Imaginative, moody, brilliantly written—vintage Kingsnorth, that is, and a boon for readers of speculative fiction.
Kingsnorth completes his quirky trilogy of novels set in the Norfolk fens with a post-apocalyptic story of the far future.
As The Wake (2015) opened with events of a thousand years ago, so Kingsnorth’s latest opens a millennium from now, “nine hunnerd years since Atlantis fell, since Alexandria was built.” His protagonists are part tribe, part religious community who survive in the marshes after civilization’s collapse and remember the distant past in chants and invocations: “Now World shall be as it should / For Machine is come” they sing of “the reign of Man.” They are not alone in the fens: A “Catt”—the hidden, dangerous figure that lurks in both The Wake and Beast (2017)—has been spotted, scaring some but not all; says an awestruck character named El, “every day now i am goin to Tree and lookin for him.” Kingsnorth’s characters speak in patois, blending prose poem and verse, calling to mind Russell Hoban. When the young acolyte named Lorenso comes into contact with another lurker, though, a red-cloaked figure of monstrous visage called K., the language shifts into the sturdy standard English of the present. The reasons aren’t quite clear for that, but Kingsnorth deserves points for the hat trick of writing the three novels in the series in distinct linguistic registers that suggest past, present, and future. K. instructs Lorenzo in the error of human ways: “Man was tempted, Man took power over all life. This is your fragmentary, mythologised version of what happened more than a millennium ago. You have now seen a little of what the exercise of that power amounted to.” He promises the rewards that the celestial city of Alexandria and its divine ruler, Wayland, offer, but alas, that god appears to be dead or just not listening, and the shape-shifting, quick-thinking K. finds himself stuck with the rest of what has survived of the tribe, moored in the muck and mire, but to oddly optimistic ends.
Imaginative, moody, brilliantly written—vintage Kingsnorth, that is, and a boon for readers of speculative fiction.Pub Date: Oct. 20, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-64445-035-2
Page Count: 408
Publisher: Graywolf
Review Posted Online: July 13, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2020
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
Suspenseful, full of incident, and not obviously necessary.
Atwood goes back to Gilead.
The Handmaid’s Tale (1985), consistently regarded as a masterpiece of 20th-century literature, has gained new attention in recent years with the success of the Hulu series as well as fresh appreciation from readers who feel like this story has new relevance in America’s current political climate. Atwood herself has spoken about how news headlines have made her dystopian fiction seem eerily plausible, and it’s not difficult to imagine her wanting to revisit Gilead as the TV show has sped past where her narrative ended. Like the novel that preceded it, this sequel is presented as found documents—first-person accounts of life inside a misogynistic theocracy from three informants. There is Agnes Jemima, a girl who rejects the marriage her family arranges for her but still has faith in God and Gilead. There’s Daisy, who learns on her 16th birthday that her whole life has been a lie. And there's Aunt Lydia, the woman responsible for turning women into Handmaids. This approach gives readers insight into different aspects of life inside and outside Gilead, but it also leads to a book that sometimes feels overstuffed. The Handmaid’s Tale combined exquisite lyricism with a powerful sense of urgency, as if a thoughtful, perceptive woman was racing against time to give witness to her experience. That narrator hinted at more than she said; Atwood seemed to trust readers to fill in the gaps. This dynamic created an atmosphere of intimacy. However curious we might be about Gilead and the resistance operating outside that country, what we learn here is that what Atwood left unsaid in the first novel generated more horror and outrage than explicit detail can. And the more we get to know Agnes, Daisy, and Aunt Lydia, the less convincing they become. It’s hard, of course, to compete with a beloved classic, so maybe the best way to read this new book is to forget about The Handmaid’s Tale and enjoy it as an artful feminist thriller.
Suspenseful, full of incident, and not obviously necessary.Pub Date: Sept. 10, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-385-54378-1
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Nan A. Talese
Review Posted Online: Sept. 3, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2019
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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