Fiction that explores not only what it means, but why it matters.
An allegorical novella challenges readers to connect the dots and fill in the blanks.
Though the narrative is short, there is plenty to unpack here as the Mexican-born avant-gardist Bellatin conjures an imaginary Japan where convention is under challenge. Institutions seem to be crumbling beneath their smooth surfaces, and marriage is one of them. Mrs. Murakami has all but lost her identity and personality after marriage, with most of the story detailing her formative years as the schoolgirl Izu. She was bright and independent, constricted by the customs concerning single women, beset by her father’s health and legal issues. As an art student, she finds herself unwittingly in conspiracy with a charismatic professor and the editor of an influential magazine. The professor assigns her to write an analysis of Mr. Murakami’s art collection, which turns out to be a somewhat disparaging appraisal, and the magazine’s director wants to publish it. “ ‘Finally, someone dared to unmask a fraud whose collection rests on obsolete criteria,’ ” the director says. Yet her visit with Mr. Murakami had left him smitten, and despite a chill in the relationship after her piece was published, they married. Even so, his collection had been discredited, and there were rumors of scandal, that he was connected to “a criminal network that purchased used underwear from students at various all-girls schools and sold them to wealthy men.” In marriage, the two seem to know little about each other and care less. His death leaves his wife all but destitute, though she still has her garden, which he continues to haunt. Following the frequently footnoted narrative, the text concludes with an addenda of 24 numbered items, questions, and considerations for the reader, including a potential plot twist that suggests that “the true motivations of the story’s protagonists will never be known.” Bellatin is a playful novelist who isn't trying to hold the mirror to reality, provide allegory or philosophy or life lessons, and reading this provocative novella makes one consider all sorts of assumptions about "why read?" and "why write?"
Fiction that explores not only what it means, but why it matters.Pub Date: Oct. 6, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-64605-029-1
Page Count: 112
Publisher: Deep Vellum
Review Posted Online: July 28, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2020
A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy.
Are we not men? We are—well, ask Bigfoot, as Brooks does in this delightful yarn, following on his bestseller World War Z(2006).
A zombie apocalypse is one thing. A volcanic eruption is quite another, for, as the journalist who does a framing voice-over narration for Brooks’ latest puts it, when Mount Rainier popped its cork, “it was the psychological aspect, the hyperbole-fueled hysteria that had ended up killing the most people.” Maybe, but the sasquatches whom the volcano displaced contributed to the statistics, too, if only out of self-defense. Brooks places the epicenter of the Bigfoot war in a high-tech hideaway populated by the kind of people you might find in a Jurassic Park franchise: the schmo who doesn’t know how to do much of anything but tries anyway, the well-intentioned bleeding heart, the know-it-all intellectual who turns out to know the wrong things, the immigrant with a tough backstory and an instinct for survival. Indeed, the novel does double duty as a survival manual, packed full of good advice—for instance, try not to get wounded, for “injury turns you from a giver to a taker. Taking up our resources, our time to care for you.” Brooks presents a case for making room for Bigfoot in the world while peppering his narrative with timely social criticism about bad behavior on the human side of the conflict: The explosion of Rainier might have been better forecast had the president not slashed the budget of the U.S. Geological Survey, leading to “immediate suspension of the National Volcano Early Warning System,” and there’s always someone around looking to monetize the natural disaster and the sasquatch-y onslaught that follows. Brooks is a pro at building suspense even if it plays out in some rather spectacularly yucky episodes, one involving a short spear that takes its name from “the sucking sound of pulling it out of the dead man’s heart and lungs.” Grossness aside, it puts you right there on the scene.
A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy.Pub Date: June 16, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-9848-2678-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Del Rey/Ballantine
Review Posted Online: Feb. 9, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK TO SCREEN
Sink your teeth into this delightful paranormal romance with a modern twist.
A vampire and an Alpha werewolf enter into a marriage of convenience in order to ease tensions between their species.
As the only daughter of a prominent Vampyre councilman, Misery Lark has grown accustomed to playing the role that’s demanded of her—and now, her father is ordering her to be part of yet another truce agreement. In an effort to maintain goodwill between the Vampyres and their longtime nemeses the Weres, Misery must wed their Alpha, Lowe Moreland. But it turns out that Misery has her own motivations for agreeing to this political marriage, including finding answers about what happened to her best friend, who went missing after setting up a meeting in Were territory. Isolated from her kind and surrounded on all sides by the enemy after the wedding, Misery refuses to let herself forget about her real mission. It doesn’t matter that Lowe is one of the most confounding and intense people she’s ever met, or that the connection building between them doesn’t feel like one born entirely of convenience. There’s also the possibility that Lowe may already have a Were mate of his own, but in spite of their biological differences, they may turn out to be the missing piece in each other’s lives. While this is Hazelwood’s first paranormal romance, and the book does lean on some hallmark tropes of the genre, the contemporary setting lends itself to the author’s trademark humor and makes the political plot more easily digestible. Misery and Lowe’s slow-burn romance is appealing enough that readers will readily devour every moment between them and hunger to return to them whenever the story diverts from their scenes together.
Sink your teeth into this delightful paranormal romance with a modern twist.Pub Date: Feb. 6, 2024
ISBN: 9780593550403
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Berkley
Review Posted Online: Oct. 21, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2023
PERSPECTIVES
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