by Michelle Wildgen ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 11, 2014
Not a literary banquet but far better than fast-food fiction.
In Wildgen’s (But Not For Long, 2009, etc.) latest, three foodie brothers find themselves in a stew.
Britt worked in advertising until brother Leo persuaded him to join in operating Winesap, an upscale restaurant in Linden near Philadelphia. Amid oyster fritters and pork rillettes, Britt runs the front of the house, and Leo manages money and vendors. Single mother Thea has become an outstanding executive chef, although pastry genius Hector has turned fickle, like others of his ilk. Then Harry, the not-prodigal but still unsettled son, comes home. Harry’s younger, has advanced degrees and blue-collar chops, and now, he’s opening a restaurant in a not-yet-gentrified neighborhood. What results isn’t sibling rivalry but rather a friendly competition that shifts and expands sibling loyalties. Call it family drama set against the backdrop of an insider’s take on big-ticket dining. Britt’s stylish, poised and vaguely discontented. Leo’s head-down, plow-ahead and stoically unhappy. Harry’s left his dissertation in limbo, worked fishing trawlers and canneries, cooked at an isolated resort, and he harbors a secret threatening his restaurant’s success and the siblings’ bonds. Wildgen’s kitchen characters are Food Network archetypical, right down to the cutthroat competition and post-shift dive-bar drinking. Thea reflects a new chance for Leo, one that tempts him to violate the cardinal rule of a happy professional kitchen: An owner doesn’t dip into the chef’s soup. Britt, conversely, may find happiness with Harry’s friend, enigmatic restaurant consultant Camille. Wildgen plates one dazzling dish after another on nearly every page and turns many a tasty phrase, as when a rival restaurateur is seen as "menacing them with a glass of grappa."
Not a literary banquet but far better than fast-food fiction.Pub Date: Feb. 11, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-385-53743-8
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Oct. 20, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2013
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by Mark Z. Danielewski ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 6, 2000
The story's very ambiguity steadily feeds its mysteriousness and power, and Danielewski's mastery of postmodernist and...
An amazingly intricate and ambitious first novel - ten years in the making - that puts an engrossing new spin on the traditional haunted-house tale.
Texts within texts, preceded by intriguing introductory material and followed by 150 pages of appendices and related "documents" and photographs, tell the story of a mysterious old house in a Virginia suburb inhabited by esteemed photographer-filmmaker Will Navidson, his companion Karen Green (an ex-fashion model), and their young children Daisy and Chad. The record of their experiences therein is preserved in Will's film The Davidson Record - which is the subject of an unpublished manuscript left behind by a (possibly insane) old man, Frank Zampano - which falls into the possession of Johnny Truant, a drifter who has survived an abusive childhood and the perverse possessiveness of his mad mother (who is institutionalized). As Johnny reads Zampano's manuscript, he adds his own (autobiographical) annotations to the scholarly ones that already adorn and clutter the text (a trick perhaps influenced by David Foster Wallace's Infinite Jest) - and begins experiencing panic attacks and episodes of disorientation that echo with ominous precision the content of Davidson's film (their house's interior proves, "impossibly," to be larger than its exterior; previously unnoticed doors and corridors extend inward inexplicably, and swallow up or traumatize all who dare to "explore" their recesses). Danielewski skillfully manipulates the reader's expectations and fears, employing ingeniously skewed typography, and throwing out hints that the house's apparent malevolence may be related to the history of the Jamestown colony, or to Davidson's Pulitzer Prize-winning photograph of a dying Vietnamese child stalked by a waiting vulture. Or, as "some critics [have suggested,] the house's mutations reflect the psychology of anyone who enters it."
The story's very ambiguity steadily feeds its mysteriousness and power, and Danielewski's mastery of postmodernist and cinema-derived rhetoric up the ante continuously, and stunningly. One of the most impressive excursions into the supernatural in many a year.Pub Date: March 6, 2000
ISBN: 0-375-70376-4
Page Count: 704
Publisher: Pantheon
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2000
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by Christina Lauren ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 10, 2018
With frank language and patient plotting, this gangly teen crush grows into a confident adult love affair.
Eleven years ago, he broke her heart. But he doesn’t know why she never forgave him.
Toggling between past and present, two love stories unfold simultaneously. In the first, Macy Sorensen meets and falls in love with the boy next door, Elliot Petropoulos, in the closet of her dad’s vacation home, where they hide out to discuss their favorite books. In the second, Macy is working as a doctor and engaged to a single father, and she hasn’t spoken to Elliot since their breakup. But a chance encounter forces her to confront the truth: what happened to make Macy stop speaking to Elliot? Ultimately, they’re separated not by time or physical remoteness but by emotional distance—Elliot and Macy always kept their relationship casual because they went to different schools. And as a teen, Macy has more to worry about than which girl Elliot is taking to the prom. After losing her mother at a young age, Macy is navigating her teenage years without a female role model, relying on the time-stamped notes her mother left in her father’s care for guidance. In the present day, Macy’s father is dead as well. She throws herself into her work and rarely comes up for air, not even to plan her upcoming wedding. Since Macy is still living with her fiance while grappling with her feelings for Elliot, the flashbacks offer steamy moments, tender revelations, and sweetly awkward confessions while Macy makes peace with her past and decides her future.
With frank language and patient plotting, this gangly teen crush grows into a confident adult love affair.Pub Date: April 10, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-5011-2801-1
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Gallery Books/Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Jan. 22, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2018
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