A satire that is both only funny and not funny enough.
A farcical comedy that revolves around a deeply dysfunctional family, the strange cosmos of casinos, and nuclear testing in the deserts of Nevada.
Psychologist Steve Nichols has been treating Bill Waterhouse for many years, always confidently unconvinced of his client’s principal grouse in life: Decades ago, Bill witnessed a nuclear test in Nevada at close range, an event he identifies as the sole source of his relentless troubles, which include a terrible stammer and erectile dysfunction. As a therapeutic measure, Nichols helps Bill fill out a governmental claim—a role-playing strategy—but it backfires when Bill in fact files it and receives an enormous payout from the government. Nichols is at first worried he is implicated in a fraud, and then furious that he has no payout of his own, but then he begins to wonder if maybe Bill was telling the truth all along. At the heart of this meandering comedy is the emotionally disheveled Waterhouse clan—Morton, Bill’s 20-something son, is a wayward graduate student in history enamored by Marcus Aurelius, harboring a “private obsession with all things Roman.” He works as a lowly greeter at Caesars Empire casino, forced to don a toga and “plastic aquila scepter.” When the casino attempts a brand makeover under the tutelage of Casinolabs, a “thematic design consultancy,” his academic expertise is noticed, and an opportunity for his own rebranding as a “wunderkind” becomes a possibility.
The author’s humor shines brightest when he satirizes the insipid commercial culture of the casino business. Here, Scarlett, Morton’s sister, explains the future of Caesar’s Empire: “Now Rome can truly rise to its destiny as a kid-friendly, multifarious, multicultural empire. No longer confined to a stuffy Mediterranean peninsula, it goes beyond borders to incorporate all the known world. So it’s more inclusive; its Egyptian, Punic, and Arabian territories are given more meaningful representation.” The “This is Circus-to-the-Maximus” concept is genuinely inventive and funny, as is the entire project to disingenuously mine the past for modern marketing gimmicks. Also, the conclusion of the book, though entirely implausible and disappointingly contrived, has the virtue of being surprisingly unpredictable. However, the novel, for the most part, is a rambling, ill-disciplined mess that conflates an absence of literary structure with comedy. There is hardly a page without a handful of jocular witticisms, and after a short while, this relentless barrage of one-liners becomes utterly exhausting. Finally, the work feels less like a novel and more like a very long standup routine. This is the challenge of such a lightsome farce—there are simply too many jokes, and the reader becomes desensitized to them; as a result of the absence of any gravity, none of the characters ever rise to full development. Some of the author’s jokes land, and there is much in Scrivner’s book that heartily entertains, but even at its best it does little more than that, and therefore never moves past the realm of superficial comedy into something more meaningful.
A satire that is both only funny and not funny enough.Pub Date: Feb. 6, 2025
ISBN: 9781923104624
Page Count: 373
Publisher: Exeter House Publishing
Review Posted Online: Feb. 24, 2025
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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