THE WIGWAMS IN MY BACKYARD

Name: THE WIGWAMS IN MY BACKYARD
Author: Richard Will

by Richard Will ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 4, 2015

An engrossing, if somewhat emotionally superficial, tale of early tribal life in North America through the eyes of an...

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In this “fish out of water” YA novel, a Maine teenager finds himself thrust back in time to an ancient encampment of the Native American tribe that, centuries ago, inhabited his backyard.

Matthew is a typical high school junior with a girlfriend, a summer job as a grocery store stock boy, and a love of the outdoors. One summer evening, as he is waiting for his mother to get home to cook dinner, he collapses after being bitten by an unusual-looking black fly. When he awakes, he is surprised to find himself in a rustic structure surrounded by people speaking a strange language. Although he recognizes a few familiar landmarks, everything else seems to have changed. Instead of his house and backyard, the area is filled with Native American dwellings and the daily activities of tribal life before any contact with white settlers. The residents of the tiny village accept Matt into their circle even though they can only communicate with gestures. Viewing his situation with some curiosity, Matt names his new friends, some (like Aunt Martha and George) for people they remind him of and others (Mosquito, Contentment, and Sourpuss) for observed characteristics. As he follows them through their routines of food gathering and preparation, tool making, pottery, and basket weaving, Matt gains appreciation for the tribal members’ kindness, skills, and highly efficient management and use of natural resources. Will (Last Entry, 2016) is an anthropologist, and his examination of prehistoric Native American life is intriguing and absorbing. His writing demonstrates skillful descriptive powers, whether painting the beauty of the Maine countryside, detailing the deeds of the tribe, or “reminiscing” about small-town life in 21st-century New England. What is missing in this YA tale is an effective exploration of Matt’s emotional reaction to his dislocation in time. Where one might expect panic, anger, and loneliness, Matt reacts to his situation with bland equanimity, at most remarking: “I’ve always been interested in Native American culture, but this can’t be happening. I don’t want it to be happening.” If this leaves the narrative feeling less like a convincing story of teen time travel than an anthropologist’s account, it is at least a compelling one.

An engrossing, if somewhat emotionally superficial, tale of early tribal life in North America through the eyes of an outsider.

Pub Date: Oct. 4, 2015

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: 248

Publisher: CreateSpace

Review Posted Online: July 31, 2017

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.