Featuring 367 Industry-First Reviews Of Fiction .
Featuring 367 Industry-First Reviews of Fiction, Nonfiction, Children's and YA booksKIRKUSVOL. LXXXVIII, NO.2 15JANUARY2020REVIEWSJeanine CumminsThe author of American Dirt on herurgent new novel about a Mexicanmigrant and her 8-year-old sonp. 14Also in the issue:Garth Greenwell, PeggyOrenstein, Anna-MarieMcLemore, and more
from the editor’s desk:Dispatches From TrumplandB Y T O MChairmanH E R B E RT S I M O NB EERPresident & PublisherM A RC W I N K E L M A NJohn ParaskevasIt’s still early in 2020, but the impeachment proceedings and theNovember presidential election have kept politics front and center in thebook world while President Donald Trump continues to make news—andinspire anguished analysis—with every utterance and tweet. You can be suremuch more ink will be spilled in the months to come.This week sees the release of two works of investigative journalism thatlook at the 45th president and his circle. Announced in mid-December (andembargoed until publication), The Fixers: Bottom-Feeders, Crooked Lawyers, Gossipmongers, and Porn Stars Who Created the 45th President (Random House, Jan. 14) shines a light on the lawyers and media figures whohave enabled and protected Trump throughout his career; it’s by Wall StreetTom BeerJournal reporters Joe Palazzolo and Michael Rothfeld, who won the PulitzerPrize last year.Meanwhile, Andrea Bernstein, Peabody Award–winning co-host of the Trump, Inc. podcast,delivers American Oligarchs: The Kushners, The Trumps, and the Marriage of Money and Power(Norton, Jan. 14), a close examination of these intertwined real estate clans, joined by the unionof Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner. Our review, which, due to an embargo, will only be publishedonline on Jan. 13, calls it a “painstaking documentation of a relentless culture of corruption.”Not enough for you hardcore news junkies? Here are some other recent releases that dig deepinto the world of Donald Trump:Crime in Progress: Inside the Steele Dossier and the Fusion GPS Investigation of Donald Trump by Glenn Simpson and Peter Fritsch (RandomHouse, Nov. 26): Fusion GPS is the Washington, D.C., research and analysisfirm helmed by the authors, two former Wall Street Journal reporters. Theirreporting led to the notorious Steele Dossier, and here they lay out theirfindings for the general reader. Kirkus’ reviewer calls it “red meat for Trumpfoes and a convincing denunciation of the Republicans’ ‘win-at-all-costselectoral strategies.’ ”The Mueller Report Illustrated by the Washington Post, illustrated by JanFeindt (Scribner, Dec. 3): If you didn’t tackle all 700-plus pages of The Muel ler Report when it was published back in April, you can now sprint throughwhat our reviewer calls “a lively, graphic version of the foundational document in the current presidential impeachment process.”Trump and His Generals: The Cost of Chaos by Peter L. Bergen (PenguinPress, Dec. 10): Though Trump was endorsed by nearly 90 retired generalsand military officials during his 2016 campaign, a CNN national securityanalyst shows that as president he has consistently alienated the Pentagonand staff of the National Security Agency while burning through generalstapped for top posts (Mike Flynn, H.R. McMaster, Jim Mattis, John Kelly).Kirkus’ review of Trump and His Generals doesn’t mince words: “More hardhitting, abundant documentation of a woefully incapable president’s litanyof failures.”Finally, take your pick of the published results of the impeachmentreport: The Impeachment Report: The House Intelligence Committee’sReport on Its Investigation Into Donald Trump and Ukraine (BroadwayBooks, Dec. 17) features an introduction by presidential biographer andformer Newsweek editor-in-chief Jon Meacham, and The Trump-Ukraine Impeachment InquiryReport (Melville House, Dec. 17) is published flip-book style, with the official report on one side(blue cover) and the response of House Republicans (red cover) on the other.Enjoy