A sprawling collage that, though lengthy and chatty, offers memorable characters.
Schulze offers an epic, character-driven novel of love, Hollywood, and ambition that spans two decades.
In 2016, 21-year-old Jacob Andrezj is a cinema buff with a chest full of DVDs and the passion to talk about them. He studies screenwriting in Boston and has just returned stateside from study abroad in Florence, Italy, where he explored his sexuality. However, he finds the gay scene in New England, particularly during Pride Month, lacking—until he meets an older man named Stewie Hanz, who turns Jacob on to the music of the Pet Shop Boys and listens to his intense criticism of films such as Lawrence of Arabia. Meanwhile, out in California, Drew Lawrence is a 40-year-old filmmaker who, thanks to his frustrations and abuse of steroids and other drugs, is prone to destructive outbursts. When he’s not snorting cocaine, having sex with male go-go dancers, or cruising around in his Jeep (with a license plate that reads “JEEPGUY”), he’s wondering where his “magic” went, so he embarks on a quest to regain his artistry. A man known as Whale is a young intern for a famous movie producer who calls himself “the Professor,” who, despite his moniker, is hardly instructive. Whale, along with his fellow interns, is often humiliated whenever he interacts with his boss; for example, the Professor gave him his insulting nickname. To aggravate matters, Whale lives with a wealthy slacker named Alex Avery who gets his kicks from drugs and rewatching The Wolf of Wall Street (2013). It’s clear that the entertainment business isn’t what Whale bargained for.
Some portions of Schulze’s novel are written as a screenplay, others are not, but the main narratives effectively interweave as the story goes on. The work is more than 800 pages long, and with that length come a range of styles and tapestry of tones, with physical connections that range from a relatively chaste kiss of two strangers to a drug-fueled Drew working his “coarse leathery hands” over a conquest in a bathroom. The page count also allows for intriguingly nuanced characters, and as the characters’ stories grow more complex, readers will find themselves consistently curious as to how the next scene will develop. Will Drew run himself ragged or find a path of reform? Will Jacob and Stewie make things work even when the latter reveals a secret? Schulze effectively paints Jacob as someone who desperately wants to join “the industry” even though his boss physically beats him. Many strange denizens of LA make their ways across the stage, as well. The many-layered narrative heavily focuses on dialogue, which makes for a slow pace. Jacob makes numerous digressions that add little to the story, explaining everything from Hogwarts to a T-shirt from Glee to how he picks what music to play in the car with his friends. (Even Stewie complains: “You say so many things!”) As a result, readers will find that speed is always a priority. A sprawling collage that, though lengthy and chatty, offers memorable characters.Pub Date: June 12, 2023
ISBN: 9781737037859
Page Count: 822
Publisher: David Schulze Books
Review Posted Online: Dec. 27, 2023
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
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SEEN & HEARD
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