The power of this novel revolves around its small yet larger-than-life moments.
A journey back from the dead is illuminated by thrilling, one-of-a-kind encounters.
The border between life and death is porous—nearly nonexistent—in this exhilarating tale examining the intersection of our world and the next. Mabanckou writes with equal doses of whimsy and descriptiveness, creating a hero’s journey told backward in the second person by a narrator who speaks directly to the protagonist, Liwa Ekimakingaï. Having lived in the Congolese town of Pointe-Noire, Liwa first grapples with his recent death and then begins to encounter the various worlds he has departed, entered into, and straddles. Mabanckou gives the story a crackling energy, which moves from the present to the recent past to Liwa’s childhood with ease. His passionate language gives the book’s opening a charge, instantly thrusting the reader into something akin to the shock of being dead—if shock can be felt in the afterlife. The novel begins: “You tell yourself over and over till you come to believe it: your new life started an hour ago, when a shock ripped through the earth around you, and you felt yourself being sucked up by a cyclone, then flung down where you’re lying right now, on a heap of earth topped with a brand-new wooden cross.” From there, the pace only quickens. Liwa is met by heaps of fascinating friends, and gaps are filled from equally titillating characters he encountered while alive, the most important being his grandmother Mâ Lembé. It’s their relationship that gives Mabanckou’s novel its power, and any desire to figure out how or why Liwa died dissipates as their final meeting is described. The last time he sees her is described like this: “Complete happiness, at which you blink for a moment, and fill your ribcage with breath.” A feeling that hopefully reverberates into infinity.
The power of this novel revolves around its small yet larger-than-life moments.Pub Date: Sept. 16, 2025
ISBN: 9781620979556
Page Count: 208
Publisher: The New Press
Review Posted Online: July 17, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
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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