your reading—there are just 294 days until Election Day.Print indexes: rkus Blog: www.kirkusreviews.com/blogAdvertising Opportunities: www.kirkusreviews.com/about/advertising opportunities2 15 january 2020 Submission Guidelines: bscriptions: www.kirkusreviews.com/subscriptionNewsletters: rom the editor’s desk kirkus.com #Chief Executive OfficerM E G L A B O R D E KU E H Nmkuehn@kirkus.comEditor -in- ChiefTOM BEERtbeer@kirkus.comVice President of MarketingSARAH KALINAskalina@kirkus.comManaging/Nonfiction EditorE R I C L I E B E T R AUeliebetrau@kirkus.comFiction EditorL AU R I E M U C H N I C Klmuchnick@kirkus.comChildren’s EditorVICKY SMITHvsmith@kirkus.comYoung Adult EditorL AU R A S I M E O Nlsimeon@kirkus.comEditor at LargeMEGA N LABRISEmlabrise@kirkus.comVice President of Kirkus IndieKAREN SCHECHNERkschechner@kirkus.comSenior Indie EditorD AV I D R A P Pdrapp@kirkus.comIndie EditorM Y R A F O R S B E RGmforsberg@kirkus.comAssociate Manager of IndieK AT E R I N A P A P P A Skpappas@kirkus.comEditorial AssistantJOHANNA ZWIRNERjzwirner@kirkus.comMysteries EditorTHOMAS LEITCHContributing EditorG R E G O RY M c N A M E ECopy EditorBETSY JUDKINSDesignerALEX HEADDirector of Kirkus EditorialL AU R E N B A I L E Ylbailey@kirkus.comProduction EditorC AT H E R I N E B R E S N E Rcbresner@kirkus.comWebsite and Software DeveloperP E RC Y P E R E Zpperez@kirkus.comAdvertising DirectorM O N I Q U E S T E N S RU Dmstensrud@kirkus.comAdvertising AssociateTAT I A N A A R N O L Dtarnold@kirkus.comGraphic DesignerL I A N A WA L K E Rlwallker@kirkus.comControllerMICHELLE GONZALESmgonzales@kirkus.comfor customer serviceor subscription questions,please call 1-800-316-9361Cover photo courtesyJeanine Cummins
you can nowpurchasebooks onlineatkirkus.comcontentsfictionThe Kirkus Star is awardedto books of remarkablemerit, as determined by theimpartial editors of Kirkus.INDEX TO STARRED REVIEWS. 4REVIEWS. 4EDITOR’S NOTE. 6ON THE COVER: JEANINE CUMMINS. 14INTERVIEW: GARTH GREENWELL. 18QUEERIES: CAROLINA DE ROBERTIS. 24MYSTERY. 38SCIENCE FICTION & FANTASY. 43ROMANCE.46nonfictionINDEX TO STARRED REVIEWS.51REVIEWS.51EDITOR’S NOTE. 52INTERVIEW: PEGGY ORENSTEIN.58INTERVIEW: ILAN STAVANS & JOSH LAMBERT.64children’sINDEX TO STARRED REVIEWS. 84REVIEWS. 84EDITOR’S NOTE.86INTERVIEW: SCOTT SIMON. 92INTERVIEW: LILY WILLIAMS & KAREN SCHNEEMANN. 98BOARD & NOVELTY BOOKS. 127CONTINUING SERIES. 135young adultINDEX TO STARRED REVIEWS. 137REVIEWS. 137EDITOR’S NOTE.138INTERVIEW: ANNA-MARIE MCLEMORE.142INTERVIEW: GIBBY HAYNES. 146CONTINUING SERIES.154The death of the oldest Torres daughterleaves her three sisters and widower fathergrief-stricken; being haunted by her spiritshakes everything up. Read the review ofSamantha Mabry’s latest on p. 148.indieINDEX TO STARRED REVIEWS.155REVIEWS.155EDITOR’S NOTE. 156INTERVIEW: JERRY CRAFT.162INDIE BOOKS OF THE MONTH.177Don’t wait on the mail for reviews! You can read pre-publication reviews asthey are released on kirkus.com—even before they are published in the magazine.You can also access the current issue and back issues of Kirkus Reviews on ourwebsite by logging in as a subscriber. If you do not have a username or password,please contact customer care to set up your account by calling 1.800.316.9361 oremailing customers@kirkusreviews.com.SEEN & HEARD. 178APPRECIATIONS: ZADIE SMITH’S WHITE TEETH AT 20.179 kirkus.com contents 15 january 2020 3
fictionARTFORUMThese titles earned the Kirkus Star:Aira, CésarTrans. by Silver, KatherineNew Directions (80 pp.) 12.95 paper Mar. 31, 2020978-0-8112-2926-5THEN THE FISH SWALLOWED HIM by Amir Ahmadi Arian.7CONJURE WOMEN by Afia Atakora. 9FIEBRE TROPICAL by Juliana Delgado Lopera. 