At her best, Kupersmith writes lyrically haunting tales; she’s a writer to watch.
In Kupersmith’s debut collection, old men shape-shift into serpents, ghostly women lap at bath water, mute twins frighten their own father, a deathly ill man hungers to hear his driver’s story, and all have a price to pay.
The ghosts of Vietnam haunt the pages of this collection, and as characters tell each other tales, the act of storytelling becomes dangerous, for the past feeds upon the present. As the grandmother in “Boat Story” tells of a strange encounter during a storm, she questions whether one can ever escape the past, because escaping the storm must surely have come at a price. The best of these short stories, such as “Little Brother” and “The Red Veil,” are indeed disturbing. Set in the titular Frangipani Hotel, “Reception” deftly mixes humor with horror. The narrator, Phi, runs the desk because his English is fairly good. Once owned by Phi’s father and two uncles, the hotel now belongs only to his uncle Mr. Henry; Phi’s father committed suicide a few years after Phi’s other uncle drowned under mysterious circumstances. With his crazy ideas for boosting business (including a weird plastic fountain and mustard-yellow uniforms), Mr. Henry both exasperates and amuses his nephew. One day, however, Phi discovers a strange woman living in an officially unoccupied room. She exacts promises that set in motion a catastrophic collision between present and past, man and woman, America and Vietnam. Other tales are less successful, omitting links that would explain startling metamorphoses. In “Skin and Bones,” for example, an overweight girl is sent to visit her grandmother. She knows full well it’s really fat camp, and she’s willing to tell her story to a masked woman in exchange for delicious sandwiches. Her story may come at a cost, but Kupersmith’s tale leaves a lot of loose ends dangling.
At her best, Kupersmith writes lyrically haunting tales; she’s a writer to watch.Pub Date: April 1, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-8129-9331-8
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Spiegel & Grau
Review Posted Online: Jan. 24, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2014
BOOK REVIEW
A tantalizing, otherworldy adventure with imagination that burns like fire.
The third installment of this fantasy series (The Bone Season, 2013; The Mime Order, 2015) expands the reaches of the fight against Scion far beyond London.
Paige Mahoney, though only 19, serves as the Underqueen of the Mime Order. She's the leader of the Unnatural community in London, a city serving under the ever more militaristic Scion, whose government is based on ridding the streets of "enemy" clairvoyants. But Paige knows the truth about Scion's roots—that an Unnatural and immortal race called the Rephaim, who come from the Netherworld, forced Scion into existence to gain control over the growing human clairvoyant community. Scion’s hatred of clairvoyants now runs so deep that Paige is forced to consider moving her entire syndicate into hiding while she aims to stop Scion's next attack: there are rumors that Senshield, a scanner able to detect certain levels of clairvoyance, is going portable. Which means no Unnatural citizen is safe—their safe houses, their back-alley routes, are all at risk of detection. Paige’s main enemy this time around is Hildred Vance, mastermind of Scion’s military branch, ScionIDE. Vance creates terror by anticipating her opponent’s next moves, so with each step that Paige and her team take to dismantle Senshield, Vance is hovering nearby to toy with Paige’s will. Luckily, Paige is never separated for long from her Rephaite ally, Warden, as his presence is grounding. But their growing relationship, strengthened by their connection to the spirit world, takes a back seat to the constant, fast-paced action. The mesmerizing qualities of this series—insight into the different orders of clairvoyance as well as the intricately imagined details of Paige’s “dreamwalking” gift, with which she is able to enter others’ minds—fade to the background as this seven-part series climbs to its highest point of tension. Shannon’s world begins to feel more generically dystopian, but as Paige fights to locate and understand the spiritual energy powering Senshield, it is never less than captivating.
A tantalizing, otherworldy adventure with imagination that burns like fire.Pub Date: March 7, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-63286-624-0
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Bloomsbury
Review Posted Online: Dec. 14, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2017
Certainly not for all readers, but anyone interested in seeing William Peter Blatty’s infamous The Exorcist (1971) by way of...
The wonder of friendship proves to be stronger than the power of Christ when an ancient demon possesses a teenage girl.
Hendrix was outrageously inventive with his debut novel (Horrorstör, 2014) and continues his winning streak with a nostalgic (if blood-soaked) horror story to warm the hearts of Gen Xers. “The exorcist is dead,” Hendrix writes in the very first line of the novel, as a middle-aged divorcée named Abby Rivers reflects back on the friendship that defined her life. In flashbacks, Abby meets her best friend, Gretchen Lang, at her 10th birthday party in 1982, forever cementing their comradeship. The bulk of the novel is set in 1988, and it’s an unabashed love letter to big hair, heavy metal, and all the pop-culture trappings of the era, complete with chapter titles ripped from songs all the way from “Don’t You Forget About Me” to “And She Was.” Things go sideways when Abby, Gretchen, and two friends venture off to a cabin in the woods (as happens) to experiment with LSD. After Gretchen disappears for a night, she returns a changed girl. Hendrix walks a precipitously fine line in his portrayal, leaving the story open to doubt whether Gretchen is really possessed or has simply fallen prey to the vanities and duplicities that high school sometimes inspires. He also ferociously captures the frustrations of adolescence as Abby seeks adult help in her plight and is relentlessly dismissed by her elders. She finally finds a hero in Brother Lemon, a member of a Christian boy band, the Lemon Brothers Faith and Fitness Show, who agrees to help her. When Abby’s demon finally shows its true colors in the book’s denouement, it’s not only a spectacularly grotesque and profane depiction of exorcism, but counterintuitively a truly inspiring portrayal of the resilience of friendship.
Certainly not for all readers, but anyone interested in seeing William Peter Blatty’s infamous The Exorcist (1971) by way of Heathers shouldn’t miss it.Pub Date: May 17, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-59474-862-2
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Quirk Books
Review Posted Online: March 1, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2016
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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