A trio of intriguing but uneven dramas.
A collection of two-act plays probes damaged lives.
Sometimes people’s past traumas, even when known and accounted for, can destroy them in the present. In Tattoos, teenager Wylie shocks his ex-military father, Wyman, by joining the Army and proposing to his girlfriend, whom he met only two weeks ago. Not knowing what else to do, Wyman allows the new wife, 16-year-old Julie, to move into the house while Wylie is away at boot camp. It quickly becomes clear that the real romantic tension may be between Wyman and his teenage daughter-in-law—and that Wylie may have engineered it. In School Play, Ted, a middle-aged college English instructor, has some concerns about essay content written by a Kenyan student named Charles. “Most times the kids in my classes write stuff about things like the sports trophies they won as middle schoolers,” Ted tells his superior. “Charles mentions people’s hands getting cut off with machetes.” Despite Ted’s fears, the two enter into an odd sort of mentorship, one that comes to involve an alluring high school–aged actor. Tyrannos is a modern take on Greek tragedy involving a Donald Trump–like American president plagued by scandals—including a potentially career-ending rumor that his wife is actually his sister. Young creates captivating premises, at least in the first two plays, and his dialogue is sharp and engaging. But his characters rarely act or speak in the ways that normal humans would. They are all hyperliterate, whether they should be or not, dropping references to the theater and Freud and asking dramatic questions rather than obvious ones. Here, Wyman and Julie chat after their (illegal) indiscretion: “WYMAN Well, I’m not blaming you...anyway, it wasn’t your whole body.…I mean I think Freud was trying to answer that question: Why do we feel bad? I mean, I don’t feel bad about wanting to play golf, usually. His answer: mum and dad. ‘Our beds are crowded,’ he said. JULIE Did you love her? Wylie’s mom.” The first two plays bring up serious issues—in both cases, the predatory behavior of men, among others—without earnestly addressing them. The third play is tedious Trump-era moralizing. None of the three manage to quite achieve the lofty aims that the author sets for himself.
A trio of intriguing but uneven dramas.Pub Date: July 17, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-73442-363-1
Page Count: 301
Publisher: Self
Review Posted Online: July 6, 2022
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
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