13A collection of stories about onewriter’s obsession with, of all things, amagazine, attainable but difficult to findin a way he often finds maddening.Argentinian writer Aira (Birthday, 2019, etc.) has producedmore than 100 books, a good number of which have been translated into English. His works tend to be slim and offbeat—azombie novel here (Dinner, 2015), a kidnapping there (Ema theCaptive, 2016)—but they’re always eminently readable. Eventhis one, which is, yes, pretty much about hunting down amagazine and then, after having taken out a subscription, waiting for it to come in the mail. Is this fiction, as it’s labeled, ornonfiction? Aira’s work is so personal and frequently peculiarthat it doesn’t make much of a difference. He’s spent a coupleof decades thinking about Artforum, judging by the dates at theend of each story—not so much about the magazine’s contentas his difficult quest to obtain it. Naturally, he turns each interaction into a beautifully crafted experience, even in the mostbanal circumstances. Take the opener, “The Sacrifice,” writtenin 1983, in which an issue of Artforum saves the narrator’s otherdiligently acquired magazines from a particularly vicious rainstorm. Later there are contemplations of the magazine’s price,translated here by Silver as 10, and the personal glory of finallygetting a subscription. In 2002, a short-tempered writer goessearching for a trove of Artforums spotted, by happenstance, bya friend. “Conjectures” and “Melancholy” describe the narrator’s state of mind while he waits impatiently for the next issueto arrive in the mail. The writer’s obsession with the magazineis also explained in the context of his life, in which he’s alwayshad “the problem of empty time, of ominous afternoons likethe open mouth of an abyss.” This book is a slim affair, but forthose who want to understand the mindset of an authentic collector, it comes straight from the heart.A marvelous little collection about compulsion, obsession, and the extraordinary joy that a simple pleasure canbring.THE NIGHT WATCHMAN by Louise Erdrich. 17THE OTHER BENNET SISTER by Janice Hadlow.23LAKE LIKE A MIRROR by Sok Fong Ho;trans. by Natascha Bruce. 26MARGUERITE by Marina Kemp. 29NEW WAVES by Kevin Nguyen.30THE MOUNTAINS SING by Quê Mai Phan Nguyên. 31THE KING AT THE EDGE OF THE WORLD by Arthur Phillips.32THE ICE CREAM MAN & OTHER STORIES by Sam Pink.32THE MAN WITHOUT TALENT by Yoshiharu Tsuge;trans. by Ryan Holmberg. 35REDHEAD BY THE SIDE OF THE ROAD by Anne Tyler. 35SHARKS IN THE TIME OF SAVIORS by Kawai Strong Washburn.36RUNNING OUT OF ROAD by Daniel Friedman.41THE HONEY-DON’T LIST by Christina Lauren. 48IF I NEVER MET YOU by Mhairi McFarlane. 49NEW WAVESNguyen, KevinOne World/Random House(320 pp.) 27.00 Mar. 10, 2020978-1-984855-23-74 15 january 2020 fiction kirkus.com
GOLD DUSTPensive tale of the many things thatcan go wrong in a supposedly simple life.The gold dust of Libyan novelist alKoni’s title is just one of the disruptivetemptations that confront Ukhayyad,who, like the protagonist of the author’snovel The Bleeding of the Stone (2001), lives in mountainouscountry deep within the Sahara. As the slender story opens,Ukhayyad is proudly boasting of the piebald Mahri camel that atribal leader has bestowed upon him. (As the translator notes inan illuminating afterword, “the novel assumes that readers willreadily recognize a difference of character between purebredand regular mounts.”) Ukhayyad has reason to be proud of hisprize ride, but too much pride leads to disaster. It doesn’t helpthat the sheikh crows, “Whoever owns a Mahri like this piebaldwill never complain for want of noble values. You’ve honoredour homes, O noble youth descended from noble men!” Sureof himself, Ukhayyad is stunned when the poor camel comesdown with a bad case of mange, the cure for which involveshis striking out into the remotest stretches of the desert insearch of silphium, a fennellike curative plant long since extinctexcept in one faraway valley. The camel suffers, but then so doesUkhayyad; he finds a bride, but the bride he chooses earns himhis father’s disownment, and when it turns out that he has apowerful rival, he has a fight on his hands. The storied piebaldcamel, meanwhile, looks more and more pathetic. Worse thingsstill will befall him, as they will to Ukhayyad, a blood