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The Complicities by Stacy D'Erasmo

9/25/2022

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This review was first published in and is reposted with permission from Shelf Awareness.
Rebuilding in the aftermath of crises comes with no tidy answers in The Complicities by Stacey D'Erasmo (Wonderland; The Art of Intimacy). Suzanne finds herself starting over in a small beach town in Massachusetts after her husband is sentenced to prison for financial fraud and she files for divorce. She isn't taking her ex-husband's calls, and their adult son isn't taking hers. But she's beginning to find a new place, taking back her maiden name and working as a massage therapist. A whale beaches nearby, and Suzanne is overcome with a need to join the rescue effort. But her ex is released early, and the question of restitution for his crimes looms over all of them, including his new wife and his estranged mother, who also narrate portions of the novel.
The Complicities is a thought-provoking examination of the stories people tell themselves and the ways that their actions intertwine, whether deliberately or inadvertently, with the lives of others. Richly crafted passages about the whale and Suzanne's fascination with it highlight in moving ways both the interconnectedness of the world and the way that Suzanne and others can become so focused on the forest that they miss the trees in the form of the individual people around them. "The whale spouted. At least once, its tail moved, and I felt it everywhere, electric, almost painfully resonant. Time, measured by the spouting breaths of the whale, slowed."
In this carefully constructed meditation, readers will enjoy witnessing how characters slowly fit together the pieces of themselves that they had hidden. --Kristen Allen-Vogel, information services librarian at Dayton Metro Library

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About Face by William Giraldi

9/9/2022

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Fame is both empty and destructive in About Face, the razor-sharp literary thriller by William Giraldi (American Audacity; Hold the Dark). After Seger Jovi writes a scathing piece about Val Face for a biweekly magazine in Boston, he doesn't expect a phone call from Face's assistant, asking to meet with him. And he certainly does not anticipate that the meeting will result in an offer to join Face's New England tour as its official writer. Jovi sees the charismatic guru as "little more than a calculated mash-up of the raconteur, the coquet, and the motivational speaker... a hunkier Tony Robbins." He has doubts about taking the job, especially because Face and his team will have final approval over anything he writes, but he needs the opportunity. And he believes there must be a reason that Face chose him over an adoring fan.
The labyrinthine bureaucracy of assistants and the absurdity of life as part of a celebrity entourage would have been plenty of material alone for a comic novel. The dialogue is frequently laugh-out-loud funny, such as in a discussion between Jovi and Face--argued with the seriousness of the First Council of Nicaea--about the best Bruce Springsteen album. But as Jovi begins to develop a strange sympathy for Face, it also becomes clear that the star has a potentially violent stalker.
This gripping tale will keep readers on the edge of their seats while leaving them pondering what makes celebrity--and what it costs. --Kristen Allen-Vogel, information services librarian at Dayton Metro Library
This review was first published in and is reposted with permission from Shelf Awareness.

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Didn't Nobody Give a Shit What Happened to Carlotta by James Hannaham

9/2/2022

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This review was first published in and is reposted with permission from Shelf Awareness.
​Sharp social commentary intermingles with what is very nearly slapstick humor in Didn't Nobody Give a Shit What Happened to Carlotta by James Hannaham. Carlotta Mercedes is granted parole just before the Fourth of July weekend. A trans woman who transitioned shortly after her imprisonment for her part in a liquor store robbery that went sour, Carlotta has spent more than 20 years in a men's prison, frequently suffering assault and solitary confinement. She's feeling ambivalent about leaving behind her man, Frenzy, but is eager to reunite with the son who has never known her as a woman. Returning to her family in Brooklyn is an adventure in navigating gentrification, 20 years of technological changes and a lukewarm reception from her relatives.
Hannaham's previous novel, Delicious Foods, featured crack cocaine as a narrator, setting a high standard for inventiveness. Carlotta is merely human; nevertheless, her narrative voice crackles with energy, shifting between first and third person and suggesting an imagined voice-over for the miniseries she pictures for her story--with her occasional direct interjections. Her struggles to comply with the terms of her parole, avoid being around alcohol during Independence Day celebrations and find employment are at times wonderfully farcical, particularly the plan she comes up with after having been hired as a driver in spite of never having gotten a license.
In the vibrant persona of Carlotta, Hannaham once again presents a thrilling voice. Readers, at least, will prove the title wrong. --Kristen Allen-Vogel, information services librarian at Dayton Metro Library
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