A scattershot mix of cataloguing, introspection, and philosophizing.
In Bloom’s novel set in 2023, a man searches for meaning in his life and career after the death of his lifelong love.
As the story opens, Tokyo-based American Sebastian Reuter is an accountant, painter, former actor, and all-around learned man who finds out that Valeria, the woman he’s loved for 23 years, has died. He characterizes her demise in spiritual terms—specifically, as yet another in a long series of battles between God and the Devil: “The Devil killed her today.” Over the course of the novel, readers learn more details about Valeria and her backstory. It’s revealed that Reuter hadn’t seen her in three years when she died, ever since she married another man, but her passing still stings and sends him spiraling through memories of his past life when he returns to Los Angeles to attend her funeral. In LA, he meets a stranger named Freya, and they have a fun, light dalliance—exactly the kind of encounter that Reuter needs at the moment. However, he doesn’t stick around for very long, as he’s needed back in Tokyo, where he meets another woman, Famke, whose husband is unfaithful to her; she’s looking to have a fling of her own. Briefly, there is a hint of tension as Reuter weighs his encounters with Freya and Famke in his mind, ruminating on which relationship might suit him better. However, in both his encounters and his reflections, Reuter remains detached and clinical—a trait that he attributes to his earlier acting training in which he learned to separate himself from his emotions. This feeling of emotional separation, while consistent with his character, seeps into the rest of the novel.
What begins as a Bret Easton Ellis–style cataloguing of brands (“He had a Constantin Vacheron watch and Brunello Cucinelli shoes, a Tom Ford suit, and a black tie too skinny for the occasion”) descends into mantras that, unlike in Ellis’ work, never quite read as satiric: “I was quitting smoking. Whenever I stopped, I always became Terminator, the Viking Surfer Terminator Driver of the willpower to do all I was capable.” Halfway through the novel, its conventional structure breaks down as Reuter digs into his notions about religion (“The Devil is challenging. But I can’t be harmed under God’s protection. Then, is it God or the Devil in disguise?”) as well as his ongoing work involving quantum theory (“My quantum mechanics physics spatial geospatial intelligent general and special theory draft story work in progress was a train of thought frame of mind-body consciousness conceptual anchoring referential point…”). He also touches on a range of other topics, including investment strategy, resulting in tangents that often border on incoherency. Overall, the work offers an unusual glimpse into the mind of a modern man who’s clearly not doing very well. Some readers will find the novel’s breakdown of typical story structure and descent into hyperspecific rumination to be an offbeat and engaging choice. However, others are likely to find it tedious and off-putting.
A scattershot mix of cataloguing, introspection, and philosophizing.Pub Date: May 5, 2025
ISBN: 9781944527471
Page Count: 180
Publisher: Natural Press
Review Posted Online: June 10, 2025
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
A welcome literary resurrection that deserves a place alongside Wright’s best-known work.
A falsely accused Black man goes into hiding in this masterful novella by Wright (1908-1960), finally published in full.
Written in 1941 and '42, between Wright’s classics Native Son and Black Boy, this short novel concerns Fred Daniels, a modest laborer who’s arrested by police officers and bullied into signing a false confession that he killed the residents of a house near where he was working. In a brief unsupervised moment, he escapes through a manhole and goes into hiding in a sewer. A series of allegorical, surrealistic set pieces ensues as Fred explores the nether reaches of a church, a real estate firm, and a jewelry store. Each stop is an opportunity for Wright to explore themes of hope, greed, and exploitation; the real estate firm, Wright notes, “collected hundreds of thousands of dollars in rent from poor colored folks.” But Fred’s deepening existential crisis and growing distance from society keep the scenes from feeling like potted commentaries. As he wallpapers his underground warren with cash, mocking and invalidating the currency, he registers a surrealistic but engrossing protest against divisive social norms. The novel, rejected by Wright’s publisher, has only appeared as a substantially truncated short story until now, without the opening setup and with a different ending. Wright's take on racial injustice seems to have unsettled his publisher: A note reveals that an editor found reading about Fred’s treatment by the police “unbearable.” That may explain why Wright, in an essay included here, says its focus on race is “rather muted,” emphasizing broader existential themes. Regardless, as an afterword by Wright’s grandson Malcolm attests, the story now serves as an allegory both of Wright (he moved to France, an “exile beyond the reach of Jim Crow and American bigotry”) and American life. Today, it resonates deeply as a story about race and the struggle to envision a different, better world.
A welcome literary resurrection that deserves a place alongside Wright’s best-known work.Pub Date: April 20, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-59853-676-8
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Library of America
Review Posted Online: March 16, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2021
BOOK TO SCREEN
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