A gimlet-eyed look at a fascinating period in history.
In Carrington’s historical novel, set during the reign of Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius, a young man aspires to become the greatest wrestler of his time.
Alexander longs to be a champion wrestler—he yearns to train at an elite palaestra and receive the laurel crown of victory from none other than the Caesar, Marcus Aurelius. He’s naturally gifted and has never been defeated, but for the time being he merely fights in disreputable matches (upon which drunks and criminals wager) arranged by his father, Marcus, a carpenter of modest means, in the Roman neighborhood the Subura. Such informal bouts can be dangerous—those who lose their bets can be violently vindictive, and a local gang leader, Flavius, aims to commandeer Alexander’s career for his own profit (such perils of ancient Rome are vividly depicted by the author). An opportunity arises when Marcus asks Aulus Virius, an old friend from his days in the navy, to help Alexander; he arranges for the youth to train with Gaius, a renowned wrestling coach. Part of the deal is that Marcus must return to the navy, a fraught exchange given the brewing of rebellion among the Germanic tribes and the Sarmatians. A bright future seems to dawn for Alexander, but his prospects dim when he is quickly expelled from Gaius’ school for illicit gambling and Marcus is killed in an ambush while at sea. In the aftermath of these disasters, Alexander’s mother, Elena, decides to move the two of them back to her homeland of Delos and enjoy the hospitality of her well-heeled brother, Nikos. Alexander begins to train again with Demetrius, a rival of Gaius and an old friend of Marcus. Alexander still aspires to become a great champion, and to win the love of Zoe, who was once the paramour of his chief competitor in Delos, the smug Dario.
Carrington’s command of the relevant historical information is extraordinary, and as a result both Rome and Delos are brought to pulsing life. For all its greatness and wealth, Rome is depicted here as a morally squalid place brimming with dangers and temptations to vice. Alexander’s ambition is palpable—he can’t bear the thought of sinking into eternal oblivion, his name forgotten. (He’s driven by a desire for “A place among the elite. A name held in the highest regard. A reputation worthy of the greatest wrestlers.”) The author provides a powerfully dramatic backdrop for Alexander’s quest for fame—while in Delos, he learns an extraordinary family secret, one his mother has zealously guarded his entire life that could potentially threaten them if discovered. Carrington’s writing style is straightforward and simple, unadorned by poetic embellishments or narrative gimmicks. The story’s strength lies in its engrossing plot and painstakingly crafted characters—there are no contrived types in this story, no obviously manufactured token personalities. (There is so much depth in the portrayal of Elena, she could warrant a novel of her own.) This is exactly what a discerning reader should expect from historical fiction—rigorous verisimilitude, complex characterization, and an enthralling plot.
A gimlet-eyed look at a fascinating period in history.Pub Date: May 24, 2025
ISBN: 9798991298605
Page Count: 248
Publisher: Albion Literary House
Review Posted Online: May 5, 2025
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
An evocative and moving tribute to the death-defying, heart-opening, infinitely redemptive power of storytelling.
A chance meeting in a museum unlocks a long-closed door in a family’s past.
Of a piece with her last three novels—Commonwealth (2016), The Dutch House (2019), and Tom Lake (2023)—Patchett’s latest explores the evolution of families over time, romantic secrets, and step-relationships, again giving these topics the wry and tender treatment that is distinctively hers. As it begins, Daphne Fuller’s attentive husband, Jonathan, notices that a man has been following them through the Metropolitan Museum of Art. At first they chalk it up to the fact that “old guys love [Daphne],” as she told Jonathan decades ago, a notion he has held onto "like a souvenir postcard from another era." But it turns out that, though Daphne doesn’t recognize him, Eddie Triplett is her former stepfather. Like the author herself, as recalled in her 2020 essay “Three Fathers,” Daphne has had three dads. Her biological father, a deep-sea fisherman named Buddy Zabriskie, left the family early; her current stepfather, Lucas Ekker, lives with her mother in retirement in Massachusetts. Ekker is an unprepossessing sort Abby met working as the publicist for his self-help books, Positivity!, Positively Positive!, The Positivity Workbook!, Positive Every Day!, ad infinitum. The man in the museum, Eddie Triplett, was also someone her mother met through her job in publishing, and once Daphne realizes who he is, she remembers that “[their] hearts were forever stitched together.” This is because Daphne and Eddie were in a serious car accident when she was 9 years old, after which her mother immediately divorced him and evicted him from their lives. The details of that accident—among them lies the reason the novel is named after a horse called Whistler—are gradually wheedled out of Daphne by her younger sister, Leda, a clinical psychologist in New York and a reliable source of insight on the narrative’s key issues. “‘You make it sound like I’ve been keeping all this from you, but I’m not,’ [Daphne] said. ‘Who goes through life thinking about what happened when they were nine?’ ‘It’s all people think about,’ Leda said.”
An evocative and moving tribute to the death-defying, heart-opening, infinitely redemptive power of storytelling.Pub Date: June 2, 2026
ISBN: 9780063511637
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: April 6, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2026
PERSPECTIVES
PERSPECTIVES
SEEN & HEARD
Fans of Stockett’s bestselling debut will love this engaging follow-up.
Stockett heads to Mississippi for another historical novel about feisty women.
This time, perhaps recalling criticisms of cultural appropriation in The Help (2009), she sticks to feisty white women, with one exception. The setting is Oxford in 1933. For two miserable years, 11-year-old Meg has lived in “the Orphan,” a county asylum for parentless girls. Chairlady Garnett—a villain so one-note she’d twirl a mustache if she had one—makes it her mission to ostracize the older girls she deems unadoptable, stigmatizing them as offspring of the “feebleminded” mothers who abandoned them. She particularly has it in for smart, sassy Meg, who refuses to believe her mother’s mysterious disappearance was deliberate. Elsewhere in Oxford, Birdie Calhoun comes to visit her sister Frances, who married a wealthy banker, to ask for money on behalf of their mother and grandmother back in Footely. Frances isn’t thrilled by this reminder of her impoverished small-town origins. But she’s trying to climb up in Oxford society by volunteering at the Orphan, the asylum’s books need to be done before the state inspector shows up in a few weeks, and Birdie is a bookkeeper. Having neatly arranged to keep Birdie in town and draw these two storylines together, Stockett goes on to spin a compulsively readable yarn with enough plot for a half-dozen novels. Birdie and Meg become friends, Meg is adopted despite Garnett’s best efforts, Meg’s mother turns up at the Orphan demanding to know where her child is—and that’s less than a quarter of the way through a long, winding narrative that keeps piling on more dramatic developments until all loose ends are neatly, if hastily, wrapped up in the final pages. Stockett might be making a point about Southern women facing facts and standing up for themselves, but mostly this is just a satisfyingly twisty tale that should make a great miniseries.
Fans of Stockett’s bestselling debut will love this engaging follow-up.Pub Date: May 5, 2026
ISBN: 9781954118812
Page Count: 656
Publisher: Spiegel & Grau
Review Posted Online: Feb. 2, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2026
BOOK REVIEW
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