An elegantly written proof of the thesis that love conquers all—but not without considerable pain.
A sometimes tender, sometimes fraught story of interracial love in a time of trouble.
“I have never heard of a white man who got so little good out of being a white man.” So chides Della Miles, upbraiding John Ames Boughton at the opening of Robinson’s latest novel, set in an unspecified time, though certainly one of legal racial segregation. Jack hails from Gilead, Iowa, where so many of Robinson’s stories are set, and he has a grave waiting there that he seems in a headlong rush to occupy. He drinks, he steals, he wanders, he’s a vagrant. Now he's in the Black part of St. Louis, an object of suspicion and concern, known locally as “That White Man That Keeps Walking Up and Down the Street All the Time.” Della is a schoolteacher, at home in Shakespeare and the classics. Jack is inclined to Milton. He is Presbyterian by birth, she Methodist and pious—but not so much that she can’t laugh when he calls himself the Prince of Darkness. Both are the children of ministers, both smart and self-aware, happy to argue about poetry and predestination in a Whites-only graveyard. The arguments continue, both playful and serious, as their love grows and as Jack tries his hand at the workaday world, wearing a tie and working a till—and, more important, not drinking. Pledged to each other like Romeo and Juliet, they suffer being parted more than they do having to deal with the disapproval of others, whether White or Black, though Della's father, aunt, brothers, and sister all separately tell Jack to leave her alone, and once, when Jack's landlady finds out that Della is Black, she demands that he leave. The reader will by this time doubtless be pulling for them, though also wondering how the proper Della puts up with the definitively scruffy Jack, even if it’s clear that they love each other without reservation. Robinson’s storytelling relies heavily on dialogue, moreso than her other work, and involves only a few scene changes, as if first sketched out as a play. The story flows swiftly—and without a hint of inevitability—as Robinson explores a favorite theme, “guilt and grace met together.”
An elegantly written proof of the thesis that love conquers all—but not without considerable pain.Pub Date: Sept. 29, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-374-27930-1
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: June 15, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2020
PERSPECTIVES
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
An uncompromising message, delivered via a gripping story with two engaging heroines.
An undergraduate at Brown University unearths the buried history of a Latine artist.
As in her bestselling debut, Olga Dies Dreaming (2022), Gonzalez shrewdly anatomizes racial and class hierarchies. Her bifurcated novel begins at a posh art-world party in 1985 as the title character, a Cuban American land and body artist, garners recognition that threatens the ego of her older, more famous husband, white minimalist sculptor Jack Martin. The story then shifts to Raquel Toro, whose working-class, Puerto Rican background makes her feel out of place among the “Art History Girls” who easily chat with professors and vacation in Europe. Nonetheless, in the spring of 1998, Raquel wins a prestigious summer fellowship at the Rhode Island School of Design, and her faculty adviser is enthusiastic about her thesis on Jack Martin, even if she’s not. Soon she’s enjoying the attentions of Nick Fitzsimmons, a well-connected, upper-crust senior. As Raquel’s story progresses, Anita’s first-person narrative acquires a supernatural twist following the night she falls from the window of their apartment —“jumped? or, could it be, pushed?”—but it’s grimly realistic in its exploration of her toxic relationship with Jack. (A dedication, “In memory of Ana,” flags the notorious case of sculptor Carl Andre, tried and acquitted for the murder of his wife, artist Ana Mendieta.) Raquel’s affair with Nick mirrors that unequal dynamic when she adapts her schedule and appearance to his whims, neglecting her friends and her family in Brooklyn. Gonzalez, herself a Brown graduate, brilliantly captures the daily slights endured by someone perceived as Other, from microaggressions (Raquel’s adviser refers to her as “Mexican”) to brutally racist behavior by the Art History Girls. While a vividly rendered supporting cast urges Raquel to be true to herself and her roots, her research on Martin leads to Anita’s art and the realization that she belongs to a tradition that’s been erased from mainstream art history.
An uncompromising message, delivered via a gripping story with two engaging heroines.Pub Date: March 5, 2024
ISBN: 9781250786210
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Flatiron Books
Review Posted Online: Nov. 18, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2023
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A beautiful reminder that the world is full of tragedy, but life-changing joy and connection might be just around the corner.
A man makes his way across the country to find his high school crush—accompanied by his adult daughter, two orphans, and a cat with the power to predict death.
PJ Halliday may have won $1.5 million from the scratch-off lottery ticket he drunkenly bought at a gas station 10 years ago, but his life has been far from lucky. At 63, he’s an alcoholic hoarder who’s had three heart attacks and been fired from his job as a postal worker in Pondville, Massachusetts (they didn’t like it when he drove the mail truck into a pond). But the two tragedies in PJ’s life happened when his teenage daughter died and his wife, Ivy, left him. PJ, ever the charmer, now has breakfast every day at Ivy’s house with her and her new partner, Fred, which is where he sees the obituary that lets him know his high school sweetheart is now single. She’s all the way in Arizona and PJ can’t technically drive (again, the DUIs), but he begins hatching a plan to go confess his love to her as soon as Ivy and Fred leave for an Alaskan vacation. PJ isn’t looking forward to being left alone in Pondville, since he has a complicated relationship with his other daughter, Sophie. But what PJ doesn’t expect is to suddenly become the guardian of two orphans, his estranged brother’s grandchildren. Luna and Ollie are dealing with the violent deaths of both their parents, although Luna is convinced that her real father is a soap opera star and that she needs to go find him. PJ figures they can combine their trips and decides to take the children with him on a road trip to find his true love and Luna’s father. Sophie, who’s struggling herself and a little concerned about the kids’ safety, decides to come along. They also bring Pancakes, a cat who wandered out of a nursing home and into PJ’s life. Pancakes has the ability to predict death, which comes into play surprisingly often over the course of the road trip. Hartnett is a master at balancing quirky elements and some truly dark subject matter, like PJ’s grief and the kids’ parents’ deaths. PJ is a remarkable character who remains fascinating and often charming even when he’s frustrating, but every character—even the people PJ briefly encounters on the road trip—feels fully realized.
A beautiful reminder that the world is full of tragedy, but life-changing joy and connection might be just around the corner.Pub Date: April 29, 2025
ISBN: 9780593873441
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: March 22, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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