A thoughtful and affecting dystopian parable.
In Saunders’ speculative novel, a girl with unusual abilities comes of age in a misogynist society after her mother is jailed for “seagull terrorism.”
The story opens with the young, unnamed protagonist suffering from a spontaneous skin rash sprouting bird feathers; such strange physical transformations, which she calls “leaky boundaries,” trouble her throughout her life. At one point, she feels goldfish suddenly appear in her stomach; at another, she vomits staples while at work. When she was little, her mother, Shirley Jones, was hauled away by authoritarian “blue-uniforms”; she’s one of many women who’ve been accused of poisoning birds as a terrorist act, sometimes causing them to act violently—though it becomes clear that the real reason that animals are acting so strangely is due to massive pollution, caused, in part, by the manufacture of “POP’S COLA.” As a young woman, the protagonist becomes involved with an unnamed, self-centered musician; when he gets a job with a group of Elvis impersonators, she follows him to desolate High Plains, Nevada, where their relationship deteriorates. At its best, Saunders’ tense prose calls to mind the experimental work of Renee Gladman, and her worldbuilding recalls J.G. Ballard, as when a band of protestors joyfully documents the death of a cow on their cell phones: “What are you filming? the woman asks…Decay, they say, not looking up.” The imagery is simultaneously off-kilter and razor-sharp (“The reporter’s voice cuts into the girl’s ears like steel whorls. Stepping outside, she can taste the sea, its blue relief, and hear the rattling of animals in the bushes”), which makes the main character’s journey consistently compelling and dreamlike. The society in which the protagonist lives, which detests women and cracks down on even mild dissent, is sketched with little subtlety at times (one protestor’s sign states, “EXCLUSIVELY BLAMING WOMEN IS A CRIME ITSELF”), but it feels grimly familiar. The novel’s insights into toxic masculinity are especially cogent; the cultish, all-male “All-Elvis enclave” is initially amusing, but its corrupting influence on the main character’s boyfriend—who shows increasing contempt for her, and for all women, as the narrative progresses—gives the joke a jagged edge.
A thoughtful and affecting dystopian parable.Pub Date: Nov. 12, 2024
ISBN: 9781573662086
Page Count: 159
Publisher: Fiction Collective 2
Review Posted Online: Dec. 20, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2025
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
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: today
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
