by Remington Blackstaff ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 25, 2022
A subtle but powerful tale of political intrigue and honor.
Awards & Accolades
Our Verdict
GET IT
An elite warrior must investigate the death of an emissary in this historical novel set in 17th-century Nigeria.
A royal emissary from the prosperous kingdom of Kano returns home gravely wounded—he has clearly been tortured. Before he succumbs to his injuries, he conveys a troubling message that Kano is threatened by a plot to destabilize it. He arrived on a horse different from his own, maybe a sign that he was kidnapped but subsequently escaped. In addition, he was transporting a classified communication from Kano’s ruler, Emir Ado Sanusi, to the Sultan of Sokoto. The sultan is the ruler of a neighboring kingdom with which Kano historically suffered tempestuous relations. Master Mansa, a Durbar peacekeeper—he keeps “peace only when there is none”—is faithfully dedicated to Kano, and is charged with investigating both the emissary’s death and his cryptic message. Accompanied by a young boy, Isa, a former enslaved person he purchased, Master Mansa travels to Sokoto as well as Katsina, a neighboring kingdom, to uncover the truth. Set upon in both places by well-trained assassins—he immediately recognizes these were not “local vagabonds operating in desperate times”—he correctly deduces that formidable forces intend to thwart his probe. Blackstaff deftly depicts the complex political circumstances that provide the context for Master Mansa’s mission. While Kano is enjoying a “rare time of peace and prosperity,” its neighbors suffer. The ruler of Sokoto is all but incapacitated by illness and his kingdom is plagued by famine while Katsina is overrun by corruption and decadence, a cesspool “nourished by violent crime, poverty and general desperation.” Moreover, Master Mansa is a gripping protagonist—almost impossibly courageous and wise, he’s unfailingly loyal, a moving personification of what Kano’s rivals lack morally.
A subtle but powerful tale of political intrigue and honor.Pub Date: May 25, 2022
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: -
Publisher: Running Wild Press
Review Posted Online: Aug. 25, 2021
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Share your opinion of this book
by Barbara Kingsolver ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 18, 2022
An angry, powerful book seething with love and outrage for a community too often stereotyped or ignored.
Awards & Accolades
Likes
42
Our Verdict
GET IT
Kirkus Reviews'
Best Books Of 2022
New York Times Bestseller
Pulitzer Prize Winner
Inspired by David Copperfield, Kingsolver crafts a 21st-century coming-of-age story set in America’s hard-pressed rural South.
It’s not necessary to have read Dickens’ famous novel to appreciate Kingsolver’s absorbing tale, but those who have will savor the tough-minded changes she rings on his Victorian sentimentality while affirming his stinging critique of a heartless society. Our soon-to-be orphaned narrator’s mother is a substance-abusing teenage single mom who checks out via OD on his 11th birthday, and Demon’s cynical, wised-up voice is light-years removed from David Copperfield’s earnest tone. Yet readers also see the yearning for love and wells of compassion hidden beneath his self-protective exterior. Like pretty much everyone else in Lee County, Virginia, hollowed out economically by the coal and tobacco industries, he sees himself as someone with no prospects and little worth. One of Kingsolver’s major themes, hit a little too insistently, is the contempt felt by participants in the modern capitalist economy for those rooted in older ways of life. More nuanced and emotionally engaging is Demon’s fierce attachment to his home ground, a place where he is known and supported, tested to the breaking point as the opiate epidemic engulfs it. Kingsolver’s ferocious indictment of the pharmaceutical industry, angrily stated by a local girl who has become a nurse, is in the best Dickensian tradition, and Demon gives a harrowing account of his descent into addiction with his beloved Dori (as naïve as Dickens’ Dora in her own screwed-up way). Does knowledge offer a way out of this sinkhole? A committed teacher tries to enlighten Demon’s seventh grade class about how the resource-rich countryside was pillaged and abandoned, but Kingsolver doesn’t air-brush his students’ dismissal of this history or the prejudice encountered by this African American outsider and his White wife. She is an art teacher who guides Demon toward self-expression, just as his friend Tommy provokes his dawning understanding of how their world has been shaped by outside forces and what he might be able to do about it.
An angry, powerful book seething with love and outrage for a community too often stereotyped or ignored.Pub Date: Oct. 18, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-06-325-1922
Page Count: 560
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: July 13, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2022
Share your opinion of this book
More by Barbara Kingsolver
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
More About This Book
SEEN & HEARD
PERSPECTIVES
SEEN & HEARD
by Richard Wright ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 20, 2021
A welcome literary resurrection that deserves a place alongside Wright’s best-known work.
Awards & Accolades
Likes
10
Our Verdict
GET IT
New York Times Bestseller
IndieBound Bestseller
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
Share your opinion of this book
More by Richard Wright
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
More About This Book
BOOK TO SCREEN
© Copyright 2024 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Hey there, book lover.
We’re glad you found a book that interests you!
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Don’t fret. We’ll find you.