An often thrilling tale that expertly mixes fantasy and history.
In O’Brien’s historical novel, an Irishman can’t seem to escape chaos and strife, no matter where he goes.
Starting with the Irish Rebellion in 1798, this tale follows Kevin Neal as he grows up surrounded by political turmoil and talk of supernatural beings, including faeries and the Púca, a beastly warrior who he claims is real. One day, the 7-year-old protagonist and his female friend Anty discuss the area’s ongoing violence; soon afterward, Kevin loses his whole family in a military battle. He’s taken in by the Walsh family, consisting of father Nick, mother Judith, and two sons. After years of hardship, their land continues to keep them in debt. Nick is asked by the uncaring landlord to patch his roof, but he slips and falls, resulting in a permanent limp. Then the Walshes’ friend Joseph Kavanaugh is killed—one of the first in a string of mysterious, terribly violent murders. The family finds a new place to live, but the change of setting doesn’t save Kevin and his adopted family from misfortune, and conflicts between the Catholics and Protestants cause more trouble for them. One good thing comes of the move, though: Kevin is reunited with Anty, and as they grow older, romantic feelings blossom. But more violence is in store for Kevin and those closest to him. Soon, suspicions rise and people in town accuse Kevin of bringing the Púca, and all its evils, into their lives. Over the course of this novel, O’Brien’s realistic dialogue is its strongest attribute, occasionally using phonetic speech to get across each character’s vernacular, which allows each one to come alive on the page. The author combines this technique with phrasing that seems rather modern for the time period, but it allows for clear plot development through conversation; indeed, at times, some of these exchanges feel a bit too exposition-heavy. That said, O’Brien keeps the narrative pace steady, and it’s clear he’s done a significant amount of research into the politics and folklore of his story’s time and place, resulting in compelling worldbuilding throughout.
An often thrilling tale that expertly mixes fantasy and history.Pub Date: Sept. 29, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-77781-550-9
Page Count: 512
Publisher: LOONCE
Review Posted Online: Oct. 23, 2021
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
One of the noblest characters in American literature gets a novel worthy of him.
Mark Twain's Adventures of Huckleberry Finn as told from the perspective of a more resourceful and contemplative Jim than the one you remember.
This isn’t the first novel to reimagine Twain’s 1885 masterpiece, but the audacious and prolific Everett dives into the very heart of Twain’s epochal odyssey, shifting the central viewpoint from that of the unschooled, often credulous, but basically good-hearted Huck to the more enigmatic and heroic Jim, the Black slave with whom the boy escapes via raft on the Mississippi River. As in the original, the threat of Jim’s being sold “down the river” and separated from his wife and daughter compels him to run away while figuring out what to do next. He's soon joined by Huck, who has faked his own death to get away from an abusive father, ramping up Jim’s panic. “Huck was supposedly murdered and I’d just run away,” Jim thinks. “Who did I think they would suspect of the heinous crime?” That Jim can, as he puts it, “[do] the math” on his predicament suggests how different Everett’s version is from Twain’s. First and foremost, there's the matter of the Black dialect Twain used to depict the speech of Jim and other Black characters—which, for many contemporary readers, hinders their enjoyment of his novel. In Everett’s telling, the dialect is a put-on, a manner of concealment, and a tactic for survival. “White folks expect us to sound a certain way and it can only help if we don’t disappoint them,” Jim explains. He also discloses that, in violation of custom and law, he learned to read the books in Judge Thatcher’s library, including Voltaire and John Locke, both of whom, in dreams and delirium, Jim finds himself debating about human rights and his own humanity. With and without Huck, Jim undergoes dangerous tribulations and hairbreadth escapes in an antebellum wilderness that’s much grimmer and bloodier than Twain’s. There’s also a revelation toward the end that, however stunning to devoted readers of the original, makes perfect sense.
One of the noblest characters in American literature gets a novel worthy of him.Pub Date: March 19, 2024
ISBN: 9780385550369
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Dec. 16, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2024
PERSPECTIVES
PERSPECTIVES
Squeamish readers will find this isn’t their cup of tea.
Dexter meets Killing Eve in Wallace’s dark comic thriller debut.
While accepting condolences following her father’s funeral, 30-something narrator Claire receives an email saying that one of her paintings is a finalist for a prize. But her joy is short-circuited the next morning when she learns in a second apologetic note that the initial email had been sent to the wrong Claire. The sender, Lucas Kane, is “terribly, terribly sorry” for his mistake. Claire, torn between her anger and suicidal thoughts, has doubts about his sincerity and stalks him to a London pub, where his fate is sealed: “I stare at Lucas Kane in real life, and within moments I know. He doesn’t look sorry.” She dispatches and buries Lucas in her back garden, but this crime does not go unnoticed. Proud of her meticulous standards as a serial killer, Claire wonders if her grief for her father is making her reckless as she seeks to identify the blackmailer among the members of her weekly bereavement support group. The female serial killer as antihero is a growing subgenre (see Oyinkan Braithwaite’s My Sister, the Serial Killer, 2018), and Wallace’s sociopathic protagonist is a mordantly amusing addition; the tool she uses to interact with ordinary people while hiding her homicidal nature is especially sardonic: “Whenever I’m unsure of how I’m expected to respond, I use a cliché. Even if I’m not sure what it means, even if I use it incorrectly, no one ever seems to mind.” The well-written storyline tackles some tough subjects—dementia, elder abuse, and parental cruelty—but the convoluted plot starts to drag at the halfway point. Given the lack of empathy in Claire’s narration, most of the characters come across as not very likable, and the reader tires of her sneering contempt.
Squeamish readers will find this isn’t their cup of tea.Pub Date: April 16, 2024
ISBN: 9780143136170
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Penguin
Review Posted Online: Feb. 3, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2024
© Copyright 2024 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
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