curse onhis head. Al-Koni’s story, simply and elegantly told, has all theinevitability of a Greek tragedy—or, better, all the tribulationsof Job, though without the redemptive reward—in a narrativepunctuated by hints of pre-Islamic belief mixed in with Quranicadmonitions: “Didn’t Sheikh Musa say that it was woman whodrove Adam from the garden of paradise?”If Franz Kafka had lived in the Sahara, this is a story hemight have told, bleak but memorable.y o u n g a d u ltand whose hair is a “rebellious mane.” She makes demoralizingvisit after demoralizing visit to these salons, where her hair is“pulled this way and that,” subjected to treatments “whoseabrasive chemicals require the use of latex gloves,” or workedinto weaves at “a breakneck speed over four hours” (only tocome undone soon after). But in this essayistic novel, Almeida’s first to be translated into English, Mila’s hair isn’t simplya matter of personal anguish. “The truth is that the story ofmy curly hair intersects with the story of at least two countriesand, by extension, the underlying story of the relations amongseveral continents: a geopolitics.” Indeed, interwoven seamlessly throughout are stories and memories of her family: HerAngolan grandfather’s life as a nursing student in Luanda, thesmell of her Portuguese grandmother Lúcia’s hair—“Feno dePortugal soap, tobacco, and oiliness”—as a young Mila combsit, her long strolls through Oeiras, in Lisbon, with her oftenabsent mother. What Mila seems to be revolving around withall these shifting reminiscences is the fundamental doublenessof who she is. She introduces a photographic “self-portrait”: thefamous 1957 photo of Elizabeth Eckford, one of the Little RockNine, walking to school as white people behind her gawk andeven bare their teeth. “I am all of the people in that portrait atonce,” Mila declares. “The raging girls in the photo are the nervous tremor (which brings me shame) when a black man on thestreetcar answers the phone, speaking loudly. ‘Shhh: pipe down,’they say to me, I say to him, I say to myself. ‘Can’t you see theothers?’ ” Almeida writes long, destabilizing, often disorientingparagraphs, where successive sentences can shift radically intime and space. But the reader is pulled along throughout bya sly, evasive humor—where unreliable memory ends, Almeidaseems to say, storytelling begins.Heady and smart, if you can follow the novel’s complex,associative train of thought.al-Koni, IbrahimTrans. by Colla, ElliottHoopoe (139 pp.) 16.95 paper Mar. 3, 2020978-1-61797-069-6THE GRINGAAltschul, AndrewMelville House (432 pp.) 27.99 Mar. 10, 2020978-1-61219-822-4The making of a freedom fighter—ora terrorist, depending on one’s point ofview.Altschul (Lady Lazarus, 2008) takeshis storyline pretty much straight fromthe headlines, offering a fictionalizedtreatment of the case of Lori Berenson, the American activistwho served a 20-year prison term in Peru for her affiliation witha revolutionary group. Just so, Leonora Gelb is a young Jewishwoman from New Jersey who, inspired by a professor, travels toPeru to enlist in a revolutionary group headed by philosophers,a group that she insists is not a terrorist organization even ifpeople all around it have a habit of dying. Leo, as everyone callsher (save those who call her “la gringa” or Comrade Linda), isnaïve and fervent; a critical point in the narrative comes whenshe rejects her visiting father’s offer to fly her home: “She won’tTHAT HAIRAlmeida, Djaimilia Pereira deTrans. by Becker, Eric M.B.Tin House (168 pp.) 15.95 paper Mar. 17, 2020978-1-947793-41-5A half-Portuguese, half-Angolanwoman uses her hair to interrogate herposition between two cultures.The hair salons in Lisbon don’t knowquite what to make of Mila, who movedat 3 years old from Luanda, the capital of Angola, to Portugal kirkus.com fiction 15 january 2020 5
