A winding, offbeat, and sometimes-affecting journey.
Lieberman presents a literary novel about a man in crisis.
It’s the 2010s, and Lev Ockenshaw is a 29-year-old transgender man living in Boston and working at a company that makes security cameras. He’s not too excited about the job; what garners his interest instead is Chad Goeing, a man who died in 1900 and left behind an unpublished work called The Nature of Time. His official cause of death is unknown, which prompts Lev to do some investigating—and obsessing. Then Chad appears to Lev as a ghost. This is, however, not the only thing on Lev’s mind; he has a tumultuous friendship with a trans man named Stanley. For the most part, the two get along swimmingly until an incident involving a 1998 Ford Taurus. Back at Lev’s job, he receives a cryptic email about the company that reads, in part: “You are all being investigated now to account for your crimes.” Lev tries to bring this to the attention of his boss, but the response is tepid at best. Lucky for Lev, as he tries to unravel various mysteries, he also forms a bond with his co-worker Aparna. At one point, Lev, Stanley, and Aparna wind up swapping stories around a campfire in an homage of sorts to the 1990 Nickelodeon TV show Are You Afraid of the Dark?
Interspersed throughout these and other events are many heady conversations and observations involving a wide range of topics, including the philosophy of René Descartes, the Talmud, and the talking toy Teddy Ruxpin. There’s a portion considering “Rumpelstiltskin” as “a story that assumes cisgender people’s fear of transgender people,” for example, and frequent references to Abraham Zapruder’s film of President John F. Kennedy’s assassination (to which the title refers). Lev’s saga unfolds in a conversational manner, and as absurd as the hero’s adventures may seem at times, Lieberman uses them to form real connections with readers. For example, although Lev’s spat with Stanley is silly, Stanley’s absence for portions of the book has emotional impact, as when Lev says simply, “I wish I could call Stanley.” But the story, for all of its philosophical discussion, is not without its humor. At one point, for example, wild turkeys congregate behind Lev’s car not long before Thanksgiving, and he comments on how they seem to say, “We are not afraid of your car…nor your holiday. We are free.” However, most of the plot is resolved before the novel’s conclusion, which results in a meandering later section. Late in the game, Lev gets a new job, but this new position, along with the process of getting it, is largely inconsequential. Likewise, earlier portions, involving Lev’s quest to discover how Chad Goeing died, can drag, as there’s not much to make the reader care about how the writer died other than Lev’s insistence on finding out the truth. Yet, throughout it all, Lev proves to be a memorable protagonist—and one with a great deal on his mind.
A winding, offbeat, and sometimes-affecting journey.Pub Date: Sept. 20, 2022
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: 598
Publisher: tRaum Books
Review Posted Online: Aug. 4, 2022
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
Uneven but fitfully amusing.
Betrayed by her husband, a severely depressed young woman gets drawn into the over-the-top festivities at a lavish wedding.
Phoebe Stone, who teaches English literature at a St. Louis college, is plotting her own demise. Her husband, Matt, has left her for another woman, and Phoebe is taking it hard. Indeed, she's determined just where and how she will end it all: at an oceanfront hotel in Newport, where she will lie on a king-sized canopy bed and take a bottle of her cat’s painkillers. At the hotel, Phoebe meets bride-to-be Lila, a headstrong rich girl presiding over her own extravagant six-day wedding celebration. Lila thought she had booked every room in the hotel, and learning of Phoebe's suicidal intentions, she forbids this stray guest from disrupting the nuptials: “No. You definitely can’t kill yourself. This is my wedding week.” After the punchy opening, a grim flashback to the meltdown of Phoebe's marriage temporarily darkens the mood, but things pick up when spoiled Lila interrupts Phoebe's preparations and sweeps her up in the wedding juggernaut. The slide from earnest drama to broad farce is somewhat jarring, but from this point on, Espach crafts an enjoyable—if overstuffed—comedy of manners. When the original maid of honor drops out, Phoebe is persuaded, against her better judgment, to take her place. There’s some fun to be had here: The wedding party—including groom-to-be Gary, a widower, and his 11-year-old daughter—takes surfing lessons; the women in the group have a session with a Sex Woman. But it all goes on too long, and the humor can seem forced, reaching a low point when someone has sex with the vintage wedding car (you don’t want to know the details). Later, when two characters have a meet-cute in a hot tub, readers will guess exactly how the marriage plot resolves.
Uneven but fitfully amusing.Pub Date: July 30, 2024
ISBN: 9781250899576
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: Sept. 13, 2024
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