What with the current enthusiasm for grandma-core, Flagg’s comforting, nostalgic storytelling may be just the ticket.
Thirty stories showcase the down-home author’s take on various modern dilemmas.
Flagg’s first collection of stories after many popular novels features the sweet, quirky characters and whimsical predicaments she’s known for. Some of the stories are linked; for example, the collection is bracketed by stories about Special Agent William Frawley, who’s sent from distant Planet 8676 to report on human life and find out why they are all so unhappy and staring at their hands. (Can you guess?) Typical Flaggian elements include the fact that the spaceman’s human avatar is based on the actor who played Fred on I Love Lucy, and that once he arrives in Fort Wayne, Indiana, Agent Frawley falls in love with the whole bedraggled human race, but particularly a woman named Debbie, who scoops ice cream at Baskin-Robbins. Another set of stories revolve around “Velma Ruth Vanderhoff, a sweet-looking apple dumpling of a lady, with snow-white hair as soft as cotton candy,” who’s never left her hometown of Cottonwood, Kansas. Her granddaughter Cathy, a yoga teacher in California, desperately wishes her grandmother would get online so they could text and FaceTime, but as it is, she’s confined to expressing her worries about climate change, the patriarchy, and her daughter Tracie Ann’s gender identity on a landline. She could visit…but will there be a charging station for her rented Tesla? Flagg offers a gently humorous grandma’s-eye view of these and other matters, from fat-shaming, racism, and disability rights (“Hunter College,” “The High School Reunion”) to adultery and murder (“Darla Womble”) to the problem of staying in one’s lane for white male authors (“The Fiction Writer”). All in all, the collection is not quite as engaging or successful as Flagg’s novels, but it could serve as either a gateway drug for newbies or a snack pack for die-hard fans.
What with the current enthusiasm for grandma-core, Flagg’s comforting, nostalgic storytelling may be just the ticket.Pub Date: Aug. 19, 2025
ISBN: 9780593734414
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: July 19, 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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