A compelling vision of a possible future, filled with insightful commentary.
Linked dystopian stories explore the future of migration and global politics in Peters’ speculative novel.
In his preface, the author invokes The Canterbury Tales and One Thousand and One Nights as inspirations, presenting his own future world through a series of distinct points of view. In the first chapter, parishioners gather in the basement of a crumbling church, recounting how “the world we knew crumbled into madness overnight.” One man raises a stump where his right arm used to be and is identified as a follower of the faith of Francisco Jesús De La Vega, who leads the Resistance of the Right Hand. In the chapter that follows, readers learn more about Francisco, through his own account and that of Dona Ávila, an immigrant (“pilgrim” in the language of the novel) seeking political asylum from the tyranny of Amazonia. Through Dona Ávila’s perspective, Peters develops his modern immigrant metaphor, detailing the brutal immigration process that involves a chemical spray-down, forced head shaving, and manual labor on farms in PaxAmericana (the former United States of America, the story implies). As the connections between characters and the rise of Francisco become clearer, the narrative’s scope broadens to include people in power, including the president of PaxAmericana preparing a speech about the border (known as “the Barrier”) and an interpreter working for the People’s Pacifica Party, a stand-in for China. The future world the author creates feels consistent and well realized, though the eastern nations, including a Russia analogue, are not fully explored. While some of the stories contain a fair amount of speechifying (the pace starts to lag in the dialogues between politicians and reporters), pulpy twists and Peters’ natural flair for action scenes keep the larger narrative consistently engaging. Readers will hope the author chooses to expand this world further in future volumes.
A compelling vision of a possible future, filled with insightful commentary.Pub Date: June 4, 2024
ISBN: 9781733088381
Page Count: 276
Publisher: Owl Club Media Group
Review Posted Online: June 4, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2024
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
Suspenseful, full of incident, and not obviously necessary.
Atwood goes back to Gilead.
The Handmaid’s Tale (1985), consistently regarded as a masterpiece of 20th-century literature, has gained new attention in recent years with the success of the Hulu series as well as fresh appreciation from readers who feel like this story has new relevance in America’s current political climate. Atwood herself has spoken about how news headlines have made her dystopian fiction seem eerily plausible, and it’s not difficult to imagine her wanting to revisit Gilead as the TV show has sped past where her narrative ended. Like the novel that preceded it, this sequel is presented as found documents—first-person accounts of life inside a misogynistic theocracy from three informants. There is Agnes Jemima, a girl who rejects the marriage her family arranges for her but still has faith in God and Gilead. There’s Daisy, who learns on her 16th birthday that her whole life has been a lie. And there's Aunt Lydia, the woman responsible for turning women into Handmaids. This approach gives readers insight into different aspects of life inside and outside Gilead, but it also leads to a book that sometimes feels overstuffed. The Handmaid’s Tale combined exquisite lyricism with a powerful sense of urgency, as if a thoughtful, perceptive woman was racing against time to give witness to her experience. That narrator hinted at more than she said; Atwood seemed to trust readers to fill in the gaps. This dynamic created an atmosphere of intimacy. However curious we might be about Gilead and the resistance operating outside that country, what we learn here is that what Atwood left unsaid in the first novel generated more horror and outrage than explicit detail can. And the more we get to know Agnes, Daisy, and Aunt Lydia, the less convincing they become. It’s hard, of course, to compete with a beloved classic, so maybe the best way to read this new book is to forget about The Handmaid’s Tale and enjoy it as an artful feminist thriller.
Suspenseful, full of incident, and not obviously necessary.Pub Date: Sept. 10, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-385-54378-1
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Nan A. Talese
Review Posted Online: Sept. 3, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2019
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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
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