A lively deluge of madcap humor, sometimes more silly than genuinely funny.
A clueless IT worker gets falsely arrested for domestic terrorism in this satirical comedy.
Chris Dawkins is a content developer for Sixdub, a successful tech company in Silicon Valley. His mundane job largely consists of scouring the internet for copyright-free video—once found, his company replaces the original audio with “random, computer-generated rap lyrics.” While doing this, he thoughtlessly likes a video recorded in a language he cannot understand that turns out to be terrorist propaganda disseminated by the Militant Islamic Liberation Front, an organization based in fictional Zazaristan, where “goatfighting is a sport of gentlemen.” Problematically for Chris, FBI Director Dick Barry is aggressively pushing for showy counterterrorism victories and tasks his agents Stanley Murphy and Francis Sullivan—the only two members of the Boomer Sooner task force, which searches cyberspace for evidence of terrorism—with producing one. Barry communicates his order in the kind of zany vaudevillian humor that permeates Henry’s book: “What concerns me the most are the enemies that we don’t know that we don’t know about. Right now, somewhere out there, someone may be sneaking up on America with a knife. I want you to find this person or persons and shoot them in the face.” The agents discover Chris’ tenuous and unwitting connection to MILF. A judge then orders his house arrest for conspiracy to commit a terrorist act. But Chris’ employer, Jasper Wiles, decides the only way for the IT worker to clear his name is to stealthily head to Zazaristan, the home of the man in charge of MILF, Wahiri Shwarma, known as Mohammad Mohammad.
The author astutely satirizes the absurd hypocrisy often involved in the prosecution of supposed terrorists. Shwarma has actually abandoned any real terrorist aspirations after discovering it’s far cheaper to take credit for random disasters in the Western world, an example of Henry at his comedic best. While in Zazaristan, Chris meets Fareek Wazaan, his IT equivalent working for MILF, who’s about as interested in terrorism as Chris is, a memorable juxtaposition. The entire novel is written as a farce in the spirit of Joseph Heller’s work—Henry even includes silly “Study Questions” at the book’s end: “What would you say is the smoking age in Zazaristan?” Unfortunately, he attempts, often with laborious effort, to squeeze a punchline into nearly every sentence, a comic relentlessness that finally becomes tediously exhausting. In addition, one can’t expect all those jokes to smoothly land, and often the author settles for unspectacular slapstick. For example, after drinking a tea laced with some kind of drug while in Zazaristan, Chris suspects he’s endowed with magical powers: “Hold on, that’s ridiculous. There’s no such thing as magic. Superpowers. Yes, of course. Superpowers. Let me see if I can hovertate. Is that a word? Hovertate? Hoverlate? Leverate? Leverate. That’s it. Leverate.”
A lively deluge of madcap humor, sometimes more silly than genuinely funny.Pub Date: Oct. 20, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-578-70682-5
Page Count: 461
Publisher: Operation Dodecahedron
Review Posted Online: Aug. 26, 2020
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
An affecting portrait of a prickly woman.
A lifetime’s worth of letters combine to portray a singular character.
Sybil Van Antwerp, a cantankerous but exceedingly well-mannered septuagenarian, is the titular correspondent in Evans’ debut novel. Sybil has retired from a beloved job as chief clerk to a judge with whom she had previously been in private legal practice. She is the divorced mother of two living adult children and one who died when he was 8. She is a reader of novels, a gardener, and a keen observer of human nature. But the most distinguishing thing about Sybil is her lifelong practice of letter writing. As advancing vision problems threaten Sybil’s carefully constructed way of life—in which letters take the place of personal contact and engagement—she must reckon with unaddressed issues from her past that threaten the house of cards (letters, really) she has built around herself. Sybil’s relationships are gradually revealed in the series of letters sent to and received from, among others, her brother, sister-in-law, children, former work associates, and, intriguingly, literary icons including Joan Didion and Larry McMurtry. Perhaps most affecting is the series of missives Sybil writes but never mails to a shadowy figure from her past. Thoughtful musings on the value and immortal quality of letters and the written word populate one of Sybil’s notes to a young correspondent while other messages are laugh-out-loud funny, tinged with her characteristic blunt tartness. Evans has created a brusque and quirky yet endearing main character with no shortage of opinions and advice for others but who fails to excavate the knotty difficulties of her own life. As Sybil grows into a delayed self-awareness, her letters serve as a chronicle of fitful growth.
An affecting portrait of a prickly woman.Pub Date: May 6, 2025
ISBN: 9780593798430
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Feb. 15, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2025
SEEN & HEARD
A pleasant if not entirely convincing tribute to the power of art.
A French art historian’s English-language fiction debut combines the story of a loving relationship between a grandfather and granddaughter with an enlightening discussion of art.
One day, when 10-year-old Mona removes the necklace given to her by her now-dead grandmother, she experiences a frightening, hour-long bout of blindness. Her parents take her to the doctor, who gives her a variety of tests and also advises that she see a psychiatrist. Her grandfather Henry tells her parents that he will take care of that assignment, but instead, he takes Mona on weekly visits to either the Louvre, the Musée d’Orsay, or the Centre Pompidou, where each week they study a single work of art, gazing at it deeply and then discussing its impact and history and the biography of its maker. For the reader’s benefit, Schlesser also describes each of the works in scrupulous detail. As the year goes on, Mona faces the usual challenges of elementary school life and the experiences of being an only child, and slowly begins to understand the causes of her temporary blindness. Primarily an amble through a few dozen of Schlesser’s favorite works of art—some well known and others less so, from Botticelli and da Vinci through Basquiat and Bourgeois—the novel would probably benefit from being read at a leisurely pace. While the dialogue between Henry and the preternaturally patient and precocious Mona sometimes strains credulity, readers who don’t have easy access to the museums of Paris may enjoy this vicarious trip in the company of a guide who focuses equally on that which can be seen and the context that can’t be. Come for the novel, stay for the introductory art history course.
A pleasant if not entirely convincing tribute to the power of art.Pub Date: Aug. 26, 2025
ISBN: 9798889661115
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Europa Editions
Review Posted Online: June 7, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2025
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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