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FARRELL COVINGTON AND THE LIMITS OF STYLE

Is it a spoiler to say there are no limits? At least not to Rudnick’s ability to brilliantly elegize and entertain.

A gay love story for the ages from one of the great comic voices of his generation.

Known for his plays; screenplays; adult and YA novels; and film criticism written under the pseudonym Libby Gelman-Waxner, Rudnick is famously unable to write a single sentence that isn't funny. His latest work, a novel tracing a gay love affair from the 1970s to the near present, features a narrator very close to the author. Nate Reminger, a gay Jewish kid from Piscataway, New Jersey, goes to Yale, writes a play about AIDS (in real life, Rudnick’s Jeffrey) and a movie about nuns (in real life, Sister Act), and bears witness to the devastation wreaked by AIDS on his generation. As Rudnick puts it in the acknowledgments, “This book was written after I’d lived a good long time, and wanted to at least begin to make sense of things.” He also makes clear that the title character, Farrell Covington, is a creation of his imagination, based on a fleeting encounter on a train many years ago. And what a creation he is. Scion of the third richest family in America, his voice is “maddeningly but somehow naturally affected, as if the person had been raised by a bottle of good whiskey and a crystal chandelier.” His “lush, dewy handsomeness” is such that it disconcerts “everyone, even himself.” And yet, soon enough, he appears in Nate’s dorm room, making an announcement: “We’re about to sodomize one another….Does anyone have a manual, or perhaps a brief educational film, with puppets, to help us go about this?” Magic ensues. But just when Nate is getting used to living in la-la land as Farrell’s consort, the evil and deeply homophobic Covington paterfamilias appears from Wichita to shatter his bliss. This is not the end of the relationship but the beginning of the war, as every possible opponent to gay conjugal happiness takes its turn with the couple over a 50-year swath of the American cultural landscape.

Is it a spoiler to say there are no limits? At least not to Rudnick’s ability to brilliantly elegize and entertain.

Pub Date: June 6, 2023

ISBN: 9781668004678

Page Count: 368

Publisher: Atria

Review Posted Online: April 11, 2023

Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2023

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THE TESTAMENTS

Suspenseful, full of incident, and not obviously necessary.

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  • New York Times Bestseller


  • Booker Prize Winner

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

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THE WEDDING PEOPLE

Uneven but fitfully amusing.

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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

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