A worthy, anarchic sequel for the lost souls and beautiful losers of Paris' blank generation.
The dope-addled misfits surrounding Vernon Subutex come to terms with their own existential crises.
Best known for Baise-Moi (1994) and its controversial film adaptation, Despentes earned a spot on the Booker Prize shortlist for this entry’s predecessor, Vernon Subutex 1 (2019), which hinged on the titular aging record store owner fallen on hard times and the constellation of junkies, punks, and other oddballs in his orbit. This is a direct sequel and definitely not a book for a casual reader to pick up without context. Fortunately, Despentes opens with a droll and sometimes cryptic rundown of the two dozen or so characters. While she establishes some progress for her emotionally stunted punk rockers, this messy continuation is a disquieting pandemonium of chaotic deeds. Where the first volume focused on our title character, this time the newly homeless DJ Vernon is banished to the streets of Paris, leaving a bit of a narrative vacuum filled by a spectacularly eccentric ensemble. There’s still a mystery to be solved in the videotaped confessions of the late rock star Alex Bleach, the MacGuffin of the first book, which are finally revealed and expose appalling trespasses against some of the cast. In the meantime, readers catch up with both principal and ancillary characters, even those, like Bleach, long dead. “We entered into rock music the way you enter a cathedral, remember, Vernon, and our story was a spaceship,” says Bleach in his taped confessions. “There were so many saints everywhere we didn’t know who to worship.” Perhaps Despentes is working through the stages of grief, because if the beginning was so very angry, here we find bargaining, depression, and just perhaps the seeds of reconciliation.
A worthy, anarchic sequel for the lost souls and beautiful losers of Paris' blank generation.Pub Date: July 7, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-85705-583-5
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: April 12, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2020
"Don't go into the woods" takes on unsettling new meaning in Moore's blend of domestic drama and crime novel.
Many years after her older brother, Bear, went missing, Barbara Van Laar vanishes from the same sleepaway camp he did, leading to dark, bitter truths about her wealthy family.
One morning in 1975 at Camp Emerson—an Adirondacks summer camp owned by her family—it's discovered that 13-year-old Barbara isn't in her bed. A problem case whose unhappily married parents disdain her goth appearance and "stormy" temperament, Barbara is secretly known by one bunkmate to have slipped out every night after bedtime. But no one has a clue where's she permanently disappeared to, firing speculation that she was taken by a local serial killer known as Slitter. As Jacob Sluiter, he was convicted of 11 murders in the 1960s and recently broke out of prison. He's the one, people say, who should have been prosecuted for Bear's abduction, not a gardener who was framed. Leave it to the young and unproven assistant investigator, Judy Luptack, to press forward in uncovering the truth, unswayed by her bullying father and male colleagues who question whether women are "cut out for this work." An unsavory group portrait of the Van Laars emerges in which the children's father cruelly abuses their submissive mother, who is so traumatized by the loss of Bear—and the possible role she played in it—that she has no love left for her daughter. Picking up on the themes of families in search of themselves she explored in Long Bright River (2020), Moore draws sympathy to characters who have been subjected to spousal, parental, psychological, and physical abuse. As rich in background detail and secondary mysteries as it is, this ever-expansive, intricate, emotionally engaging novel never seems overplotted. Every piece falls skillfully into place and every character, major and minor, leaves an imprint.
"Don't go into the woods" takes on unsettling new meaning in Moore's blend of domestic drama and crime novel.Pub Date: July 2, 2024
ISBN: 9780593418918
Page Count: 496
Publisher: Riverhead
Review Posted Online: April 13, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2024
PERSPECTIVES
SEEN & HEARD
A moving, hilarious reminder that parenthood, just like life, means constant change.
During an annual beach vacation, a mother confronts her past and learns to move forward.
Her family’s annual trip to Cape Cod is always the highlight of Rocky’s year—even more so now that her children are grown and she cherishes what little time she gets with them. Rocky is deep in the throes of menopause, picking fights with her loving husband and occasionally throwing off her clothes during a hot flash, much to the chagrin of her family. She’s also dealing with her parents, who are crammed into the same small summer house (with one toilet that only occasionally spews sewage everywhere) and who are aging at an alarmingly rapid rate. Rocky’s life is full of change, from her body to her identity—she frequently flashes back to the vacations of years past, when her children were tiny. Although she’s grateful for the family she has, she mourns what she’s lost. Newman (author of the equally wonderful We All Want Impossible Things, 2022) imbues Rocky’s internal struggles with importance and gravity, all while showcasing her very funny observations about life and parenting. She examines motherhood with a raw honesty that few others manage—she remembers the hard parts, the depths of despair, panic, and anxiety that can happen with young children, and she also recounts the joy in a way that never feels saccharine. She has a gift for exploring the real, messy contradictions in human emotions. As Rocky puts it, “This may be the only reason we were put on this earth. To say to each other, I know how you feel.”
A moving, hilarious reminder that parenthood, just like life, means constant change.Pub Date: June 18, 2024
ISBN: 9780063345164
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: March 23, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2024
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