conrad sadly gets his wish—but now he’s at a loss for what to do with his own life. McWalter’s prose is precise and fluid, weaving characters, settings, and timelines together in a complex tapestry with detailed description: “He met Megan Caldwell during the litigation stint; she had the carrel next to his in the vast law library on the forty-fourth floor, whose windows offered a distracting view of the harbor, Liberty waving her welcome, Staten Island, the distant curvature of the earth.” The novel is highly episodic, and as a result, it suffers from a general lack of tension; the reader knows exactly how and when Sarah will meet her end right from the beginning, and due to numerous flashbacks, Conrad’s grieving period only makes up the final third of the book. There’s something intangible in McWalter’s storytelling that keeps the reader enthralled, however, even absent surprises or a clear sense of direction; the novel offers few answers, to be sure, but it presents a depiction of life and loss that feels true, and seems to say that one must find satisfaction in whatever joy one receives.
A finely crafted work about the inevitability of aging and loss.Pub Date: May 4, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-68463-077-6
Page Count: 272
Publisher: SparkPress
Review Posted Online: April 7, 2021
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
A vibrant tale of a remarkable woman.
Who was Shakespeare?
Move over, Earl of Oxford and Francis Bacon: There’s another contender for the true author of plays attributed to the bard of Stratford—Emilia Bassano, a clever, outspoken, educated woman who takes center stage in Picoult’s spirited novel. Of Italian heritage, from a family of court musicians, Emilia was a hidden Jew and the courtesan of a much older nobleman who vetted plays to be performed for Queen Elizabeth. She was well traveled—unlike Shakespeare, she visited Italy and Denmark, where, Picoult imagines, she may have met Rosencrantz and Guildenstern—and was familiar with court intrigue and English law. “Every gap in Shakespeare’s life or knowledge that has had to be explained away by scholars, she somehow fills,” Picoult writes. Encouraged by her lover, Emilia wrote plays and poetry, but 16th-century England was not ready for a female writer. Picoult interweaves Emilia’s story with that of her descendant Melina Green, an aspiring playwright, who encounters the same sexist barriers to making herself heard that Emilia faced. In alternating chapters, Picoult follows Melina’s frustrated efforts to get a play produced—a play about Emilia, who Melina is certain sold her work to Shakespeare. Melina’s play, By Any Other Name, “wasn’t meant to be a fiction; it was meant to be the resurrection of an erasure.” Picoult creates a richly detailed portrait of daily life in Elizabethan England, from sumptuous castles to seedy hovels. Melina’s story is less vivid: Where Emilia found support from the witty Christopher Marlowe, Melina has a fashion-loving gay roommate; where Emilia faces the ravages of repeated outbreaks of plague, for Melina, Covid-19 occurs largely offstage; where Emilia has a passionate affair with the adoring Earl of Southampton, Melina’s lover is an awkward New York Times theater critic. It’s Emilia’s story, and Picoult lovingly brings her to life.
A vibrant tale of a remarkable woman.Pub Date: Aug. 20, 2024
ISBN: 9780593497210
Page Count: 544
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 15, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2024
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
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