does little women hold upto an adult reading?Little Women was one of the firstbooks I ever read that wasn’t aboutNancy Drew or the Bobbsey Twins;I always associate it with my grandmother, an elementary school teacher, who liked to brag that I was reading it in third grade even though itwas written on a sixth grade level.But as time went by, I became moreattached to other books about girlswho write, and I’ve reread Anne of Green Gables and theBetsy-Tacy books more often than Alcott’s masterpiece.I dug out my Illustrated Junior Library copy the other day—check it out online, it has the best illustrations—to get ready for the Greta Gerwig movie that’s openingsoon. I’ve never managed to watch a film version all theway through because the onscreen March sisters couldnever live up to the images I had of them, influenced bythose Louis Jambor illustrations. But I figured that I’mold enough, and far enough removed from my emotional attachment to Alcott’s characters, to see what Gerwigdoes with the story. And in the meantime, I reread thebook to see how it holds up.Starting from the first line, it felt like coming home:“ ‘Christmas won’t be Christmas without any presents,’grumbled Jo, lying on the rug.” Even for a
(Norton, Jan. 14), a close examination of these intertwined real estate clans, joined by the union of Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner. Our review, which, due to an embargo, will only be published online on Jan. 13, calls it a “painstaking documentation of a relentless culture of corruption.” Not enough for you hardcore news junkies?
Secret Code featuring Alice A Song from My Heart featuring Layla Home Away from Home featuring Ginger The Curious Castle featuring Reese Stuck in the Middle of Knowhere featuring Coral A Garden Where Friendship Grows featuring Nahla A Fair Share at the Diner featuring Isa & Noa The Incredible Ice Cream Project featuring Lorelei Party Plans Go Pop! featuring Sia .
based, whereas Paul and Criado (2020) added more refined cate-gories such as structured theme-based reviews, framework-based reviews, bibliometric reviews, hybrid reviews, conceptual reviews, and meta-analytical reviews to that list, in addition to recommend-ing the criteria for article and journal selection and highlighting the
REVIEWS REVIEWS REVIEWS A comparison of shark and wolf research reveals similar behavioral responses by prey Aaron J Wirsing 1* and William J Ripple 2 Marine and terrestrial ecologists rarely exchange information, yet comparing research from both sides of the
REVIEWS REVIEWS REVIEWS A comparison-shopper’s guide to connectivity metrics Justin M Calabrese and William F Fagan Connectivity is an important but inconsistently defined concept in spatial ecology and conservation biology. Theoreticians from various subdisciplines of ecology argue over its definition and measurement, but no con-
REVIEWS REVIEWS REVIEWS Comparison of organic and conventional farms: challenging ecologists to make biodiversity functional Deborah K Letourneau* and Sara G Bothwell With the rise of organic farming in the United States and worldwide, ecologists are being presented with new
a strong tendency toward expansion" (Strydom 2002). The relationship between the technosphere and the biosphere has gained attention in recent years because of REVIEWS REVIEWS REVIEWS Global vegetation monitoring: toward a sustainable technobiosphere David P Turner The concept of sustainable resource management can be applied at multiple scales.
PLUMBERS & STEAMFITTERS UA LOCAL 367. And . MUNICIPALITY OF ANCHORAGE. December 17, 2019 - June 30, 2022 . PLUMBERS AND STEAMFITTERS, LOCAL 367 . ii . TABLE OF CONTENTS . . Union shall bear the responsibility for complying with this provision. Further, the Employer is committed to positive, practical efforts in employment, promotion, and
LPN program. How to contact the full time staff, STI Nursing program: Name position office location phone number email address Kristin Possehl, RN Director HC200F 367-4753 kristin.possehl@southeasttech.edu Elise Derry, RN Faculty HC207 367-4730 elise.derry@southeasttech.edu Amanda Dvanajscak, RN Faculty HC205 367-5871 amanda.dvanajscak .
