An often vivid but overlong set of works about America’s idols.
A massive collection of long-form poems inspired by legendary American figures and folklore.
This magnum opus of poetry is divided into 10 sections, with the first, “U. S. Rivers: Highway 1,” describing the path on the titular road from Key West, Florida, to Maine. Each state contains its own rich history that plays a part in the country’s larger narrative. “Old California” is a subtly comedic take on that state’s residents, with a special focus on Monterey. “Paul Bunyan” retells the story of the mythical lumberjack while “John Henry” catalogs the life and death of that steel-driving man in a rhyming, songlike structure. War and its legacy are at the center of “Chief Joseph,” and the Wild West features heavily in “Wyatt Earp.” The circus comes to town, with all its hyperbole and mischief, in “P. T. Barnum,” and a ghost laments that Amelia Earhart’s death is a key aspect of her fame in a section named after the doomed aviator. “Blue Ridge” is a pastoral poem that involves time travel. “U. S. Rivers: Route 66” again takes readers onto the open road. The collection concludes with sheet music for two songs, “On the balcony, the moon” and “Ballad of Mattie.” Beckett has clearly done his research in order to provide details that capture the spirit of the United States and of major figures who made their mark on the country. He endeavors to use historically accurate diction, from full Spanish sentences in “Old California” to African American Vernacular English in “John Henry,” and his descriptions are often powerful, as in a line that paints Paul Bunyan as “A man mountain, all hustle, all muscle and bull bones” or a passage from the perspective of a deceased Amelia Earhart: “as the fish knock / my ribs, and coral grows on my white bones, / unsleeping, in the lurid current, clouds / foam, in seaweed.” But at more than 750 pages, this tome sorely needed pruning, as its excessive length will dissuade even the most ambitious readers from attempting to conquer it.
An often vivid but overlong set of works about America’s idols.Pub Date: April 15, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-947041-71-4
Page Count: 770
Publisher: Running Wild Press
Review Posted Online: June 23, 2021
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
A beautiful meditation on queer identity against a supernatural backdrop.
Three women deal very differently with vampirism in Schwab’s era-spanning follow-up to The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue (2020).
In 16th-century Spain, Maria seduces a wealthy viscount in an attempt to seize whatever control she can over her own life. It turns out that being a wife—even a wealthy one—is just another cage, but then a mysterious widow offers Maria a surprising escape route. In the 19th century, Charlotte is sent from her home in the English countryside to live with an aunt in London when she’s found trying to kiss her best friend. She’s despondent at the idea of marrying a man, but another mysterious widow—who has a secret connection to Maria’s widow from centuries earlier—appears and teaches Charlotte that she can be free to love whomever she chooses, if she’s brave enough. In 2019, Alice’s memories of growing up in Scotland with her mercurial older sister, Catty, pull her mind away from her first days at Harvard University. And though she doesn’t meet any mysterious widows, Alice wakes up alone after a one-night stand unable to tolerate sunlight, sporting two new fangs, and desperate to drink blood. Horrified at her transformation, she searches Boston for her hookup, who was the last person she remembers seeing before she woke up as a vampire. Schwab delicately intertwines the three storylines, which are compelling individually even before the reader knows how they will connect. Maria, Charlotte, and Alice are queer women searching for love, recognition, and wholeness, growing fangs and defying mortality in a world that would deny them their very existence. Alice’s flashbacks to Catty are particularly moving, and subtly play off themes of grief and loneliness laid out in the historical timelines.
A beautiful meditation on queer identity against a supernatural backdrop.Pub Date: June 10, 2025
ISBN: 9781250320520
Page Count: 544
Publisher: Tor
Review Posted Online: March 22, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
PERSPECTIVES
PERSPECTIVES
Uneven but fitfully amusing.
Betrayed by her husband, a severely depressed young woman gets drawn into the over-the-top festivities at a lavish wedding.
Phoebe Stone, who teaches English literature at a St. Louis college, is plotting her own demise. Her husband, Matt, has left her for another woman, and Phoebe is taking it hard. Indeed, she's determined just where and how she will end it all: at an oceanfront hotel in Newport, where she will lie on a king-sized canopy bed and take a bottle of her cat’s painkillers. At the hotel, Phoebe meets bride-to-be Lila, a headstrong rich girl presiding over her own extravagant six-day wedding celebration. Lila thought she had booked every room in the hotel, and learning of Phoebe's suicidal intentions, she forbids this stray guest from disrupting the nuptials: “No. You definitely can’t kill yourself. This is my wedding week.” After the punchy opening, a grim flashback to the meltdown of Phoebe's marriage temporarily darkens the mood, but things pick up when spoiled Lila interrupts Phoebe's preparations and sweeps her up in the wedding juggernaut. The slide from earnest drama to broad farce is somewhat jarring, but from this point on, Espach crafts an enjoyable—if overstuffed—comedy of manners. When the original maid of honor drops out, Phoebe is persuaded, against her better judgment, to take her place. There’s some fun to be had here: The wedding party—including groom-to-be Gary, a widower, and his 11-year-old daughter—takes surfing lessons; the women in the group have a session with a Sex Woman. But it all goes on too long, and the humor can seem forced, reaching a low point when someone has sex with the vintage wedding car (you don’t want to know the details). Later, when two characters have a meet-cute in a hot tub, readers will guess exactly how the marriage plot resolves.
Uneven but fitfully amusing.Pub Date: July 30, 2024
ISBN: 9781250899576
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: Sept. 13, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
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