A lively valedictory caper from an ebullient storyteller.
An indomitable Nicaraguan inspector undertakes a perilous homecoming, then sets about solving a series of crimes.
The final playful volume in Ramírez’s Managua Trilogy—following No One Weeps for Me Now (2022)—features a literal Chinese box, which also serves as a fitting (and surely intentional) metaphor for its loopy plot. Heroic sleuth Dolores Morales, again introduced through his Wikipedia entry, works as a private investigator but is still known as “Inspector” because of his years with the National Police Force. When the story opens, he and his new sidekick, Serafín Rambo, are climbing Mount La Campana, secretly crossing from Honduras, where Morales has been in exile, back to Nicaragua, where Morales’ lover, Fanny Toruño, has had a relapse of cancer. Completing their party is the faithful guide Gato de Oro (“the Golden Cat”), who's described as “a kind of crude giant.” The novel, episodic and long on colorful characters, often resembles a reunion party. Urbane Lord Dixon, a companion in The Sky Weeps for Me (2020) and a droll posthumous adviser in the Inspector’s head thereafter, makes wry italicized comments that Morales responds to aloud, for example by scolding Dixon for his tardy arrival, confusing everyone around him. Doña Sofía, who began as a cleaning lady and worked her way up to the status of indispensable investigator, joins the team midway to investigate an attack on a beloved priest and the murder of his nephew. Banter flows, and references to pop culture and Nicaragua’s recent political turmoil abound.
A lively valedictory caper from an ebullient storyteller.Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2023
ISBN: 9781620540619
Page Count: 284
Publisher: McPherson & Company
Review Posted Online: May 24, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2023
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
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
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