The novel’s brilliant individual vignettes far outshine a rather flimsy overarching plot.
A polyphonic novel that sharply observes class and religious divisions in India.
Shaken by a terrorist attack that sets train cars ablaze and kills more than a hundred people, Jivan, a young Muslim woman living in the nearby Kolabagan slum, posts a careless comment lambasting the government on Facebook and is thrown in jail as a suspect for the attack. As her case becomes national news and the public is increasingly convinced of her guilt, Jivan works to prove her innocence by arranging clandestine conversations with a reporter. “Believe me when I say you must understand my childhood to know who I am, and why this is happening to me,” she tells him. It was a youth marked by poverty, humiliation, and violence, often at the hands of local officials: Policemen wielding bamboo rods demolished her family’s hut in a rural village, leaving her father with a debilitating injury, and the family was tricked into purchasing a plot in a dangerous slum. Meanwhile, as Jivan’s trial nears, two of her acquaintances become witnesses: Lovely, a neighbor who learned English from Jivan, takes acting classes and dreams of becoming a film star while PT Sir, the physical training teacher at Jivan’s old school, gets involved with the populist Jana Kalyan Party and performs a series of increasingly morally questionable acts to curry favor with its leader. Debut author Majumdar has a gift for capturing the frustrating arbitrariness of local government and conjures up scenes in just a few well-chosen images, like this lunch: “PT Sir looks at her, and her plate, where she has made a pile of fish bones, curved like miniature swords.” Lovely, a hijra—a trans woman who lives in a religious community with others like her—is, voicewise, a particular gem. “My chest is a man’s chest, and my breasts are made of rags. So what? Find me another woman in this whole city as truly woman as me.” But Jivan’s storyline feels a bit thin, seemingly purpose-built to make a point about the very real injustices of being poor and a member of a hated religious minority.
The novel’s brilliant individual vignettes far outshine a rather flimsy overarching plot.Pub Date: June 2, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-525-65869-6
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: March 4, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
A grim yet gleefully gratifying tale of lost innocence and found family.
A woman fears she made a fatal mistake by taking in a blood-soaked tween during a storm.
High winds and torrential rain are forecast for “The Middle of Nowhere, New Hampshire,” making Casey question the structural integrity of her ramshackle rental cabin. Still, she’s loath to seek shelter with her lecherous landlord or her paternalistic neighbor, so instead she just crosses her fingers, gathers some candles, and hopes for the best. Casey is cooking dinner when she notices a light in her shed. She grabs her gun and investigates, only to find a rail-thin girl hiding in the corner under a blanket. She’s clutching a knife with “Eleanor” written on the handle in black marker, and though her clothes are bloody, she appears uninjured. The weather is rapidly worsening, so before she can second-guess herself, former Boston-area teacher Casey invites the girl—whom she judges to be 12 or 13—inside to eat and get warm. A wary but starving Eleanor accepts in exchange for Casey promising not to call the police—a deal Casey comes to regret after the phones go down, the power goes out, and her hostile, sullen guest drops something that’s a big surprise. Meanwhile, in interspersed chapters labeled “Before,” middle-schooler Ella befriends fellow outcast Anton, who helps her endure life in Medford, Massachusetts, with her abusive, neglectful hoarder of a mother. As per her usual, McFadden lulls readers using a seemingly straightforward thriller setup before launching headlong into a series of progressively seismic (and increasingly bonkers) plot twists. The visceral first-person, present-tense narrative alternates perspectives, fostering tension and immediacy while establishing character and engendering empathy. Ella and Anton’s relationship particularly shines, its heartrending authenticity counterbalancing some of the story’s soapier turns.
A grim yet gleefully gratifying tale of lost innocence and found family.Pub Date: Oct. 7, 2025
ISBN: 9781464260919
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Poisoned Pen
Review Posted Online: Aug. 2, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2025
SEEN & HEARD
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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