An interior, prismatic tale of writerly defiance.
A poet's collision with a tyrant, from 13 points of view.
Kadare, Albania’s preeminent poet and novelist, often makes the short list of candidates for the Nobel Prize in Literature, and this slim, melancholy tale is in part about the perils of international acclaim in the shadow of repressive regimes. The core of the story concerns a 1934 phone call Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin made to Boris Pasternak, who had lifelong battles with Soviet leadership. (His most famous work, the 1957 novel Doctor Zhivago, was published in the West against the state’s wishes, propelling him to the Nobel.) Stalin called to ask about the dissident poet Osip Mandelstam, who’d been arrested for writing a poem criticizing Stalin. But what exactly was Stalin asking? How did Pasternak respond? And what was Mandelstam critiquing, exactly? The narrator—a Kadare manqué who’s had his own troubles with state censorship—considers the question by exploring the multiple variations of the story of the call. Pasternak’s wife recalls her husband as poised on the phone, requesting Mandelstam’s release; his lover suggests he was more fearful and equivocating. Other versions characterize Pasternak as alternately more timid or defiant, Stalin as more opaque or threatening. “Anybody who takes the plunge in search of the truth, who thinks at first that thirteen versions are too many, may by the end of the case think that these are insufficient!” the narrator writes. But 13 are enough to convey the sense that a writer under totalitarianism has reasons to cloak emotions and massage details, and the variety of stories speaks to how widely Stalin’s intimidation spread. Kadare’s novel is an appealingly plainspoken lament, and Hodgson’s translation captures a somber mood. The run-through of variations leaves the story without an arc, but delivers a strong case against dictatorial meddling in art.
An interior, prismatic tale of writerly defiance.Pub Date: Sept. 19, 2023
ISBN: 9781640096080
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Counterpoint
Review Posted Online: July 26, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2023
PERSPECTIVES
IN THE NEWS
A beautiful meditation on queer identity against a supernatural backdrop.
Three women deal very differently with vampirism in Schwab’s era-spanning follow-up to The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue (2020).
In 16th-century Spain, Maria seduces a wealthy viscount in an attempt to seize whatever control she can over her own life. It turns out that being a wife—even a wealthy one—is just another cage, but then a mysterious widow offers Maria a surprising escape route. In the 19th century, Charlotte is sent from her home in the English countryside to live with an aunt in London when she’s found trying to kiss her best friend. She’s despondent at the idea of marrying a man, but another mysterious widow—who has a secret connection to Maria’s widow from centuries earlier—appears and teaches Charlotte that she can be free to love whomever she chooses, if she’s brave enough. In 2019, Alice’s memories of growing up in Scotland with her mercurial older sister, Catty, pull her mind away from her first days at Harvard University. And though she doesn’t meet any mysterious widows, Alice wakes up alone after a one-night stand unable to tolerate sunlight, sporting two new fangs, and desperate to drink blood. Horrified at her transformation, she searches Boston for her hookup, who was the last person she remembers seeing before she woke up as a vampire. Schwab delicately intertwines the three storylines, which are compelling individually even before the reader knows how they will connect. Maria, Charlotte, and Alice are queer women searching for love, recognition, and wholeness, growing fangs and defying mortality in a world that would deny them their very existence. Alice’s flashbacks to Catty are particularly moving, and subtly play off themes of grief and loneliness laid out in the historical timelines.
A beautiful meditation on queer identity against a supernatural backdrop.Pub Date: June 10, 2025
ISBN: 9781250320520
Page Count: 544
Publisher: Tor
Review Posted Online: March 22, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
PERSPECTIVES
PERSPECTIVES
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
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
