An engrossing and unsettling tale of self-mythology and self-delusion.
A man’s story of his time in China may not be what it seems in this literary novel.
Cole Chen spends a year in Hunan Province, where his American friends provide him with a job and an apartment in the bustling city of Changsha. “You’d set two goals for yourself that year,” he narrates to himself, “find a girlfriend and write a book (your first time attempting either). You’d had plenty of hookups in school but never really made it much further than that….What was the saying? ‘Sow your wild oats.’ ” He meets a woman named Harmony, a painter who also turns out to be a con artist. The two begin an affair, though one fated to end abruptly. Back in San Francisco after his year abroad, Cole is editing his memoir while overstaying his welcome on his brother Abraham’s couch. Rumors circulate about Cole making women “feel weird,” and Abraham suspects something happened in Changsha. As the two timelines unfold side by side—Cole in China from his own perspective and Cole in America from the viewpoints of those around him—a contradictory narrative emerges. The story that Cole tells about himself may not be the whole truth, especially given the writerly flourishes of his memoir. But will the rest of the tale come to light? Whether aligned with Cole or someone else, Carroll’s prose is exact and cutting, as here where Abraham ponders the silences in his brother’s tale: “It was clear that something had happened in Changsha. You would never know it, though, given the way he spoke. It was all adventure this and freedom that, roses and green fields, when the reality of the situation was something closer to the fact that he had hit rock bottom.” This is one of those novels of which the less said, the better. As readers realize just what the author is doing, the work morphs from a bookish-man-abroad tale into something more thrilling. It’s a story of a subtler sort of toxic masculinity, one that feels timely and yet organic. From concept to execution, Carroll delivers.
An engrossing and unsettling tale of self-mythology and self-delusion.Pub Date: Feb. 22, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-78869-251-9
Page Count: 282
Publisher: Camphor Press
Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2022
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
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
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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