A deeply satisfying novel; Huneven’s best work to date.
After a tragedy, the fortunes of a California family unfold in unexpected ways.
It’s the mid-1970s when the curtain rises on architect Phil Samuelson, his schoolteacher wife, Sibyl, and their three children, Ellis, Katie, and Sally. Ellis, who will turn 18 that summer before college, heads off with a couple of friends for a week-long road trip but does not return on schedule, sending his parents only a few brief letters assuring them that he’s fine and begging them not to track him down. As it turns out, Ellis dies so early in the book it seems no spoiler to say it, and his death will be quickly followed by another shock: He left behind a pregnant girlfriend. With a structure reminiscent of Ann Patchett’s Commonwealth (2016), Huneven moves among her characters and over the next four decades to set up and spring all the surprises she has in store, occasionally leaving California to trace developments in spots as far-flung as Saudi Arabia and Oaxaca, and eventually requiring the services of 23andMe and the legalization of same-sex marriage to make all the many pieces fall into place. As someone aptly describes the central couple, “Oh, Phil’s lovely. His wife, though, is a prickly thing. But isn’t that always the case: the easygoing marry the prickles because who else would have them?” Yes, Phil is easier to love than Sibyl, and daughter Sally is quite a bit more appealing than her older sister, Katie, but Huneven is good at unlikable characters, making them fully three-dimensional while stopping far short of sappy redemption. Another of her signature elements, alcoholism, is in the mix as well, appearing via a deep green tumbler of “Hawaiian Punch” clutched in the hand of a major character and two cases of beer drunk daily by a pair of minor ones, retired civil servants and would-be swingers who run a donut shop in the middle of nowhere. Gotta love that.
A deeply satisfying novel; Huneven’s best work to date.Pub Date: June 17, 2025
ISBN: 9780593834879
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Penguin Press
Review Posted Online: March 22, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2025
Uneven but fitfully amusing.
Betrayed by her husband, a severely depressed young woman gets drawn into the over-the-top festivities at a lavish wedding.
Phoebe Stone, who teaches English literature at a St. Louis college, is plotting her own demise. Her husband, Matt, has left her for another woman, and Phoebe is taking it hard. Indeed, she's determined just where and how she will end it all: at an oceanfront hotel in Newport, where she will lie on a king-sized canopy bed and take a bottle of her cat’s painkillers. At the hotel, Phoebe meets bride-to-be Lila, a headstrong rich girl presiding over her own extravagant six-day wedding celebration. Lila thought she had booked every room in the hotel, and learning of Phoebe's suicidal intentions, she forbids this stray guest from disrupting the nuptials: “No. You definitely can’t kill yourself. This is my wedding week.” After the punchy opening, a grim flashback to the meltdown of Phoebe's marriage temporarily darkens the mood, but things pick up when spoiled Lila interrupts Phoebe's preparations and sweeps her up in the wedding juggernaut. The slide from earnest drama to broad farce is somewhat jarring, but from this point on, Espach crafts an enjoyable—if overstuffed—comedy of manners. When the original maid of honor drops out, Phoebe is persuaded, against her better judgment, to take her place. There’s some fun to be had here: The wedding party—including groom-to-be Gary, a widower, and his 11-year-old daughter—takes surfing lessons; the women in the group have a session with a Sex Woman. But it all goes on too long, and the humor can seem forced, reaching a low point when someone has sex with the vintage wedding car (you don’t want to know the details). Later, when two characters have a meet-cute in a hot tub, readers will guess exactly how the marriage plot resolves.
Uneven but fitfully amusing.Pub Date: July 30, 2024
ISBN: 9781250899576
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: Sept. 13, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
A tender and moving portrait about the transcendent power of art and friendship.
An artwork’s value grows if you understand the stories of the people who inspired it.
Never in her wildest dreams would foster kid Louisa dream of meeting C. Jat, the famous painter of The One of the Sea, which depicts a group of young teens on a pier on a hot summer’s day. But in Backman’s latest, that’s just what happens—an unexpected (but not unbelievable) set of circumstances causes their paths to collide right before the dying 39-year-old artist’s departure from the world. One of his final acts is to bequeath that painting to Louisa, who has endured a string of violent foster homes since her mother abandoned her as a child. Selling the painting will change her life—but can she do it? Before deciding, she accompanies Ted, one of the artist’s close friends and one of the young teens captured in that celebrated painting, on a train journey to take the artist’s ashes to his hometown. She wants to know all about the painting, which launched Jat’s career at age 14, and the circle of beloved friends who inspired it. The bestselling author of A Man Called Ove (2014) and other novels, Backman gives us a heartwarming story about how these friends, set adrift by the violence and unhappiness of their homes, found each other and created a new definition of family. “You think you’re alone,” one character explains, “but there are others like you, people who stand in front of white walls and blank paper and only see magical things. One day one of them will recognize you and call out: ‘You’re one of us!’” As Ted tells stories about his friends—how Jat doubted his talents but found a champion in fiery Joar, who took on every bully to defend him; how Ali brought an excitement to their circle that was “like a blinding light, like a heart attack”—Louisa recognizes herself as a kindred soul and feels a calling to realize her own artistic gifts. What she decides to do with the painting is part of a caper worthy of the stories that Ted tells her. The novel is humorous, poignant, and always life-affirming, even when describing the bleakness of the teens’ early lives. “Art is a fragile magic, just like love,” as someone tells Louisa, “and that’s humanity’s only defense against death.”
A tender and moving portrait about the transcendent power of art and friendship.Pub Date: May 6, 2025
ISBN: 9781982112820
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Atria
Review Posted Online: July 4, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2025
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
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