A unique and engaging set of tales.
Characters navigate hidden aspects of themselves in this short story collection.
In “The Village,” a woman named Anne cares for two children while her husband, Ken, a lawyer, is at work; he routinely arrives home late. Tewogbade, the author of Red Was the Midnight (2018), focuses on the pathos of Anne’s daily life and makes it the fulcrum on which the story turns. When Anne meets with other women in her community, she views the gatherings as just “part of her sluggish routine.” Ultimately, the author shows readers how Anne’s keen awareness of her situation forces her to confront her husband as well as herself. “Nose Trouble” deals with racism and ageism in the workplace; Camille, a veteran human resources manager, passed over for a promotion in favor of a “perky blonde” fresh out of college, befriends Selena, a new employee and the only other Black person in their department. Initially, the women commiserate at lunch over the unspoken dress code policy that Black people face on the job; however, after Selena receives a promotion, Tewogbade effectively reveals the effects of self-hatred. “A Loving Squeeze” foregrounds domestic abuse within the African diaspora. In it, American Olivia begins an affair with Alhaji, a married Nigerian government official whom her mother derides as a “slick African”; she soon finds herself locked in an apartment and physically assaulted. The title story focuses on the Duplantiers from Louisiana, new arrivals in a gated community who carry the stigma of being unwanted “Katrina people”—refugees from the 2005 hurricane disaster. By meeting with them, the narrator confronts her own bigotry and fears about her place in the community. Tewogbade deftly handles this delicate topic; for example, at one point, the narrator says that she would be “dealt with” if she took “so much as a biscuit” from her new neighbors, who run a restaurant out of their home. Once again, the author skillfully captures the paradoxes surrounding “the question of belonging [that] begs for an answer.”
A unique and engaging set of tales.Pub Date: May 4, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-73221-572-6
Page Count: 183
Publisher: Kaduna River Press
Review Posted Online: July 9, 2020
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
That college love affair you never got over? Come wallow in this gorgeous version of it.
A love triangle among young literati has a long and complicated aftermath.
King’s narrator doesn’t reveal her name until the very last page, but Sam and Yash, the brainy stars of her 17th-century literature class, call her Jordan. Actually, at first they refer to her as Daisy, for Daisy Buchanan of The Great Gatsby, but when they learn she came to their unnamed college on a golf scholarship, they change it to Jordan for Gatsby’s golfer friend. The boys are housesitting for a professor who’s spending a year at Oxford, living in a cozy, book-filled Victorian Jordan visits for the first time after watching The Deer Hunter at the student union on her first date with Sam. As their relationship proceeds, Jordan is practically living at the house herself, trying hard not to notice that she’s actually in love with Yash. A Baptist, Sam has an everything-but policy about sex that only increases the tension. The title of the book refers to a nickname for the king of hearts from an obscure card game the three of them play called Sir Hincomb Funnibuster, and both the game and variations on the moniker recur as the novel spins through and past Jordan’s senior year, then decades into the future. King is a genius at writing love stories—including Euphoria (2014), which won the Kirkus Prize—and her mostly sunny version of the campus novel is an enjoyable alternative to the current vogue for dark academia. Tragedies are on the way, though, as we know they must be, since nothing gold can stay and these darn fictional characters seem to make the same kinds of stupid mistakes that real people do. Tenderhearted readers will soak the pages of the last chapter with tears.
That college love affair you never got over? Come wallow in this gorgeous version of it.Pub Date: Oct. 7, 2025
ISBN: 9780802165176
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Grove
Review Posted Online: July 4, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2025
PERSPECTIVES
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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