A bold but confounding collection of short humor pieces.
A volume of flash fiction skewers celebrities, politicians, and pop-culture figures of yesteryear.
McGrouchpants does not hold back in these short works, which include a mix of comic pieces, prose poems, and microstories. There are confessional celebrity monologues, fake advice columns, satirical case histories, Hardy Boys parodies, and a slew of other forms, all of which the author uses to shock and surprise readers into laughter (or some other reaction). Most are no longer than a page, and several are actually shorter than their own titles. A fair number of the pieces revolve around former Vice President Dick Cheney: Cheney claiming to have introduced Ed McMahon and Johnny Carson; Cheney volunteering to serve as a “human latrine” for troops in Iraq; Cheney recounting the time he ate a bag of goat penises on his front porch with Wilford Brimley. The longest story by far is the 28-page “A Bite-Sized Piece,” which alternates between a woman’s account of dating an erratic man known as the Argyle Scot and instructions for how to remove a leech from one’s body. A pen name like McGrouchpants is likely to insulate the author from accusations of misanthropy, but even so, the tales aren’t often funny as much as they are petulant or mocking. There’s a palpable animosity directed toward academics, sex workers, and columnist Dan Savage, among others. Every page is a surprise, and there is a certain delight in that. But there is little enjoyment to be had from the stories themselves. The jokes are extremely scatological. Many make sense only on the level of Dada or absurdism. The piece “ ‘Why Christopher Hitchens Doesn’t Matter,’ by George Orwell’s Reincarnation, Now a Six-Year-Old Living Outside Leeds,” for example, reads in its entirety: “ ‘Oh, blimey, guv’nor, he got it all wrong!’ ‘What are you studying in school?’ ‘Geography! It's my favorite subject!’ ‘What do you like to do for fun?’ ‘Football! Me and me mates like to toss it around!’ ‘Really?’ ‘Naw! We hit the pipe!’ The End.” Is that a commentary on Hitchens or Orwell? Or Britain? Or elementary school curriculums? As with most of the pieces, many readers will be left befuddled and slightly annoyed.
A bold but confounding collection of short humor pieces.Pub Date: Feb. 2, 2021
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: 88
Publisher: Self
Review Posted Online: May 13, 2021
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A tender and moving portrait about the transcendent power of art and friendship.
An artwork’s value grows if you understand the stories of the people who inspired it.
Never in her wildest dreams would foster kid Louisa dream of meeting C. Jat, the famous painter of The One of the Sea, which depicts a group of young teens on a pier on a hot summer’s day. But in Backman’s latest, that’s just what happens—an unexpected (but not unbelievable) set of circumstances causes their paths to collide right before the dying 39-year-old artist’s departure from the world. One of his final acts is to bequeath that painting to Louisa, who has endured a string of violent foster homes since her mother abandoned her as a child. Selling the painting will change her life—but can she do it? Before deciding, she accompanies Ted, one of the artist’s close friends and one of the young teens captured in that celebrated painting, on a train journey to take the artist’s ashes to his hometown. She wants to know all about the painting, which launched Jat’s career at age 14, and the circle of beloved friends who inspired it. The bestselling author of A Man Called Ove (2014) and other novels, Backman gives us a heartwarming story about how these friends, set adrift by the violence and unhappiness of their homes, found each other and created a new definition of family. “You think you’re alone,” one character explains, “but there are others like you, people who stand in front of white walls and blank paper and only see magical things. One day one of them will recognize you and call out: ‘You’re one of us!’” As Ted tells stories about his friends—how Jat doubted his talents but found a champion in fiery Joar, who took on every bully to defend him; how Ali brought an excitement to their circle that was “like a blinding light, like a heart attack”—Louisa recognizes herself as a kindred soul and feels a calling to realize her own artistic gifts. What she decides to do with the painting is part of a caper worthy of the stories that Ted tells her. The novel is humorous, poignant, and always life-affirming, even when describing the bleakness of the teens’ early lives. “Art is a fragile magic, just like love,” as someone tells Louisa, “and that’s humanity’s only defense against death.”
A tender and moving portrait about the transcendent power of art and friendship.Pub Date: May 6, 2025
ISBN: 9781982112820
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Atria
Review Posted Online: July 4, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2025
SEEN & HEARD
A vibrant tale of a remarkable woman.
Who was Shakespeare?
Move over, Earl of Oxford and Francis Bacon: There’s another contender for the true author of plays attributed to the bard of Stratford—Emilia Bassano, a clever, outspoken, educated woman who takes center stage in Picoult’s spirited novel. Of Italian heritage, from a family of court musicians, Emilia was a hidden Jew and the courtesan of a much older nobleman who vetted plays to be performed for Queen Elizabeth. She was well traveled—unlike Shakespeare, she visited Italy and Denmark, where, Picoult imagines, she may have met Rosencrantz and Guildenstern—and was familiar with court intrigue and English law. “Every gap in Shakespeare’s life or knowledge that has had to be explained away by scholars, she somehow fills,” Picoult writes. Encouraged by her lover, Emilia wrote plays and poetry, but 16th-century England was not ready for a female writer. Picoult interweaves Emilia’s story with that of her descendant Melina Green, an aspiring playwright, who encounters the same sexist barriers to making herself heard that Emilia faced. In alternating chapters, Picoult follows Melina’s frustrated efforts to get a play produced—a play about Emilia, who Melina is certain sold her work to Shakespeare. Melina’s play, By Any Other Name, “wasn’t meant to be a fiction; it was meant to be the resurrection of an erasure.” Picoult creates a richly detailed portrait of daily life in Elizabethan England, from sumptuous castles to seedy hovels. Melina’s story is less vivid: Where Emilia found support from the witty Christopher Marlowe, Melina has a fashion-loving gay roommate; where Emilia faces the ravages of repeated outbreaks of plague, for Melina, Covid-19 occurs largely offstage; where Emilia has a passionate affair with the adoring Earl of Southampton, Melina’s lover is an awkward New York Times theater critic. It’s Emilia’s story, and Picoult lovingly brings her to life.
A vibrant tale of a remarkable woman.Pub Date: Aug. 20, 2024
ISBN: 9780593497210
Page Count: 544
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 15, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2024
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
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