A curiously sweet-tempered novel that finds the upside of global catastrophe.
A mother and son journal their way through the end of the world.
Veteran writer Ros structures this novel as diary entries written by Dylan and his mother, Rowenna, in the tiny Welsh town of Nebo, which has been emptied following a nuclear apocalypse they call The End. (A nuclear war has devastated America at the very least, and a nuclear power plant meltdown occurs closer to home.) The two have been breaking into abandoned houses for supplies (including notebooks like the “blue book” of the title) to sustain themselves and Rowenna’s young daughter, Mona. It’s clear early on in this trim novel that the usual sense of post-apocalyptic dread doesn’t apply here: The power’s out, but there are no marauding thugs, military incursions, or other imminent threats. And though there’s evidence that the world’s gone off-kilter (like a mutated two-headed hare and masses of slugs escaping the poisoned soil), the prevailing theme is renewal. Dylan’s entries are thick with observations of nature and pride in self-subsistence. Rowenna’s entries are at first brooding, both about The End and her own story, particularly the (absent) fathers of her children. But as the years tracked by the novel press on, she shifts toward more upbeat observations as well. Rowenna reaccesses her grasp of Welsh-language reading and writing, symbolizing the idea that progress distanced us from our roots and that perhaps a reboot isn’t such a bad thing. (Ros translated the book herself from the original Welsh.) The who-needs-civilization-anyhow perspective can get cloying. (“Cooking is a lovely thing. You make something, and then you get to eat it.”) But Rowenna’s flintiness and Dylan’s maturity keep this brief novel from becoming overly simplistic. And a closing twist is both ambiguous and further challenges typical ideas about the genre.
A curiously sweet-tempered novel that finds the upside of global catastrophe.Pub Date: Sept. 14, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-64605-100-7
Page Count: 156
Publisher: Deep Vellum
Review Posted Online: July 27, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2021
BOOK REVIEW
A sweet and tart story stretched over a quirky frame.
A marriage is tested when one of the husbands is abducted by aliens.
Poor Jesse. One of the first things he says to Norman after their meet-cute—colliding on the bike path in Venice, California—is, “Where you go I go.” But years later, after they’ve moved to Joshua Tree, passed middle age, and are contemplating their cooling marriage, Norman steps into an unexplained beam of light in their yard one night and disappears. Jesse enters a period of grief, but also something stranger, since he has no answers and doesn’t know how to talk to anyone about his unheard-of circumstances—though, interestingly, he doesn’t seem to debate with himself about whether he should even try. There are other, more straightforward kinds of grief in this novel, too. For Jesse, there’s the pain of never having had a father, as well as the sorrow he felt after an adoption attempt with Norman that fell through at the last minute. For Norman’s sister, Lally, there’s grief over a brother who died in an accident when she was 5, and over her own nonexistent motherhood. She wants access to the embryos she helped create for Norman and Jesse, but Jesse is prickly about this request. Well, it’s a Steven Rowley book, so most of the characters are prickly. Other things Rowley does well: quippy one-liners (though occasionally a joke comes out of a minor character’s mouth that sounds more like the author’s voice), tertiary characters who shine, funny party scenes with a mix of offbeat personalities and perfectly timed chaos. Also: detailed place description and a tender, unhurried contemplation of the human condition. Plot and structure aren’t so much his bag. Norman is a particularly tough character to grasp. He is less well formed than many of the other characters and neither his disappearance nor the problems in his marriage feel adequately solved.
A sweet and tart story stretched over a quirky frame.Pub Date: May 19, 2026
ISBN: 9780593851494
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: April 20, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2026
BOOK TO SCREEN
Suspenseful, frightening, and sometimes poignant—provided the reader has a generously willing suspension of disbelief.
A man walks out of a bar and his life becomes a kaleidoscope of altered states in this science-fiction thriller.
Crouch opens on a family in a warm, resonant domestic moment with three well-developed characters. At home in Chicago’s Logan Square, Jason Dessen dices an onion while his wife, Daniela, sips wine and chats on the phone. Their son, Charlie, an appealing 15-year-old, sketches on a pad. Still, an undertone of regret hovers over the couple, a preoccupation with roads not taken, a theme the book will literally explore, in multifarious ways. To start, both Jason and Daniela abandoned careers that might have soared, Jason as a physicist, Daniela as an artist. When Charlie was born, he suffered a major illness. Jason was forced to abandon promising research to teach undergraduates at a small college. Daniela turned from having gallery shows to teaching private art lessons to middle school students. On this bracing October evening, Jason visits a local bar to pay homage to Ryan Holder, a former college roommate who just received a major award for his work in neuroscience, an honor that rankles Jason, who, Ryan says, gave up on his career. Smarting from the comment, Jason suffers “a sucker punch” as he heads home that leaves him “standing on the precipice.” From behind Jason, a man with a “ghost white” face, “red, pursed lips," and "horrifying eyes” points a gun at Jason and forces him to drive an SUV, following preset navigational directions. At their destination, the abductor forces Jason to strip naked, beats him, then leads him into a vast, abandoned power plant. Here, Jason meets men and women who insist they want to help him. Attempting to escape, Jason opens a door that leads him into a series of dark, strange, yet eerily familiar encounters that sometimes strain credibility, especially in the tale's final moments.
Suspenseful, frightening, and sometimes poignant—provided the reader has a generously willing suspension of disbelief.Pub Date: July 26, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-101-90422-0
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: May 3, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2016
PROFILES
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