An impressive and thoughtful exploration of the mistakes good people make.
A woman’s fateful decision colors and molds her future in Robinson’s third novel.
Kat Hunter, a model wife, is haunted by her sister-in-law’s death years earlier in Vietnam—Beth was her best friend—and by inchoate feelings of suffocation. One night, she steals away from her husband and three daughters as they sleep, hoping to come back home in a couple of weeks—as a better wife and mother, cured of her malaise. But weeks turn into months as she makes a new life for herself in Gatlinburg, Tennessee. A bitter divorce ensues, and it looks as if she will never see her daughters again. Kat hides the details of her past from new friends Molly Fisher, a free spirit whom she meets on the bus during her first night away; Molly’s boyfriend, Jake, who turns out to be a violent abuser; and, most importantly, Wyatt Jenkins, whom Kat eventually marries. She lets people assume that she fled from an abusive husband, a husband who was in fact not abusive but just a clueless male chauvinist. When that truth comes out, she is punished anew by many in the community and even, for a time, by Wyatt, who is confused and hurt. To Robinson’s credit, the ending is not the “Kumbaya” outcome some readers might hope for. The characters are well drawn, as are the tight community of Gatlinburg and the beautiful surrounding countryside. The story is punctuated by letters Beth sent back to Kat from Vietnam. Does Kat regret that she is not the brave spirit that Beth was? Has she always been living the wrong life? In truth, we are never quite clear about what caused her to leave home. This is a story about grabbing what happiness one can while also living with pain that may never really go away. That is what makes it an honest novel for grown-ups.
An impressive and thoughtful exploration of the mistakes good people make.Pub Date: July 19, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-945-049-28-6
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Shadelandhouse Modern Press
Review Posted Online: May 12, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2022
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
This fresh reworking of a Greek myth will resonate.
An otherworldly Latinx retelling of the Orpheus and Eurydice myth set in the South Bronx.
Pheus visits his father in the Bronx every summer. The Afro-Dominican teen is known for his mesmerizing bachata music, love of history, and smooth way with the ladies. Eury, a young Puerto Rican woman and Hurricane Maria survivor, is staying with her cousin for the summer because of a recent, unspecified traumatic event. Her family doesn’t know that she’s been plagued since childhood by the demonlike Ato. Pheus and Eury bond over music and quickly fall in love. Attacked at a dance club by Sileno, its salacious and satyrlike owner, Eury falls into a coma and is taken to el Inframundo by Ato. Pheus, despite his atheism, follows the advice of his father and a local bruja to journey to find his love in the Underworld. Rivera skillfully captures the sounds and feels of the Bronx—its unique, diverse culture and the creeping gentrification of its neighborhoods. Through an amalgamation of Greek, Roman, and Taíno mythology and religious beliefs, gaslighting, the colonization of Puerto Rico, Afro-Latinidad identity, and female empowerment are woven into the narrative. While the pacing lags in the middle, secondary characters aren’t fully developed, and the couple’s relationship borders on instalove, the rush of a summertime romance feels realistic. Rivera’s complex world is well realized, and the dialogue rings true. All protagonists are Latinx.
This fresh reworking of a Greek myth will resonate. (Fabulism. 14-adult)Pub Date: Sept. 15, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-5476-0373-2
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Bloomsbury
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2020
PERSPECTIVES
BOOK TO SCREEN
Come for the riveting father-son mystery, stay for the most beautiful and moving mother-son story in recent memory.
Losing Mom: heartfelt autofiction from a man who just may be Bob Dylan’s son.
“‘Uncanny, the way you look like him. Bob Dylan. You know his music?’” As soon as you encounter the premise of Sussman’s debut novel, you will surely Google him, and see that his resemblance to the man who wrote “Girl From the North Country” is somewhere beyond uncanny. Sussman has also published an article in Harper’s Magazine that explains the real-life basis of the novel—his mother’s year-long relationship with Dylan and a later meeting nine months before he was born. He magicks this material into a gorgeous, emotionally thrilling first-person novel chronicling the death of the narrator Evan’s mother from cancer, a period during which she finally shares more of the truth about her connection with Dylan, as well as other stories of her life, some terrible and some amazing. All of this has been completely hidden from Evan till now, despite the fact that he and June were very close in his childhood. Their emotional intimacy was built on play-acting and storytelling, on King Arthur and Harry Potter (the Potter saga is a surprising and important touchstone throughout), and also fraught due to her stormy relationships with his stepfather and other men. Despite these romantic disappointments, and things far worse than disappointment, June persists in believing, and wanting her son to believe, that there is nothing holier than love. As the novel opens, she has called him in London—Evan has lived abroad since college—to tell him she has cancer, though she withholds the seriousness of her condition for most of the book, continuing to pursue both holistic and Western treatment. The night he arrives, she serves him an alfresco dinner of homegrown vegetables: “The eggplant lay gleaming on its browned back. Beets glowed blood red. Crisped collard and kale lay entangled in the baking tray. In the pan the bloomed popcorn was spiced and golden.” They recite poetry to each other to bless the meal. The love that swells beneath this scene, and every scene, will just about knock you over.
Come for the riveting father-son mystery, stay for the most beautiful and moving mother-son story in recent memory.Pub Date: Sept. 16, 2025
ISBN: 9780593835050
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Penguin Press
Review Posted Online: May 30, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2025
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