An interesting relic of a year when the world was in quarantine.
The author of Madame Zero (2017) and The Wolf Border (2015) turns her attention to the pandemic.
“Those who tell stories survive.” This is something Edith Harkness’ mother told her, and it’s the opening line of the book her creator started writing when the United Kingdom went into lockdown in March 2020. This novel was born of a pandemic and is, obliquely, about a pandemic. Its protagonist has lived through and still lives with a world-historical disease, and Hall has earned a place in literary history as one of the first fiction writers to respond in a sustained way to Covid-19. The story is narrated by Edith and addressed to the lover with whom she sheltered from a deadly virus. This summary is available to anyone who reads a synopsis of the novel, but the author takes her time revealing who “you” is, and this gets at some of what makes this novel challenging—challenging being a word that can mean “effortful in a rewarding way” or “exasperating.” The “you” that Edith addresses knows—presumably—much more than the reader does. It makes sense for the reader to stumble along for a bit, hoping to catch up, but the “you” being addressed and the “you” that is the reader remain persistently irreconcilable. This may be no problem at all for some, while it may be a trial for others. Beyond that, the success of this novel depends on the willingness of the reader to turn pronouncements about the human condition and disjointed personal vignettes into a compelling story. “There’s blindness to new lovers. They exist in the rare atmosphere of their own colony, trusting by sense and feel, creatures consuming each other, building shelters with their hopes.” This novel is built from a lot of passages just like that, interspersed with the events in Edith’s life that inspire them.
An interesting relic of a year when the world was in quarantine.Pub Date: Nov. 2, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-06-265710-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Custom House/Morrow
Review Posted Online: Aug. 31, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2021
This luxurious novel is set to take the world by storm.
The true story of Axis diplomats detained in the U.S. at the start of World War II is transformed into a dazzling historical novel set at a sumptuous West Virginia hotel.
Bestselling YA fantasy author Stiefvater’s adult debut introduces a writer whose prodigious imagination and distinctive prose style have combined to create a novel that will remind readers of why they fell in love with reading in the first place. At its center is the captivating June Hudson, an erstwhile Appalachian orphan who was taken in by the wealthy Gilfoyle family, owners of the Avallon Hotel & Spa, a high-society retreat built over underground mineral springs. At his death, the patriarch bequeathed ownership to his playboy son, Edgar, but made June the general manager, as she had spent her life learning the business—and also shared with Gilfoyle Sr. a rare gift relating to the “sweetwater” springs, a fantastical element of this otherwise realistic novel. Aside from the magical waters and a few other fanciful details, Stiefvater’s fictional world is based on extensive research into high-end hotels of the period, creating a version of luxury so appealing that readers will wish they could check into the Avallon and stay on indefinitely. In fact, the novel revolves around the true meaning of luxury. To June, it has nothing to do with wealth; it is more connected to joy, and to the book’s title: “June had long ago discovered that most people were bad listeners; they thought listening was synonymous with hearing. But the spoken was only half a conversation. True needs, wants, fears, and hopes hid not in the words that were said, but in the ones that weren’t, and all these formed the core of luxury.” Also brilliantly managed is the rest of the ensemble cast: sexy FBI agents; June’s inimitable staff; the delegations of Japanese, Germans, and Italians detained at the hotel, some quite nasty, but among them a strange, special, totally silent child. And on top of all this, a delicious love story!
This luxurious novel is set to take the world by storm.Pub Date: June 3, 2025
ISBN: 9780593655504
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: April 19, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2025
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
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