Ghosts, angels, and demons hover in this quiet meditation on grief, love, and history.
A man’s death changes reality for his widow and daughter.
Originally published in Hungary in 1963, this newly translated novel by Prix Femina Etranger winner Szabó (1917-2007) (The Door, 2003, etc.) explores the clash of cultures between the country’s rural villages, mired in tradition, and its capital city, Budapest, uneasily sloughing off personal and collective memory. Szabó’s gentle, deliberate narrative begins in 1960 with the death of Vince Szócs, a judge whose career was truncated when he made a decision opposed by the rightist military regime; he was 66, already weakened by illness, when he was finally “rehabilitated.” He and his wife, Ettie, lived a simple, circumscribed, rustic life. Ettie “didn’t trust machines” or even “things as basic as electricity.” She preferred candles and toasting bread over a fire; “when the fire was lit she didn’t feel she was alone, not even when the house was empty.” The couple's daughter, Iza, takes charge the moment Vince dies, insisting that her mother come to Budapest, where Iza is a respected, well-paid physician. "What a delight it must be to move to Budapest,” neighbors thought, “to leave sad memories behind and to enjoy a happy old age in new circumstances.” But Ettie becomes disoriented and lonely in her daughter’s modern apartment, where a housekeeper cleans and cooks, where she has no friends and nothing to do, and where she cannot feel Vince’s spirit. As the story unfolds, Szabó reveals the complexities of the past, not only for Ettie, but also for Iza, whose coldness and self-discipline seem inexplicable to many who know her; Iza’s estranged husband; and his fiancee, a nurse who once deeply revered Iza but comes to pity her: "The poor woman believes that old people’s pasts are the enemy,” Lidia realizes. “She has failed to notice how those pasts are explanations and values, the key to the present.”
Ghosts, angels, and demons hover in this quiet meditation on grief, love, and history.Pub Date: Oct. 18, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-681-37034-7
Page Count: 336
Publisher: New York Review Books
Review Posted Online: Aug. 7, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2016
Corrosive dispatches from the divided heart of America.
Edgy humor and fierce imagery coexist in these stories with shrewd characterization and humane intelligence, inspired by volatile material sliced off the front pages.
The state of race relations in post-millennial America haunts most of the stories in this debut collection. Yet Adjei-Brenyah brings to what pundits label our “ongoing racial dialogue” a deadpan style, an acerbic perspective, and a wicked imagination that collectively upend readers’ expectations. “The Finkelstein 5,” the opener, deals with the furor surrounding the murder trial of a white man claiming self-defense in slaughtering five black children with a chainsaw. The story is as prickly in its view toward black citizens seeking their own justice as it is pitiless toward white bigots pressing for an acquittal. An even more caustic companion story, “Zimmer Land,” is told from the perspective of an African-American employee of a mythical theme park whose white patrons are encouraged to act out their fantasies of dispensing brutal justice to people of color they regard as threatening on sight, or “problem solving," as its mission statement calls it. Such dystopian motifs recur throughout the collection: “The Era,” for example, identifies oppressive class divisions in a post-apocalyptic school district where self-esteem seems obtainable only through regular injections of a controlled substance called “Good.” The title story, meanwhile, riotously reimagines holiday shopping as the blood-spattered zombie movie you sometimes fear it could be in real life. As alternately gaudy and bleak as such visions are, there’s more in Adjei-Brenyah’s quiver besides tough-minded satire, as exhibited in “The Lion & the Spider,” a tender coming-of-age story cleverly framed in the context of an African fable.
Corrosive dispatches from the divided heart of America.Pub Date: Oct. 23, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-328-91124-7
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Mariner/Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Review Posted Online: July 16, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
PROFILES
A thought-provoking look at women of a certain age and the choices they make when they realize their lives aren’t exactly...
In a Marin County neighborhood, four women help each other amid marital strife, personal crises and life-altering epiphanies.
For years, Mill Valley, Calif., neighbors Gerri, Andy and Sonja have started most of their days with a brisk walk, but one early spring morning, Andy has had enough with her younger second husband, and she skips the walk and throws him out. It is a loud, angry event, but it is a long time coming, and it sets off a series of surprising upheavals in the lives of her friends. Gerri takes an unplanned trip to her husband’s office in San Francisco, and a conversation with his co-worker makes her question everything she knew about her marriage. Sonja, dedicated to New-Age strategies for health and wellness, is thrown off balance by Andy’s marital strife, then spirals into life-threatening depression when her husband leaves her. As each woman deals with her own personal crossroad, they are collectively drawn to newcomer BJ, who has never shown interest in socializing before but becomes the fresh new pair of eyes that notices change at crucial moments and steps in to help when help is most needed. Hugely popular romance author Carr (The Wanderer, 2013, etc.) steps into women’s fiction territory with this quietly powerful exploration of friendship, marriage and midlife crisis. The characters are realistic and compelling, facing life after 40 with grace, courage and a fierce interpersonal loyalty that is convincing and inspiring. The storyline sounds familiar, yet Carr handles the plot and characters with a deft hand and enough unique twists that we are invested in the characters’ well-beings, and we are touched by their struggles, especially since we see each of them at their best and their worst.
A thought-provoking look at women of a certain age and the choices they make when they realize their lives aren’t exactly what they expected—or thought they were.Pub Date: March 25, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-7783-1681-7
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Harlequin MIRA
Review Posted Online: Feb. 3, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2014
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