A well-told tale showing that modernity isn’t always a blessing.
Past and present clash in North Africa in this surprising parable of a man and his bees by Tunisian author Manai, his first to be translated into English.
In the tiny kingdom of Qafar, Sidi is a humble beekeeper who lives alone and cares only for his bees and their lovely honey. One day, he checks his hives and finds “countless mutilated bodies” ripped apart by a mysterious evil force. All of the nearby village of Nawa is outraged, because they know of his devotion to what he calls his "girls." Meanwhile, he knows little about the forces that are changing Qafar forever. Once a land of roaming Bedouins, the country became ripe for exploitation after the discovery of natural gas underneath its sands. Qafari elders said the age-old custom of sitting on the sand and the locals’ propensity to fart were responsible for the country’s rich supply of underground natural gas. The country fell under decades of dictatorship until Qafaris recently rose up and opted for democracy. Great, thinks the cynical narrator. “What was easier to hijack than democracy?” An electoral caravan wows people in villages like Nawa, and victory goes to the Party of God. With help from friends, Sidi searches in the meantime for the source of the destruction of so many of his bees, and the answer he discovers becomes a useful tool when he encounters a group of murderers standing over their victims and shouting “War in the name of God!” Translated from the French, this short novel shows warmth, compassion, and humanity, with here-and-there touches of sarcasm and humor.
A well-told tale showing that modernity isn’t always a blessing.Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-5420-2047-3
Page Count: 204
Publisher: Amazon Crossing
Review Posted Online: Nov. 17, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 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
I Who Have Never Known Men ($22.00; May 1997; 224 pp.; 1-888363-43-6): In this futuristic fantasy (which is immediately reminiscent of Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale), the nameless narrator passes from her adolescent captivity among women who are kept in underground cages following some unspecified global catastrophe, to a life as, apparently, the last woman on earth. The material is stretched thin, but Harpman's eye for detail and command of tone (effectively translated from the French original) give powerful credibility to her portrayal of a human tabula rasa gradually acquiring a fragmentary comprehension of the phenomena of life and loving, and a moving plangency to her muted cri de coeur (``I am the sterile offspring of a race about which I know nothing, not even whether it has become extinct'').
Pub Date: May 1, 1997
ISBN: 1-888363-43-6
Page Count: 224
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1997
BOOK REVIEW
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