A blood-soaked tale of sex, love, and ennui that would make Anne Rice proud.
A vampire who has seen the rise and fall of civilizations and a young woman struggling to cope with her mother’s terminal illness become unlikely companions in the city of Buenos Aires.
In Yuszczuk’s novel—her first to be published in the U.S.—the streets of Buenos Aires run red with blood. Told in two parts that span the course of several centuries, the story begins with a nameless vampire recounting the exceedingly violent events of her long and lonely life. After witnessing the brutal deaths of her Maker and her sisters at the hands of enraged villagers—in a scene that is delightfully reminiscent of old black-and-white monster movies—she flees Europe for the distant coast of Argentina. Soon to be ravaged by the arrival of yellow fever, Buenos Aires provides her with an endless supply of fresh blood and the anonymity and discretion that she so greatly desires. As time passes, though, the city proves itself to be equally unsafe for a creature of the night. In the wake of betrayal and tragedy brought on by her nature, and after meeting a young cemetery groundskeeper who is entranced by both her beauty and her monstrosity, she locks herself inside a coffin in an abandoned tomb to live out a solitary and thirsty eternity. The story picks up years later in a modern Buenos Aires with a young woman who is struggling to help care for her ailing mother as well as with her own motherhood. As she traverses the city, telling readers about her life with an alarmingly robotic sense of remove, she comes into possession of a mysterious key that has been passed down through her family and which eventually leads her to the vampire’s tomb. Sex and violence take center stage in this gothic tale as the horrors that Buenos Aires and Yuszczuk’s characters face continue to slowly unfurl. The novel takes its time, building gradually to the electric moment when the two women finally meet, but it struggles with pacing and tends to tell readers about its world rather than show them. What truly shines are the author’s knowledge of vampire lore and her dedication to creating a monster who could easily join the ranks of Dracula and Nosferatu.
A blood-soaked tale of sex, love, and ennui that would make Anne Rice proud.Pub Date: March 5, 2024
ISBN: 9780593472064
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Dutton
Review Posted Online: Jan. 20, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2024
Have tissues ready as you read this. A small package will do.
A love story about a life of second chances.
In Nassau, in the Bahamas, casino detective Vincent LaPorta grills Alfie Logan, who’d come up a winner three times in a row at the roulette table and walked away with $2 million. “How did you do it?” asks the detective. Alfie calmly denies cheating. You wired all the money to a Gianna Rule, LaPorta says. Why? To explain, Alfie produces a composition book with the words “For the Boss, to Be Read Upon My Death” written on the cover. Read this for answers, Alfie suggests, calling it a love story. His mother had passed along to him a strange trait: He can say “Twice!” and go back to a specific time and place to have a do-over. But it only works once for any particular moment, and then he must live with the new consequences. He can only do this for himself and can’t prevent anyone from dying. Alfie regularly uses his power—failing to impress a girl the first time, he finds out more about her, goes back in time, and presto! She likes him. The premise is of course not credible—LaPorta doesn’t buy it either—but it’s intriguing. Most people would probably love to go back and unsay something. The story’s focus is on Alfie’s love for Gianna and whether it’s requited, unrequited, or both. In any case, he’s obsessed with her. He’s a good man, though, an intelligent person with ordinary human failings and a solid moral compass. Albom writes in a warm, easy style that transports the reader to a world of second chances and what-ifs, where spirituality lies close to the surface but never intrudes on the story. Though a cynic will call it sappy, anyone who is sick to their core from the daily news will enjoy this escape from reality.
Have tissues ready as you read this. A small package will do.Pub Date: Oct. 7, 2025
ISBN: 9780062406682
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: July 18, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2025
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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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