There's nothing solid in the foundation of this book.
A troubled young man in search of his lost love finds himself involved with White supremacists in this novel set in the uncertain days leading up to Y2K.
Lucien, the unappealing hero, has been withdrawn ever since recovering from a car accident, spending his days pretending to still be a college student. An offer to act as a winter caretaker for a house whose owners have left for warmer climes becomes an opportunity to investigate a nearby Christian Identity church whose pastor is the husband of Maura, the woman he loved. Lucien met her when the two of them worked at a bank, and he has not seen her since she disappeared at the same time the bank found $5,000 missing. If that weren't premise enough, the novel features mystic-religious visions that seem more inspired by the covers of Christian metal LPs than anything else. In addition, there's the mysterious long-lost daughter of the couple Lucien is caretaking for and a collection of books containing art looted by the Nazis, none of these anything but distractions from the main plot. At times, the book seems to be about how easy it is to be seduced into racism, but Lucien's flirtations feel too naïve to be believable or for the reader to have a stake in his going astray. A speech toward the end rebuking the White supremacists for perverting Christ's true message is the final mawkish touch.
There's nothing solid in the foundation of this book.Pub Date: Oct. 13, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-641-29220-7
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Soho
Review Posted Online: July 13, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A perfectly charming read for devotees of the written word and anyone who’s ever hoped to find love in a bookstore.
An anonymous note left in a used book creates a surprising love triangle in Seattle.
April knows she’s become a bit too isolated while working remotely for an online real estate company. Her only social interactions come from awkward blind dates and apologetic texts from busy friends who have left her behind. Perhaps it’s this loneliness that causes her to take drastic, romantic action. She leaves an anonymous note in a book she sells to local bookstore Read the Room—it’s meant for the eyes of the cute flannel-wearing man who works at the used-book counter. But that cute employee, Westley, doesn’t see the note before putting the book—Magpie Murders by Anthony Horowitz—on the shelf. Instead, it’s found by widowed mother Laura, who thinks it’s Westley’s way of covertly communicating with her, and she responds by leaving a note in a copy of The Hunger Games, as April instructed in her original letter. Westley, meanwhile, has no idea why women are staring at him from the young adult section—he’s focused on a movie that’s filming at Read the Room. As April and Laura unwittingly leave each other letters, the many characters in the bookstore’s orbit get to know each other and unlikely connections form. In her debut novel, Seattle Times arts critic Macdonald writes her own love letter to bookstores, and the community and comfort they can provide. The writing has the feel of a British rom-com, despite the Seattle setting, which gives the story a cozy air. Although there are romances brewing, the story is ultimately about the courage it takes to go after the life you want.
A perfectly charming read for devotees of the written word and anyone who’s ever hoped to find love in a bookstore.Pub Date: May 27, 2025
ISBN: 9780593851296
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Dutton
Review Posted Online: March 8, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2025
An emotionally acute study of manliness.
Scenes from the life of a well-off but emotionally damaged man.
Szalay’s sixth novel is a study of István, who as a 15-year-old in Hungary is lured into a sexual relationship with a married neighbor; when he has a confrontation with the woman’s husband, the man falls down the stairs and dies. Add in stints in a juvenile facility and as a soldier in Iraq, and István enters his 20s almost completely stunted emotionally. (Saying much besides “Okay” sometimes seems utterly beyond him.) Fueled by id, libido, and street drugs, he seems destined to be a casualty until, while working as a bouncer at a London strip club, he helps rescue the owner of a security firm who’s been assaulted; soon, he’s hired as the driver for a tycoon and his wife, with whom he begins an affair. István is a fascinating character in a kind of negative sense—he’s intriguing for all the ways he fails to confront his trauma, all the missed opportunities to find deeper connections. To that end, Szalay’s prose is emotionally bare, deliberately clipped and declarative, evoking István’s unwillingness (or incapacity) to look inside himself; he occasionally consults with a therapist, but a relentless passivity keeps him from opening up much. His capacity to fail upwards eventually catches up with him, and the novel becomes a more standard story about betrayal and inheritances, but it also turns on small but meaningful moments of heroism that suggest a deeper character than somebody who, as someone suggests, “exemplif[ies] a primitive form of masculinity.” István’s relentlessly stony approach to existence grates at times—there are a few too many “okay”s in the dialogue—but Szalay’s distanced approach has its payoffs. Being closed off, like István, doesn’t close off the world, and at times has tragic consequences.
An emotionally acute study of manliness.Pub Date: April 1, 2025
ISBN: 9781982122799
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Scribner
Review Posted Online: March 22, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2025
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