A flawed but engrossing tale about what people wait for in a nursing home.
A 30-something in the midst of an existential crisis goes to live at a nursing home in this debut comic novel.
Colorado, 2011. Dare Tierney is only 33 years old, but after a suicide attempt, he decides to check himself into the Carlton Care Senior Living facility. It might seem a premature move for someone his age, but Dare is not feeling particularly young at heart: “He was detached, despondent and defeated. His connections had been severed, his hopes evaporated, and he had come to believe that he would fit in better with the dead. Drawing breath had become tiring, leaving him exhausted.” An accountant by trade, Dare saw his life take a nose dive after the deaths of both his parents, which led him to withdraw from his friendships and ultimately tank his marriage. Suffice it to say, his recent suicide attempt has not made his disposition any rosier. Lucky for him, the 72-bed facility is a surprisingly lively place. His next-door neighbor Ed Bennett actually owns the nursing home in addition to being a resident. The octogenarian is deeply philanthropic and trying to decide what to do with his wealth. Nurses Anita Rios and Venita Henderson dish about the residents in the hall outside Dare’s door. Meanwhile, Venita attempts to provide a good home for her 11-year-old niece, Ringquatta Henderson, who just moved in with her. At the facility, the aging Frank O’Brien tries to woo his crush, Effa Butler. Perhaps most intriguing of all is Sara Schmidt McNally, the beautiful 20-something who comes to visit her comatose daredevil husband. Sara’s parents want her to consider a divorce. The colorful community helps lift Dare out of his funk and inspires him to action. But when he administers what he considers a mercy killing to Sara’s husband, he finds that life and death are suddenly a lot less theoretical.
Clarke’s buoyant prose roves among the perspectives of his many characters, creating sharp, sensory images: “Dare couldn’t get up. He had a whole list of things to do but when he awoke, he felt as if a weight were on his chest and an ice cube stuck in his throat. He felt like weeping. He couldn’t put his finger on what was depressing him, but he thought that it might have something to do with Ed Bennett’s prognosis.” Each player is given a robust life and backstory, adding to the sense that this is a collective tale rather than the emotional journey of just one man. The ennui-driven Dare is a bit of a type, and not a particularly inspiring version of it, which leaves a charisma hole at the center of the novel. The more memorable supporting characters pick up a bit of the slack, but the story is rarely as funny as it means to be. Still, the plot moves swiftly despite the book’s nearly 400-page length, and the author deftly explores questions of life, death, and legacy from a number of different angles.
A flawed but engrossing tale about what people wait for in a nursing home.Pub Date: May 14, 2021
ISBN: 979-8504309989
Page Count: 392
Publisher: Independently Published
Review Posted Online: Dec. 15, 2021
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
SEEN & HEARD
A welcome literary resurrection that deserves a place alongside Wright’s best-known work.
A falsely accused Black man goes into hiding in this masterful novella by Wright (1908-1960), finally published in full.
Written in 1941 and '42, between Wright’s classics Native Son and Black Boy, this short novel concerns Fred Daniels, a modest laborer who’s arrested by police officers and bullied into signing a false confession that he killed the residents of a house near where he was working. In a brief unsupervised moment, he escapes through a manhole and goes into hiding in a sewer. A series of allegorical, surrealistic set pieces ensues as Fred explores the nether reaches of a church, a real estate firm, and a jewelry store. Each stop is an opportunity for Wright to explore themes of hope, greed, and exploitation; the real estate firm, Wright notes, “collected hundreds of thousands of dollars in rent from poor colored folks.” But Fred’s deepening existential crisis and growing distance from society keep the scenes from feeling like potted commentaries. As he wallpapers his underground warren with cash, mocking and invalidating the currency, he registers a surrealistic but engrossing protest against divisive social norms. The novel, rejected by Wright’s publisher, has only appeared as a substantially truncated short story until now, without the opening setup and with a different ending. Wright's take on racial injustice seems to have unsettled his publisher: A note reveals that an editor found reading about Fred’s treatment by the police “unbearable.” That may explain why Wright, in an essay included here, says its focus on race is “rather muted,” emphasizing broader existential themes. Regardless, as an afterword by Wright’s grandson Malcolm attests, the story now serves as an allegory both of Wright (he moved to France, an “exile beyond the reach of Jim Crow and American bigotry”) and American life. Today, it resonates deeply as a story about race and the struggle to envision a different, better world.
A welcome literary resurrection that deserves a place alongside Wright’s best-known work.Pub Date: April 20, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-59853-676-8
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Library of America
Review Posted Online: March 16, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2021
BOOK TO SCREEN
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