A captivating tale that artfully explicates a strange profession.
A commercial jingle composer is framed for murder and becomes the target of repeated assassination attempts in Levine’s novel.
In 1979, Ernie Lanier and Annie Sands have been together for nearly a decade. He was once the lead singer and bass player for a band called Generation Gap that rose to prominence in the 1960s, in part for its fierce opposition to the Vietnam War; she was in The Love Notes, a popular band that had one of its singles top the charts for months in 1962. Now, they’re firmly entrenched in the establishment they once so stridently opposed, writing and performing commercial jingles, and doing well enough to afford a garden apartment on Manhattan’s Upper West Side—a delicious irony in a book brimming with them. (Ernie wrote the jingle for a Clio-winning commercial selling dandruff shampoo, solidifying his place in the industry after only three years working in it.) One day, Ernie engages in an acrimonious argument with Harold Gordell, music director for ad agency Picknitter and Ogrely, an imperious man with more power than social grace. Shortly after, Harold is discovered dead, shot in his own office and clutching Ernie’s music in his hand. Unsurprisingly, Det. Lloyd Raymond is quickly convinced Ernie is the culprit; Ernie is just as quickly convinced he is being framed, a suspicion confirmed when he realizes someone broke into his home and left behind a picture (of Harold and Richard Nixon) stolen from Harold’s office. Later, Ernie is violently mugged on the street, and the perpetrator shoves the gun used to kill Harold into his pocket. The good news is that Raymond now comes to believe Ernie; the bad news is that, after failing to frame him, Harold’s murderer now turns his attentions to killing Ernie as well.
Levine paints an extraordinary picture of the commercial jingle world, an industry whose silliness (some of the jingle lyrics provided are hilariously banal) is belied by the savage nature of its competitiveness. As Annie sardonically puts it, “Wonderful business, isn’t it?” The deeper Ernie digs into the identity of his would-be killer, the more he is reminded of how volatile his profession is, riven by rivalry and massive financial stakes and rife with hard drugs. The author is guilty of some minor literary missteps, specifically some corny prose. When Ernie realizes his and Annie’s lives are in peril, he commits to finding his assassin, and his resolve is expressed with cinematic melodrama: “Whoever this motherfucker is, he doesn’t just have the cops to deal with. He’s got me.” Additionally, the conclusion of the story is so formulaic that it renders the climax disappointingly anticlimactic, though it’s intended to be an electrifying crescendo. Still, none of these flaws fatally undermines the narrative, which is worth the price of admission for its striking portrayal of a genuinely peculiar industry, one which permeates our lives but likely remains a mystery to most. This is an endlessly entertaining novel—funny, edifying, and immersive.
A captivating tale that artfully explicates a strange profession.Pub Date: April 5, 2024
ISBN: 9798218383657
Page Count: 197
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: June 17, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2024
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
Amateurish, with a twist savvy readers will see coming from a mile away.
A woman accused of shooting her husband six times in the face refuses to speak.
"Alicia Berenson was thirty-three years old when she killed her husband. They had been married for seven years. They were both artists—Alicia was a painter, and Gabriel was a well-known fashion photographer." Michaelides' debut is narrated in the voice of psychotherapist Theo Faber, who applies for a job at the institution where Alicia is incarcerated because he's fascinated with her case and believes he will be able to get her to talk. The narration of the increasingly unrealistic events that follow is interwoven with excerpts from Alicia's diary. Ah, yes, the old interwoven diary trick. When you read Alicia's diary you'll conclude the woman could well have been a novelist instead of a painter because it contains page after page of detailed dialogue, scenes, and conversations quite unlike those in any journal you've ever seen. " 'What's the matter?' 'I can't talk about it on the phone, I need to see you.' 'It's just—I'm not sure I can make it up to Cambridge at the minute.' 'I'll come to you. This afternoon. Okay?' Something in Paul's voice made me agree without thinking about it. He sounded desperate. 'Okay. Are you sure you can't tell me about it now?' 'I'll see you later.' Paul hung up." Wouldn't all this appear in a diary as "Paul wouldn't tell me what was wrong"? An even more improbable entry is the one that pins the tail on the killer. While much of the book is clumsy, contrived, and silly, it is while reading passages of the diary that one may actually find oneself laughing out loud.
Amateurish, with a twist savvy readers will see coming from a mile away.Pub Date: Feb. 5, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-250-30169-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Celadon Books
Review Posted Online: Nov. 3, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2018
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