An inventive concoction but a middling book; though without the grating ineptitude of Dan Brown, also without the charm of a...
An Umberto Eco–lite literary mystery spanning continents and centuries.
A globe-straddling scientist with an eye for loot: check. An arcane trove that just may (or may not) force a revision of the way we think about things: check. This isn’t your grandpa’s Indiana Jones, though. Daitch (Paper Conspiracies, 2011, etc.) presents an intrepid protagonist of shifting identity—not a bad strategy to take when nefarious people are after the same thing he is, one made more urgent when the newspaper prints his obituary, leaving it to him to decide “whether the risks of reinventing myself are life shattering or way more inconsequential than you think.” Smart, though a bit of a schmo, working with a trove of ancient documents that have come to him as if by fate, he begins to reconstruct the ancient civilization of Suolucidir—and that, in turn, draws in other stories by other seekers, a whole swirl of yarns, some shaggy dog (“Antonov believes that Suolucidir was a center for ancient pornography”) and some more or less straightforward (“Though Ryder wasn’t ordinarily a superstitious man, the plates’ proximity to the beheaded skeleton made him leery of keeping them in his possession”). That the whole thing is a sendup is evident when you turn the word of the ancient place around, and in the end, that effort seems curious; the story plays straight just as well as it does with its postmodern flourishes. Slow to unfold, it has the self-satisfied air of the postmodern as well, though the broad range of allusions and references is entertaining to behold—on one page Krazy Kat, on another Josef Stalin, Winston Churchill, and the shah of Iran. And you have to give points to any yarn with a character named Shuki Fingers Feigen.
An inventive concoction but a middling book; though without the grating ineptitude of Dan Brown, also without the charm of a Stanislaw Lem or Jorge Luis Borges.Pub Date: June 15, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-87286-700-0
Page Count: 332
Publisher: City Lights
Review Posted Online: March 29, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2016
A big old banana split of a book, surely the cure for what ails you.
Someone told Vivian Morris in her youth that she would never be an interesting person. Good thing they didn't put money on it.
The delightful narrator of Gilbert's (Big Magic, 2015, etc.) fourth novel begins the story of her life in the summer of 1940. At 19, she has just been sent home from Vassar. "I cannot fully recall what I'd been doing with my time during those many hours that I ought to have spent in class, but—knowing me—I suppose I was terribly preoccupied with my appearance." Vivian is very pretty, and she is a talented seamstress, but other than that, she is a silly, naïve girl who doesn't know anything about anything. That phase of her life comes to a swift end when her parents send her to Manhattan to live with her Aunt Peg. Peg is the proprietor of the Lily Playhouse, a grandiose, crumbing theater in midtown that caters to the tastes and wallets of the locals with week after week of original "revues" that inevitably feature a sweet young couple, a villain, a floozy, a drunken hobo, and a horde of showgirls and dancers kicking up a storm. "There were limits to the scope of the stories that we could tell," Vivian explains, “given that the Lily Playhouse only had three backdrops”: 19th-century street corner, elegant parlor, and ocean liner. Vivian makes a close friend in Celia Ray, a showgirl so smolderingly beautiful she nearly scorches the pages on which she appears. "I wanted Celia to teach me everything," says Vivian, "about men, about sex, about New York, about life"—and she gets her wish, and then some. The story is jammed with terrific characters, gorgeous clothing, great one-liners, convincing wartime atmosphere, and excellent descriptions of sex, one of which can only be described (in Vivian's signature italics) as transcendent. There are still many readers who know Gilbert only as a memoirist. Whatever Eat Pray Love did or did not do for you, please don't miss out on her wonderful novels any longer.
A big old banana split of a book, surely the cure for what ails you.Pub Date: June 4, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-59463-473-4
Page Count: 480
Publisher: Riverhead
Review Posted Online: Feb. 16, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
PROFILES
A gentle exploration of tragedy, hope, the power of Christmas, and the possibility of miracles.
Preparing for Christmas in Cambridge, Massachusetts, church members face challenges aided by faith and friends and inspired by the eponymous poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow—who, in an alternate storyline, fights despair as he confronts personal tragedy and the Civil War.
Christmas is fast approaching, and St. Margaret’s Catholic Church is a hub of activity. The children’s choir, under Sophia’s talented guidance, is practicing its program, which includes “I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day,” the lovely carol based on the poem by Cambridge’s own Longfellow. Sophia is determined to remain optimistic this season, despite her recently broken engagement and the threat of losing her job next spring. After all, these children lift her spirits, and she can always depend on Lucas, the saintly accompanist, to be there for her. Particularly talented are the red-haired siblings, serious Charlotte and precocious Alex, whose father is serving with the National Guard in Afghanistan and whose mother is overwhelmed by the crushing news that her beloved husband is missing, a fact she's trying to keep secret. Father Ryan loves his calling and his congregants and is doing his best to aid them in their trials even as he navigates his own fractured family. The odd but cheerful, elderly Sister Winifred offers help and reassurance with eerily perfect timing and perception. Meanwhile, in a separate historical storyline that is lightly attached to the contemporary one, we follow Longfellow through the Civil War and the life-altering events that tested his faith and nearly crushed his spirit. Chiaverini stitches together a series of lightly interlocking contemporary vignettes in an intriguing way and manages to tuck away all the ragged edges in the emotionally satisfying conclusion. In the background are Longfellow’s tragic Civil War–era experiences, which, while poignant, feel emotionally distant.
A gentle exploration of tragedy, hope, the power of Christmas, and the possibility of miracles.Pub Date: Oct. 27, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-525-95524-5
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Dutton
Review Posted Online: July 29, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2015
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