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Let There Be Linda

Name: Let There Be Linda
Author: Rich Leder

by Rich Leder ‧ RELEASE DATE: N/A

An irreverent novel that gleefully spins the plot into preposterousness.

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Estranged brothers have a chance to reconcile when pursued by a ruthless loan shark and faced with caring for their mother, just back from the dead, in Leder’s (Juggler, Porn Star, Monkey Wrench, 2014, etc.) comic thriller.

Talent agent Danny Miller owes a hefty chunk of change to the sadistic Harvey Mineral and his muscle, Omar Creech. But Danny gets an idea from Jenny Stone, seeking representation for her (literally) unbelievable ability to bring dead things back to life. Danny has seen Jenny’s power work and knows some people will pay top dollar to have a loved one returned. Like Danny’s dentist, Donald Greenburg, who lost his cherished poodle, Chachi, to Harvey’s cruelty. Danny brings in accountant brother Mike, recently unemployed after his firm cut him loose due to accusations of embezzlement. Donald unfortunately foots the $75,000 resurrection bill by borrowing from Harvey, so the loan shark and Omar are keeping close eyes on the cash. Likewise interested in the money are cop/stand-up comic Gary Shuler and insane real estate developer Judd Martin, who blames Mike for bankrupting him. To combat Danny and Mike’s endless bickering, stemming from Mike’s swearing to late mom Linda that he’d look after Danny, Jenny suggests bringing Linda back to release Mike from his oath. But Jenny’s service has a side effect: Linda and Chachi are decidedly more aggressive than usual—and occasionally lethal. The novel is a zany tale that tosses logic out the window: Mike, for example, is honor-bound by the oath but not bothered by stealing Linda’s body from the mortuary. Leder’s breezy, tongue-in-cheek narrative is a zombie story in which the walking dead aren’t even the biggest threat. A few jokes are repetitive, like references to Mike’s weight; Omar incessantly calls him Moby Dick. But off-kilter characters result in hysterical antics. Gary steals the spotlight: he willingly acknowledges his Oreos addiction and voluntarily puts himself in danger (including a dunk in a piranha tank) for material to use in his stand-up. The final act goes for the jugular, thanks to the welcome introduction of a chain saw, while a possible love triangle between Jenny and the brothers takes a cheeky turn.

An irreverent novel that gleefully spins the plot into preposterousness.

Pub Date: N/A

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Laugh Riot Press

Review Posted Online: Jan. 28, 2016

Review Program: Kirkus Indie

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THE MOST FUN WE EVER HAD

by Claire Lombardo ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 25, 2019

Characters flip between bottomless self-regard and pitiless self-loathing while, as late as the second-to-last chapter, yet...

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Four Chicago sisters anchor a sharp, sly family story of feminine guile and guilt.

Newcomer Lombardo brews all seven deadly sins into a fun and brimming tale of an unapologetically bougie couple and their unruly daughters. In the opening scene, Liza Sorenson, daughter No. 3, flirts with a groomsman at her sister’s wedding. “There’s four of you?” he asked. “What’s that like?” Her retort: “It’s a vast hormonal hellscape. A marathon of instability and hair products.” Thus begins a story bristling with a particular kind of female intel. When Wendy, the oldest, sets her sights on a mate, she “made sure she left her mark throughout his house—soy milk in the fridge, box of tampons under the sink, surreptitious spritzes of her Bulgari musk on the sheets.” Turbulent Wendy is the novel’s best character, exuding a delectable bratty-ness. The parents—Marilyn, all pluck and busy optimism, and David, a genial family doctor—strike their offspring as impossibly happy. Lombardo levels this vision by interspersing chapters of the Sorenson parents’ early lean times with chapters about their daughters’ wobbly forays into adulthood. The central story unfurls over a single event-choked year, begun by Wendy, who unlatches a closed adoption and springs on her family the boy her stuffy married sister, Violet, gave away 15 years earlier. (The sisters improbably kept David and Marilyn clueless with a phony study-abroad scheme.) Into this churn, Lombardo adds cancer, infidelity, a heart attack, another unplanned pregnancy, a stillbirth, and an office crush for David. Meanwhile, youngest daughter Grace perpetrates a whopper, and “every day the lie was growing like mold, furring her judgment.” The writing here is silky, if occasionally overwrought. Still, the deft touches—a neighborhood fundraiser for a Little Free Library, a Twilight character as erotic touchstone—delight. The class calibrations are divine even as the utter apolitical whiteness of the Sorenson world becomes hard to fathom.

Characters flip between bottomless self-regard and pitiless self-loathing while, as late as the second-to-last chapter, yet another pleasurable tendril of sisterly malice uncurls.

Pub Date: June 25, 2019

ISBN: 978-0-385-54425-2

Page Count: 544

Publisher: Doubleday

Review Posted Online: March 3, 2019

Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2019

Categories:

LITERARY FICTION | FAMILY LIFE & FRIENDSHIP

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THEN SHE WAS GONE

by Lisa Jewell ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 24, 2018

Dark and unsettling, this novel’s end arrives abruptly even as readers are still moving at a breakneck speed.

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Ten years after her teenage daughter went missing, a mother begins a new relationship only to discover she can't truly move on until she answers lingering questions about the past.

Laurel Mack’s life stopped in many ways the day her 15-year-old daughter, Ellie, left the house to study at the library and never returned. She drifted away from her other two children, Hanna and Jake, and eventually she and her husband, Paul, divorced. Ten years later, Ellie’s remains and her backpack are found, though the police are unable to determine the reasons for her disappearance and death. After Ellie’s funeral, Laurel begins a relationship with Floyd, a man she meets in a cafe. She's disarmed by Floyd’s charm, but when she meets his young daughter, Poppy, Laurel is startled by her resemblance to Ellie. As the novel progresses, Laurel becomes increasingly determined to learn what happened to Ellie, especially after discovering an odd connection between Poppy’s mother and her daughter even as her relationship with Floyd is becoming more serious. Jewell’s (I Found You, 2017, etc.) latest thriller moves at a brisk pace even as she plays with narrative structure: The book is split into three sections, including a first one which alternates chapters between the time of Ellie’s disappearance and the present and a second section that begins as Laurel and Floyd meet. Both of these sections primarily focus on Laurel. In the third section, Jewell alternates narrators and moments in time: The narrator switches to alternating first-person points of view (told by Poppy’s mother and Floyd) interspersed with third-person narration of Ellie’s experiences and Laurel’s discoveries in the present. All of these devices serve to build palpable tension, but the structure also contributes to how deeply disturbing the story becomes. At times, the characters and the emotional core of the events are almost obscured by such quick maneuvering through the weighty plot.

Dark and unsettling, this novel’s end arrives abruptly even as readers are still moving at a breakneck speed.