An edgy confessional novel with the trappings of spy fiction.
A lonely young London woman is unknowingly drawn into a high-stakes intelligence campaign by the man she marries.
Nearly 21, the never-named woman who narrates the novel is targeted by Marcus, a worldly, jet-setting American who happens to own the private garden she spent hours dreamily gazing at as a child. Innocent to the dangers of the world he inhabits, she is drawn to his controlling nature and sense of mystery even though he's more than 30 years her senior. Eager to be part of something, she goes along with Marcus' efforts to groom her as an asset for a group of operatives with ties to the CIA and Mossad. Posing as an aspiring art dealer, she makes an extended visit to the exclusive Cap Ferret home of Edouard, a former Russian general with a fabulous collection of paintings and a lethal past. She is surprised to enjoy his company during their long nightly walks and becomes exceptionally fond of the sweet, super-intelligent 9-year-old son he dotes on. Knowing he is behind Operation Ilium, a revenge plot aimed at American assets in the U.K., will she be able to do what is necessary to help foil it? "The problem is, when you reinvent yourself for someone else you are reinventing around your idea of what they want, and this will get you into all sorts of trouble," she muses. With its dreamily detached narration and elliptical feel, Carpenter's third novel—following Eleven Days (2013) and Red, White, Blue (2018)—is less interested in spy vs. spy or good vs. bad (both sides are equally capable of the worst) than the lack of reliable truths in people's lives and the ways they allow themselves to be formed by events beyond their control. "Truth is a toy I play with," the narrator says in the end. But no more than it plays with her.
An edgy confessional novel with the trappings of spy fiction.Pub Date: Jan. 16, 2024
ISBN: 9780593536605
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2023
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
That college love affair you never got over? Come wallow in this gorgeous version of it.
A love triangle among young literati has a long and complicated aftermath.
King’s narrator doesn’t reveal her name until the very last page, but Sam and Yash, the brainy stars of her 17th-century literature class, call her Jordan. Actually, at first they refer to her as Daisy, for Daisy Buchanan of The Great Gatsby, but when they learn she came to their unnamed college on a golf scholarship, they change it to Jordan for Gatsby’s golfer friend. The boys are housesitting for a professor who’s spending a year at Oxford, living in a cozy, book-filled Victorian Jordan visits for the first time after watching The Deer Hunter at the student union on her first date with Sam. As their relationship proceeds, Jordan is practically living at the house herself, trying hard not to notice that she’s actually in love with Yash. A Baptist, Sam has an everything-but policy about sex that only increases the tension. The title of the book refers to a nickname for the king of hearts from an obscure card game the three of them play called Sir Hincomb Funnibuster, and both the game and variations on the moniker recur as the novel spins through and past Jordan’s senior year, then decades into the future. King is a genius at writing love stories—including Euphoria (2014), which won the Kirkus Prize—and her mostly sunny version of the campus novel is an enjoyable alternative to the current vogue for dark academia. Tragedies are on the way, though, as we know they must be, since nothing gold can stay and these darn fictional characters seem to make the same kinds of stupid mistakes that real people do. Tenderhearted readers will soak the pages of the last chapter with tears.
That college love affair you never got over? Come wallow in this gorgeous version of it.Pub Date: Oct. 7, 2025
ISBN: 9780802165176
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Grove
Review Posted Online: July 4, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2025
PERSPECTIVES
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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