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NEW YORK, MY VILLAGE

A rollicking picaresque at times hindered by stilted dialogue and bulky scenes.

A Nigerian editor suffers through four months in New York in Akpan's satirical first novel.

Ekong Udousoro, a Nigerian book editor, heads to Manhattan to understudy at a publishing house and edit an anthology of stories by minority writers caught in the crossfire during the Biafran War, a ruthless ethnic conflict that consumed southern Nigeria in the late 1960s and whose legacy still haunts Ekong and other members of his hard-hit tribal minority. After procuring a visa—an infuriating process that provides some of the book’s most affecting scenes—Ekong arrives in New York and quickly falls in love with Times Square, which feels “so global, so democratic, as though all these lights had already boiled and refined every soul down to essential humanity.” Yet he also finds himself living in an illegal sublet in a shabby Hell’s Kitchen apartment that hasn’t been renovated in decades—and he and his neighbors soon find themselves battling not just racial tensions, but an infestation of bedbugs. Meanwhile, Ekong finds himself the only person at his publishing house who isn't White, something that is uncomfortable for him and, tellingly, for his supposedly anti-racist co-workers. (There’s an amazing moment during an editorial meeting when Jack, a high-powered villain on the publicity team, says that Ekong isn’t “conversant” enough about American culture to edit American stories; Ekong replies that Jack is “totally right,” then adds, “But you guys have been editing African fiction, no?”) America and Nigeria serve as mirrors for each other here: Both are places of incredible diversity (Nigeria has at least 250 ethnic groups), yet both are marred by the fact that old conflicts continue to circumscribe nearly every interracial (or intertribal) interaction. Yet, as important as Akpan’s investigations into this subject are, his book struggles at the line and scene levels. For instance, this interaction between Ekong and his neighbor is as defined by its stilted dialogue as it is by its piercing insight into the sometimes-fraught relationship between Black Americans and Black Africans: “ ‘Look, Ekong, let’s forget our disagreement for a moment, so we can really talk,’ he said, clearing his throat. ‘You’re very gracious...thanks,’ I said, straightening up. ‘Keith, talking is good, talking is really good, bro.’ ‘Yes.’ ‘No, I’m sorry for my outburst and attack! I didn’t have to say that about slaves and your ancestors—our ancestors….’ ‘I guess we can’t resolve four-hundred-year-old bad blood by screaming at each other on the streets.’ ‘I know.’ ‘Bro, how was your day?’ ‘So-so.’ ‘Mine, too.’ ”

A rollicking picaresque at times hindered by stilted dialogue and bulky scenes.

Pub Date: Nov. 2, 2021

ISBN: 978-0-393-88142-4

Page Count: 400

Publisher: Norton

Review Posted Online: Aug. 17, 2021

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2021

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INTERMEZZO

Though not perfect, a clear leap forward for Rooney; her grandmaster status remains intact.

Two brothers—one a lawyer, one a chess prodigy—work through the death of their father, their complicated romantic lives, and their even more tangled relationship with each other.

Ten years separate the Koubek brothers. In his early 30s, Peter has turned his past as a university debating champ into a career as a progressive lawyer in Dublin. Ivan is just out of college, struggling to make ends meet through freelance data analysis and reckoning with his recent free fall in the world chess rankings. When their father dies of cancer, the cracks in the brothers’ relationship widen. “Complete oddball” Ivan falls in love with an older woman, an arts center employee, which freaks Peter out. Peter juggles two women at once: free-spirited college student Naomi and his ex-girlfriend Sylvia, whose life has changed drastically since a car accident left her in chronic pain. Emotional chaos abounds. Rooney has struck a satisfying blend of the things she’s best at—sensitively rendered characters, intimacies, consideration of social and philosophical issues—with newer moves. Having the book’s protagonists navigating a familial rather than romantic relationship seems a natural next step for Rooney, with her astutely empathic perception, and the sections from Peter’s point of view show Rooney pushing her style into new territory with clipped, fragmented, almost impressionistic sentences. (Peter on Sylvia: “Must wonder what he’s really here for: repentance, maybe. Bless me for I have. Not like that, he wants to tell her. Why then. Terror of solitude.”) The risk: Peter comes across as a slightly blurry character, even to himself—he’s no match for the indelible Ivan—so readers may find these sections less propulsive at best or over-stylized at worst. Overall, though, the pages still fly; the characters remain reach-out-and-touch-them real.

Though not perfect, a clear leap forward for Rooney; her grandmaster status remains intact.

Pub Date: Sept. 24, 2024

ISBN: 9780374602635

Page Count: 464

Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux

Review Posted Online: July 4, 2024

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2024

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THE WOMEN

A dramatic, vividly detailed reconstruction of a little-known aspect of the Vietnam War.

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A young woman’s experience as a nurse in Vietnam casts a deep shadow over her life.

When we learn that the farewell party in the opening scene is for Frances “Frankie” McGrath’s older brother—“a golden boy, a wild child who could make the hardest heart soften”—who is leaving to serve in Vietnam in 1966, we feel pretty certain that poor Finley McGrath is marked for death. Still, it’s a surprise when the fateful doorbell rings less than 20 pages later. His death inspires his sister to enlist as an Army nurse, and this turn of events is just the beginning of a roller coaster of a plot that’s impressive and engrossing if at times a bit formulaic. Hannah renders the experiences of the young women who served in Vietnam in all-encompassing detail. The first half of the book, set in gore-drenched hospital wards, mildewed dorm rooms, and boozy officers’ clubs, is an exciting read, tracking the transformation of virginal, uptight Frankie into a crack surgical nurse and woman of the world. Her tensely platonic romance with a married surgeon ends when his broken, unbreathing body is airlifted out by helicopter; she throws her pent-up passion into a wild affair with a soldier who happens to be her dead brother’s best friend. In the second part of the book, after the war, Frankie seems to experience every possible bad break. A drawback of the story is that none of the secondary characters in her life are fully three-dimensional: Her dismissive, chauvinistic father and tight-lipped, pill-popping mother, her fellow nurses, and her various love interests are more plot devices than people. You’ll wish you could have gone to Vegas and placed a bet on the ending—while it’s against all the odds, you’ll see it coming from a mile away.

A dramatic, vividly detailed reconstruction of a little-known aspect of the Vietnam War.

Pub Date: Feb. 6, 2024

ISBN: 9781250178633

Page Count: 480

Publisher: St. Martin's

Review Posted Online: Nov. 4, 2023

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2023

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