Fans of both Ann Patchett and Anne Tyler are likely to enjoy this satisfying, unhurried novel.
Good things can happen to lonely hearts and wounded families. Here's how.
Herman's latest novel assembles an accomplished cast of characters: a successful stage magician, a major American novelist, a published poet, a talented student poet and her world-wise single mother, a cockatiel, and, eventually, a precocious baby. As gifted as they may be, at the outset, things aren't going particularly well for most of them. The famous novelist, Martin Lieberman, is hit the hardest. Shortly before Thanksgiving he is abruptly abandoned by his wife; hearing this news, his teenage magician son, Jacob, decides not to come home from college. This means Jacob's cockatiel, Dolores, who was being cared for by his mother, is abandoned as well, and in fact Martin has no more idea than the bird of why all this has happened to him. The published poet, Jill Rosen—the protagonist of Herman's Dog (2005)—is less drastically miserable, but her life is not turning out quite as she might have hoped: She's aging, still single, and less successful than some of her friends. She does enjoy teaching, particularly when the student is as gifted (and worshipful) as Caroline Forester. The Kokosing State campus, where Jill teaches, where Jacob and Caroline are students, where Martin is a guest lecturer, turns out to be a fortuitous locale, as the characters cross paths there and begin to become part of each other's lives. Herman, who's noted for her writing about relationships, takes the time to bring every corner of this fictional world to life, including excerpts of all the writers' writings (they're good!), the evolution of Jacob's magic act, details about Martin's post-divorce linen closet, and the ongoing (and unexpectedly central) role of the pet bird. Almost all the characters change in interesting ways, but the depiction of Martin's transformation, as unlikely as it may be for a great man like him, is particularly generous and moving.
Fans of both Ann Patchett and Anne Tyler are likely to enjoy this satisfying, unhurried novel.Pub Date: March 15, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-57890-528-0
Page Count: 376
Publisher: Columbus State University Press
Review Posted Online: Feb. 25, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2022
A boarding-school fantasia, with Hilderbrand’s signature upgrades to the cuisine and decor. Sign us up for next term.
A year in the life of the No. 2 boarding school in America—up from No. 19 last year!
Rumors of Hilderbrand’s retirement were greatly exaggerated, it turns out, since not only has she not gone out to pasture, she’s started over in high school, with her daughter Shelby Cunningham as co-author. As their delicious new book opens, it’s Move-In Day at Tiffin Academy, and Head of School Audre Robinson is warmly welcoming the returning and new students to the New England campus, the latter group including a rare midstream addition to the junior class. Brainiac Charley Hicks is transferring from public school in Maryland to a spot that opened up when one of the school’s most beloved students died by suicide the preceding year. She will be joining a large, diverse cast of adult and teenage characters—queen bees, jealous second-stringers, boozehounds young and old, secret lesbians, people chasing the wrong people chasing other wrong people—all of them royally screwed when an app called Zip Zap appears and starts blasting everyone’s secrets all over campus. How the heck…? Meanwhile, it seems so unlikely that Tiffin has jumped up to the No. 2 spot in the boarding-school rankings that a high-profile magazine launches an investigation, and even the head is worried that there may have been payola involved. The school has a reputation for being more social than academic, and this quality gets an exciting new exclamation point when the resident millionaire bad boy opens a high-style secret speakeasy for select juniors in a forgotten basement. It’s called Priorities. Exactly. One problem: Cinnamon Peters’ mysterious suicide hangs over the book in an odd way, especially since the note she left for her closest male friend is not to be opened for another year—and isn’t. This is surely a setup for a sequel, but it’s a bit frustrating here, and bobs sort of shallowly along amid the general high spirits.
A boarding-school fantasia, with Hilderbrand’s signature upgrades to the cuisine and decor. Sign us up for next term.Pub Date: Sept. 16, 2025
ISBN: 9780316567855
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: July 4, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2025
SEEN & HEARD
That college love affair you never got over? Come wallow in this gorgeous version of it.
A love triangle among young literati has a long and complicated aftermath.
King’s narrator doesn’t reveal her name until the very last page, but Sam and Yash, the brainy stars of her 17th-century literature class, call her Jordan. Actually, at first they refer to her as Daisy, for Daisy Buchanan of The Great Gatsby, but when they learn she came to their unnamed college on a golf scholarship, they change it to Jordan for Gatsby’s golfer friend. The boys are housesitting for a professor who’s spending a year at Oxford, living in a cozy, book-filled Victorian Jordan visits for the first time after watching The Deer Hunter at the student union on her first date with Sam. As their relationship proceeds, Jordan is practically living at the house herself, trying hard not to notice that she’s actually in love with Yash. A Baptist, Sam has an everything-but policy about sex that only increases the tension. The title of the book refers to a nickname for the king of hearts from an obscure card game the three of them play called Sir Hincomb Funnibuster, and both the game and variations on the moniker recur as the novel spins through and past Jordan’s senior year, then decades into the future. King is a genius at writing love stories—including Euphoria (2014), which won the Kirkus Prize—and her mostly sunny version of the campus novel is an enjoyable alternative to the current vogue for dark academia. Tragedies are on the way, though, as we know they must be, since nothing gold can stay and these darn fictional characters seem to make the same kinds of stupid mistakes that real people do. Tenderhearted readers will soak the pages of the last chapter with tears.
That college love affair you never got over? Come wallow in this gorgeous version of it.Pub Date: Oct. 7, 2025
ISBN: 9780802165176
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Grove
Review Posted Online: July 4, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2025
PERSPECTIVES
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