It doesn’t get more elegiac than this.
Visits to a Civil War–era boardinghouse, a hospice in the Bronx, and the underworld.
“WELL, THAT WAS WEIRD” is Finn's answer when asked what words of wisdom he would like inscribed on his tombstone—by his dead ex-girlfriend, whom he has retrieved from the green cemetery where she was buried and is now giving a lift to...the other side. IT CERTAINLY WAS, thinks the reader of the novel Finn occupies. This otherworldly fairy tale opens with a letter written by the proprietress of an inn in the Confederate South to her sister, describing some trouble she is having with a handsome boarder. One is slightly bewildered, but also relieved, to find the second section of the book transporting us to what Finn, a recently fired schoolteacher, thinks of as "No York," home of neighborhoods NoHo, NoMad (“of course that was where he was staying”), and Nolita (“Didn't he date her in high school? Or rather, junior high?”). On the way to see his brother, Max, on his deathbed, Finn is planning some patter to amuse him, and if you know Moore, you can foresee that this will be some fine patter indeed. But then Finn is torn away from “the bardo of the hospice [with] its trapped souls and the steel beds and alarmingly colored drinks” by a phone call informing him of the suicide of his one-time girlfriend Lily, who had left him for another man but in death will be his alone. The story of Lily and Finn’s road trip and their passionate banter about life and death and love is interspersed with more letters from the landlady. Perhaps you will understand why, but if not you can focus on other Moore-ish delights, among them extraordinarily lovely descriptions of the hues and aromas of a decomposing body.
It doesn’t get more elegiac than this.Pub Date: June 20, 2023
ISBN: 9780307594143
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: April 24, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2023
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
The range and virtuosity of these stories make this Mosley’s most adventurous and, maybe, best book.
A grandmaster of the hard-boiled crime genre shifts gears to spin bittersweet and, at times, bizarre tales about bruised, sensitive souls in love and trouble.
In one of the 17 stories that make up this collection, a supporting character says: “People are so afraid of dying that they don’t even live the little bit of life they have.” She casually drops this gnomic observation as a way of breaking down a lead character’s resistance to smoking a cigarette. But her aphorism could apply to almost all the eponymous awkward Black men examined with dry wit and deep empathy by the versatile and prolific Mosley, who takes one of his occasional departures from detective fiction to illuminate the many ways Black men confound society’s expectations and even perplex themselves. There is, for instance, Rufus Coombs, the mailroom messenger in “Pet Fly,” who connects more easily with household pests than he does with the women who work in his building. Or Albert Roundhouse, of “Almost Alyce,” who loses the love of his life and falls into a welter of alcohol, vagrancy, and, ultimately, enlightenment. Perhaps most alienated of all is Michael Trey in “Between Storms,” who locks himself in his New York City apartment after being traumatized by a major storm and finds himself taken by the outside world as a prophet—not of doom, but, maybe, peace? Not all these awkward types are hapless or benign: The short, shy surgeon in “Cut, Cut, Cut” turns out to be something like a mad scientist out of H.G. Wells while “Showdown on the Hudson” is a saga about an authentic Black cowboy from Texas who’s not exactly a perfect fit for New York City but is soon compelled to do the right thing, Western-style. The tough-minded and tenderly observant Mosley style remains constant throughout these stories even as they display varied approaches from the gothic to the surreal.
The range and virtuosity of these stories make this Mosley’s most adventurous and, maybe, best book.Pub Date: Sept. 15, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-8021-4956-5
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Grove
Review Posted Online: Sept. 1, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
PERSPECTIVES
A moving, hilarious reminder that parenthood, just like life, means constant change.
During an annual beach vacation, a mother confronts her past and learns to move forward.
Her family’s annual trip to Cape Cod is always the highlight of Rocky’s year—even more so now that her children are grown and she cherishes what little time she gets with them. Rocky is deep in the throes of menopause, picking fights with her loving husband and occasionally throwing off her clothes during a hot flash, much to the chagrin of her family. She’s also dealing with her parents, who are crammed into the same small summer house (with one toilet that only occasionally spews sewage everywhere) and who are aging at an alarmingly rapid rate. Rocky’s life is full of change, from her body to her identity—she frequently flashes back to the vacations of years past, when her children were tiny. Although she’s grateful for the family she has, she mourns what she’s lost. Newman (author of the equally wonderful We All Want Impossible Things, 2022) imbues Rocky’s internal struggles with importance and gravity, all while showcasing her very funny observations about life and parenting. She examines motherhood with a raw honesty that few others manage—she remembers the hard parts, the depths of despair, panic, and anxiety that can happen with young children, and she also recounts the joy in a way that never feels saccharine. She has a gift for exploring the real, messy contradictions in human emotions. As Rocky puts it, “This may be the only reason we were put on this earth. To say to each other, I know how you feel.”
A moving, hilarious reminder that parenthood, just like life, means constant change.Pub Date: June 18, 2024
ISBN: 9780063345164
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: March 23, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2024
PERSPECTIVES
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