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 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
A quick, biting critique of the publishing industry.
What happens when a midlist author steals a manuscript and publishes it as her own?
June Hayward and Athena Liu went to Yale together, moved to D.C. after graduation, and are both writers, but the similarities end there. While June has had little success since publication and is struggling to write her second novel, Athena has become a darling of the publishing industry, much to June’s frustration. When Athena suddenly dies, June, almost accidentally, walks off with her latest manuscript, a novel about the World War I Chinese Labour Corps. June edits the novel and passes it off as her own, and no one seems the wiser, but once the novel becomes a smash success, cracks begin to form. When June faces social media accusations and staggering writer’s block, she can’t shake the feeling that someone knows the truth about what she’s done. This satirical take on racism and success in the publishing industry at times veers into the realm of the unbelievable, but, on the whole, witnessing June’s constant casual racism and flimsy justifications for her actions is somehow cathartic. Yes, publishing is like this; finally someone has written it out. At times, the novel feels so much like a social media feed that it’s impossible to stop reading—what new drama is waiting to unfold. and who will win out in the end? An incredibly meta novel, with commentary on everything from trade reviews to Twitter, the ultimate message is clear from the start, which can lead to a lack of nuance. Kuang, however, does manage to leave some questions unanswered: fodder, perhaps, for a new tweetstorm.
A quick, biting critique of the publishing industry.Pub Date: May 16, 2023
ISBN: 9780063250833
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Morrow/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Feb. 22, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2023
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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