An engrossing, character-driven cautionary look at a stark possible future.
In Bernard’s interconnected short stories, communities and individuals struggle to survive in post-apocalyptic Ohio.
The horrors of climate change, two pandemics, social media, nuclear war, and infertility define “Late-K,” or the “desperate end-stage for the world.” In these 10 stories, taking place between 2012 and the 2060s, the remaining denizens of the Ohio Valley face the darkness and ambiguity of this new, simpler, more brutal reality. Among them is Hestia, a young woman tasked to handwrite copies of the crumbling texts of yesteryear, who is caught up in the village of Andeferas’ superstition and prejudice—which finds a target in an aging neighbor. Meanwhile, Safiya Kamal has become the Cleopatra of the Ohio River, commanding a fleet of vessels that move supplies, and is involved with the Brothers of the True Vine, a strange religious order involved in child trafficking, slavery, and rape. Cameron Caldwell, a former assistant district attorney, seeks (along with others) to investigate and end such despicable practices. All the while, nature undergoes a resurgence as humanity begins to foster a new, more sustainable relationship with it (“The engine they removed, of course, ran on either gasoline or diesel. As far as I know, Weston has no intention of reverting to those fossil fuels, even if he could find and refine them”). Though a sequel to Late-K Lunacy (2018), this novel stands comfortably on its own, with a firm focus on the survivors rather than the catastrophe; its characters’ origins and motivations are presented candidly and with great pith. The dry, wordy dialogue comes up short in comparison, lacking the idiosyncrasies and slang societies often develop or any dialects common in Appalachia. The worldbuilding is otherwise thorough, emphasizing the dangers of the newly wild and resource-depleted environment while showing how new customs develop and how the fears of the pre-apocalyptic world govern decisions. Miller’s black-and-white illustrations further cement the setting, and readers familiar with the Ohio River area will find many recognizable touchstones.
An engrossing, character-driven cautionary look at a stark possible future.Pub Date: April 3, 2023
ISBN: 9781989048870
Page Count: 204
Publisher: Petra Books
Review Posted Online: May 3, 2023
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
Captivating, frightening, and a singular achievement.
As Ireland devolves into a brutal police state, one woman tries to preserve her family in this stark fable.
For Eilish Stack, a molecular biologist living with her husband and four children in Dublin, life changes all at once and then slowly worsens beyond imagining. Two men appear at her door one night, agents of the new secret police, seeking her husband, Larry, a union official. Soon he is detained under the Emergency Powers Act recently pushed through by the new ruling party, and she cannot contact him. Eilish sees things shifting at work to those backing the ruling party. The state takes control of the press, the judiciary. Her oldest son receives a summons to military duty for the regime, and she tries to send him to Northern Ireland. He elects to join the rebel forces and soon she cannot contact him, either. His name and address appear in a newspaper ad listing people dodging military service. Eilish is coping with her father’s growing dementia, her teenage daughter’s depression, the vandalizing of her car and house. Then war comes to Dublin as the rebel forces close in on the city. Offered a chance to flee the country by her sister in Canada, Eilish can’t abandon hope for her husband’s and son’s returns. Lynch makes every step of this near-future nightmare as plausible as it is horrific by tightly focusing on Eilish, a smart, concerned woman facing terrible choices and losses. An exceptionally gifted writer, Lynch brings a compelling lyricism to her fears and despair while he marshals the details marking the collapse of democracy and the norms of daily life. His tonal control, psychological acuity, empathy, and bleakness recall Cormac McCarthy’s The Road (2006). And Eilish, his strong, resourceful, complete heroine, recalls the title character of Lynch’s excellent Irish-famine novel, Grace (2017).
Captivating, frightening, and a singular achievement.Pub Date: Dec. 5, 2023
ISBN: 9780802163011
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Atlantic Monthly
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2023
Suspenseful, full of incident, and not obviously necessary.
Atwood goes back to Gilead.
The Handmaid’s Tale (1985), consistently regarded as a masterpiece of 20th-century literature, has gained new attention in recent years with the success of the Hulu series as well as fresh appreciation from readers who feel like this story has new relevance in America’s current political climate. Atwood herself has spoken about how news headlines have made her dystopian fiction seem eerily plausible, and it’s not difficult to imagine her wanting to revisit Gilead as the TV show has sped past where her narrative ended. Like the novel that preceded it, this sequel is presented as found documents—first-person accounts of life inside a misogynistic theocracy from three informants. There is Agnes Jemima, a girl who rejects the marriage her family arranges for her but still has faith in God and Gilead. There’s Daisy, who learns on her 16th birthday that her whole life has been a lie. And there's Aunt Lydia, the woman responsible for turning women into Handmaids. This approach gives readers insight into different aspects of life inside and outside Gilead, but it also leads to a book that sometimes feels overstuffed. The Handmaid’s Tale combined exquisite lyricism with a powerful sense of urgency, as if a thoughtful, perceptive woman was racing against time to give witness to her experience. That narrator hinted at more than she said; Atwood seemed to trust readers to fill in the gaps. This dynamic created an atmosphere of intimacy. However curious we might be about Gilead and the resistance operating outside that country, what we learn here is that what Atwood left unsaid in the first novel generated more horror and outrage than explicit detail can. And the more we get to know Agnes, Daisy, and Aunt Lydia, the less convincing they become. It’s hard, of course, to compete with a beloved classic, so maybe the best way to read this new book is to forget about The Handmaid’s Tale and enjoy it as an artful feminist thriller.
Suspenseful, full of incident, and not obviously necessary.Pub Date: Sept. 10, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-385-54378-1
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Nan A. Talese
Review Posted Online: Sept. 3, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2019
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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