A forbidding and unsparing set of stories that suffer greatly from subpar presentation.
Williams’ compact short-story collection focuses on violence in America.
In the first chapter of the opening tale, “I Ain’t Fraid of No Ghosts,” police in New Mexico question Jolene Hopscotch for her role in a violent attack. Several masked students beat an elderly transient in the subway, but only Jolene was identified as one of the perpetrators. Her father and siblings are taken aback—but a greater shock awaits them. The subsequent three chapters take an even grimmer tone. One begins with the meeting of the “most powerful wives” of five white supremacist groups; they want to do something about the white president of the United States, whom they blame for tragic military deaths, but they want to ensure that the vice president, a Black woman, doesn’t then become the country’s leader. Later short stories deal with revenge. In the third chapter of “Prevert—Part I,” titled “Cover Up,” a woman who was sexually assaulted while incarcerated may be targeting those responsible. Another prisoner in the book’s last entry, “What Glass Ceiling?,” escapes confinement to track down the people who killed his son. Williams’ uncompromising collection tackles racism, misogyny, and sexual violence, among other difficult topics. The characters are memorable, even in brief appearances, such as an actor’s wife who’s a “certified super genius.” Some highly graphic content is hard to get through, including scenes involving the sexual abuse of animals. In addition, the collection contains many errors. The Hopscotch family, for example, appear in the same narrative as the white supremacists; then a 14-page section of that story is repeated verbatim in “5 Southern Belles.” Numerous misspellings, typographical errors, and odd wordings crop up, as in this repeated, confusing passage: “The Chief of Unsolved Cases Divion, Two star, General Cold, Case sat at home his legs crossed just above the thin as tooth pick sized ankels and on the Ashati Stool hassack sized lighted the flat of his palm on the enormous volumned buttocks of Linda Melicia Benedict Cold, his, you can use another cold one smiling spouse.”
A forbidding and unsparing set of stories that suffer greatly from subpar presentation.Pub Date: Aug. 23, 2023
ISBN: 979-8823013314
Page Count: 162
Publisher: AuthorHouse
Review Posted Online: Feb. 20, 2024
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Uneven but fitfully amusing.
Betrayed by her husband, a severely depressed young woman gets drawn into the over-the-top festivities at a lavish wedding.
Phoebe Stone, who teaches English literature at a St. Louis college, is plotting her own demise. Her husband, Matt, has left her for another woman, and Phoebe is taking it hard. Indeed, she's determined just where and how she will end it all: at an oceanfront hotel in Newport, where she will lie on a king-sized canopy bed and take a bottle of her cat’s painkillers. At the hotel, Phoebe meets bride-to-be Lila, a headstrong rich girl presiding over her own extravagant six-day wedding celebration. Lila thought she had booked every room in the hotel, and learning of Phoebe's suicidal intentions, she forbids this stray guest from disrupting the nuptials: “No. You definitely can’t kill yourself. This is my wedding week.” After the punchy opening, a grim flashback to the meltdown of Phoebe's marriage temporarily darkens the mood, but things pick up when spoiled Lila interrupts Phoebe's preparations and sweeps her up in the wedding juggernaut. The slide from earnest drama to broad farce is somewhat jarring, but from this point on, Espach crafts an enjoyable—if overstuffed—comedy of manners. When the original maid of honor drops out, Phoebe is persuaded, against her better judgment, to take her place. There’s some fun to be had here: The wedding party—including groom-to-be Gary, a widower, and his 11-year-old daughter—takes surfing lessons; the women in the group have a session with a Sex Woman. But it all goes on too long, and the humor can seem forced, reaching a low point when someone has sex with the vintage wedding car (you don’t want to know the details). Later, when two characters have a meet-cute in a hot tub, readers will guess exactly how the marriage plot resolves.
Uneven but fitfully amusing.Pub Date: July 30, 2024
ISBN: 9781250899576
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: Sept. 13, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
The mystery plot and the Italian idyl both play supporting roles in this fairy tale for grownups.
Scottoline’s latest links her great love of Italy with her long record of female-centered crime fiction.
Julia Pritzker has a presentiment that something terrible is around the corner, but she never imagines just how terrible: When her husband, Philadelphia attorney Mike Shallette, tries to protect her from a man who grabs her designer bag, he gets stabbed to death before her eyes. Julia’s grief becomes laced with guilt when she realizes that her daily horoscope had predicted a calamity she’s now convinced she could have prevented. The news from Italian attorney Massimiliano Lombardi that his late client has left her millions in cash and an estate worth nearly as much again doesn’t comfort her, but it does provide distraction—especially since she’s never heard of Emilia Rossi and has no idea why she’s been chosen as her heir. Since Julia, adopted at an early age by a couple who’ve been dead for years, wonders if Emilia might have been her biological grandmother, she travels to Chianti in hope of recovering some of Emilia’s DNA. Unfortunately, caretakers Anna Mattia Vesta and Piero Fano have burned all of Emilia’s clothing and personal items on her orders, so there’s nothing left to test. Growing convinced that the stars are directing her and that her history is rooted in Emilia’s decrepit house, Julia turns down repeated offers for the property and resolves to secure evidence confirming the relationship between Emilia and her. Now all she has to do is protect herself from the shadowy figures tracking and following her and recover from a series of vivid, hallucinatory nightmares that seem to be the cost of claiming her heritage.
The mystery plot and the Italian idyl both play supporting roles in this fairy tale for grownups.Pub Date: July 15, 2025
ISBN: 9781538769997
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Review Posted Online: May 16, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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