Noted for novels that subtly skew reality, Australian Booker Prize winner Carey (The Tax Inspector, 1991, etc.) now invents countries for his protagonist to illuminate in a story that only flirts with the big issues it raises. Set in a vague, near future, the two countries Carey creates, Efica and Voorstand, possess many suggestively familiar characteristics. In geography and landscape, Efica is vaguely Australasian, and Voorstand, while its language and history resemble that of South Africa, is culturally and militarily a power like the United States. The hero, Tristan Smith, born with numerous deformities, is the only son of Felicity Smith, a Voorstander who fled to Efica, where she headed a troupe of actors who performed political agitprop, as well as Shakespeare. His father is a young actor, Billy Millefleur, whose talents soon remove him to Voorstand, where he becomes a famous performer in the notorious Voorstand "Sirkus." This "Sirkus," which uses holograms and electronics and no animals — the Voorstanders worship animals, especially Bruder Mouse, a sort of spiritual Mickey Mouse — dominates Efica and the world culturally. Eficans are a poor people, "uncomfortable with dogma, suspicious of high-sounding rhetoric," who, though nominally independent, must accept Voorstand military installations on their territory and Voorstand influence on their politics. Tristan, reared by loyal theater folk after his mother's murder by a Voorstand operative, relates how he grows up to seek his father in Voorstand, confound his mother's enemies, as well as somehow become the great Efican actor he'd always believed to be his destiny. An ambitious book decked out with lots of imaginative finery, this picaresque tale promises the bite of an Orwellian satire but never delivers.
Pub Date: Feb. 14, 1995
ISBN: 0-679-43888-2
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 1994
Kepnes, whose previous novels deftly dealt with obsessive love, changes gears here and injects into this "Beauty and the...
The mysterious return of a kidnapped boy is more curse than blessing in this novel—which is equal parts love story, thriller, and horror tale.
In Nashua, New Hampshire, young teen Jon Bronson is the sort of boy who loves newspapers and hamsters and takes the long way to school to avoid bullies. He also loves fellow teen and popular budding artist Chloe Sayers, though he never admits as much. Kepnes (Hidden Bodies, 2016, etc.) nails the tentative feelings that develop between kids from different middle school social strata. When Jon vanishes one morning—it’s revealed early on that his kidnapper is local substitute teacher Roger Blair—the relative speed with which the town’s interest wanes is nearly as devastating as his disappearance, a narrative trick Kepnes pulls off seamlessly. Four years later, a more muscular Jon emerges from the local mall with no memory of his captivity and a new obsession with the work of H.P. Lovecraft, particularly the novel The Dunwich Horror, which features a man named Wilbur Whateley, with whom Jon begins to identify. Soon after Jon's return, strange things begin happening to the people around him, from getting nosebleeds to fainting and even having a fatal heart attack. Jon disappears again, voluntarily this time, fearing that, like Wilbur, he’s the monster whose mere presence causes sickness and death. Kepnes follows Jon, Chloe, and Charles "Eggs" DeBenedictus, a detective from Providence, Rhode Island, over the years as they live their separate but interconnected lives: Jon in Providence under two assumed names; Chloe in New York City as an artist who shot to fame with her initial paintings of Jon during his disappearance; and Eggs as he investigates a series of seemingly unlinked heart-attack deaths of young people. As the three come closer to one another and are repelled by either choice or circumstances, the question of sacrificing love for safety becomes painfully clear to everyone.
Kepnes, whose previous novels deftly dealt with obsessive love, changes gears here and injects into this "Beauty and the Beast"–like story a deeper allegory about how far we’ll go to protect the things we love the most.Pub Date: June 19, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-399-59143-3
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Lenny
Review Posted Online: April 2, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2018
A romantic, sad, and ultimately hopeful book that’s perfect for fans of Jojo Moyes.
In Walsh’s American debut, a woman desperately tries to find out why the man she spent a whirlwind week with never called.
Sarah has just separated from her American husband and is visiting her hometown in England when she meets Eddie. He’s kind and charming, and although they only spend one week together, she falls in love. When he has to leave for a trip, she knows they’ll keep in touch—they’re already making plans for the rest of their lives. But then Eddie never calls, and Sarah’s increasingly frantic efforts to contact him are fruitless. Is he hurt? Is he dead? As her friends tell her, there’s a far greater likelihood that he’s just blowing her off—she’s been ghosted. After trying to track Eddie down at a football game, Sarah starts to become ashamed of herself—after all, she’s almost 40 years old and she’s essentially stalking a man who never called her. But as Sarah slowly learns, she and Eddie didn’t actually meet randomly—they both have a connection to an accident that happened years ago, and it may have something to do with why he disappeared. The tension quickly amps up as the secrets of Eddie’s and Sarah’s pasts are revealed, and the truth behind their connection is genuinely surprising and heartbreaking. The barriers between Sarah and Eddie seem insurmountable at times, and although their issues are resolved in a tidy manner, the emotions behind their actions are always believable. Walsh has created a deeply moving romance with an intriguing mystery and a touching portrait of grief at its heart.
A romantic, sad, and ultimately hopeful book that’s perfect for fans of Jojo Moyes.Pub Date: July 24, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-525-52277-5
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Pamela Dorman/Viking
Review Posted Online: April 30, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2018
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