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A COUNTRY FOR DYING

Lyrical and impassioned.

In this newly translated work of fiction, the Paris-based Moroccan writer and filmmaker looks at sexuality, desire, and identity in a post-colonial world.

Zahira is a Moroccan woman living in Paris. She gives her friend Aziz, an émigré from Algeria, the new name Zannouba on the evening before the young woman’s gender affirmation surgery. Both are prostitutes. Zahira offers herself to the Muslim immigrants of Paris. Zannouba cultivates a wealthier clientele. Both women dream of a future that is very different from their present, and their accounts are intertwined with those of the men and women they meet. The people depicted here are not so much united by story—there isn’t much in the way of story—as by themes. The French occupations of North African and Southeast Asia cast a shadow over their lives, from the undocumented laborers Zahira takes as customers to another Moroccan prostitute attached to a French army unit in 1950s Saigon. Class and race are also explored here. A man who fell in love with Zahira when she was a girl is enraged to discover that she is not the pure creature he imagined, and his anger is fueled, in part, by the fact that her mother rejected his offer of marriage because he’s Black. When Zannouba first arrives in Paris, she makes her way by presenting herself in the way French men want to see her: “I prostituted myself dressed as a moderately savage Arab boy from over there, Algeria. The clients liked that.” In her private life, she simultaneously emulates and disdains the wealthy, educated men in her orbit. Identity is presented as a fluid concept for the characters. Upon discovering that surgery is not the transformation she hoped it would be, Zannouba loses herself in a surreal reverie about the actress Isabelle Adjani. Another actress—the classic Bollywood star Nargis—is an aspirational figure for the Moroccan woman stranded in Vietnam. None of these characters emerges as a fully formed person, and they all speak with the same fervent, poetic voice. But in these vignettes and monologues, Taïa offers American readers glimpses of lives few of us are likely to see outside of this book.

Lyrical and impassioned.

Pub Date: Sept. 15, 2020

ISBN: 978-1-60980-990-4

Page Count: 144

Publisher: Seven Stories

Review Posted Online: July 28, 2020

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2020

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DEVOLUTION

A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy.

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Are we not men? We are—well, ask Bigfoot, as Brooks does in this delightful yarn, following on his bestseller World War Z(2006).

A zombie apocalypse is one thing. A volcanic eruption is quite another, for, as the journalist who does a framing voice-over narration for Brooks’ latest puts it, when Mount Rainier popped its cork, “it was the psychological aspect, the hyperbole-fueled hysteria that had ended up killing the most people.” Maybe, but the sasquatches whom the volcano displaced contributed to the statistics, too, if only out of self-defense. Brooks places the epicenter of the Bigfoot war in a high-tech hideaway populated by the kind of people you might find in a Jurassic Park franchise: the schmo who doesn’t know how to do much of anything but tries anyway, the well-intentioned bleeding heart, the know-it-all intellectual who turns out to know the wrong things, the immigrant with a tough backstory and an instinct for survival. Indeed, the novel does double duty as a survival manual, packed full of good advice—for instance, try not to get wounded, for “injury turns you from a giver to a taker. Taking up our resources, our time to care for you.” Brooks presents a case for making room for Bigfoot in the world while peppering his narrative with timely social criticism about bad behavior on the human side of the conflict: The explosion of Rainier might have been better forecast had the president not slashed the budget of the U.S. Geological Survey, leading to “immediate suspension of the National Volcano Early Warning System,” and there’s always someone around looking to monetize the natural disaster and the sasquatch-y onslaught that follows. Brooks is a pro at building suspense even if it plays out in some rather spectacularly yucky episodes, one involving a short spear that takes its name from “the sucking sound of pulling it out of the dead man’s heart and lungs.” Grossness aside, it puts you right there on the scene.

A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy.

Pub Date: June 16, 2020

ISBN: 978-1-9848-2678-7

Page Count: 304

Publisher: Del Rey/Ballantine

Review Posted Online: Feb. 9, 2020

Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2020

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THE WOMAN IN SUITE 11

An enjoyable visit with an old character, but not one of Ware’s strongest.

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Travel writer Lo Blacklock is back. Ten years after the events of The Woman in Cabin 10 (2016), she's attending the opening of a lavish Swiss hotel when, once again, a mystery intervenes.

A decade after she almost died on a luxury cruise and ended up exposing a murder plot, travel journalist Laura “Lo” Blacklock is trying to get back into the business post-Covid-19 and post–maternity leave. When she's invited to an exclusive hotel launch by the Leidmann Group on the shores of Switzerland’s gorgeous Lake Geneva, her supportive husband, Judah, insists that she should go, and her old boss, Rowan, says that if Lo can score an interview with the reclusive Marcus Leidmann, she’ll publish it in the Financial Times. Leaving Judah and the kids at home in New York, Lo is surprised by a last-minute upgrade to first class, which kicks off her trip in style. The hotel is appropriately awe-inspiring in both scenic location and effortless luxury, and Lo starts to put the memories of last trip’s trauma behind her, thinking that maybe she can just enjoy the experience this time. But then, at dinner, she's surprised to see at least three guests who were also on that original cruise, and when she finds a mysterious note in her room saying "Please come to suite 11 as soon as possible," she gets another shock. To quote William Faulkner, she realizes that “the past is never dead,” and soon Lo is careening across Europe on her way to England, only to find herself embroiled in another murder. The back half of the novel offers her the opportunity to continue her amateur sleuthing, and while she avoids much of the physical danger that plagued her on the cruise a decade ago, she is in very real legal trouble. This is the prolific Ware’s first sequel, and it's fun to spend time with Lo again, as she's both savvy and kindhearted. Unfortunately, the mystery is not as atmospheric and gripping as usual for Ware, though even a lesser Ruth Ware thriller is still worth reading.

An enjoyable visit with an old character, but not one of Ware’s strongest.

Pub Date: July 8, 2025

ISBN: 9781668025628

Page Count: 400

Publisher: Scout Press/Simon & Schuster

Review Posted Online: April 4, 2025

Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2025

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