Review by New York Times Review
A country murder, a train crash, a missing mother: everything collides in Kate Atkinsons latest Jackson Brodie mystery. IT'S hard to imagine a novel starting in a more gripping or terrifying way than Kate Atkinson's new mystery, "When Will There Be Good News?" A stranger with a carving knife ambushes a young family on a deserted country lane, killing mother, daughter, baby, even the dog. The only survivor is the fleet-footed daughter Joanna. Thirty years later, Joanna is Dr. Joanna Hunter, married with a baby and dog of her own, and the man convicted of the slaughter of her family is being released from prison. On that same day, the ex-army man and ex-detective Jackson Brodie is accidentally boarding a doomed train, headed not in the direction of London and his new wife, but toward Edinburgh and an old flame, Detective Chief Inspector Louise Monroe, "the one that got away." And as fate would have it Reggie Chase, a plucky teenage girl, recently orphaned and wise beyond her years, sits translating the "Iliad" just feet from the railroad tracks. Now there's a setup. Fans of Atkinson's novels like "Behind the Scenes at the Museum," which won the 1995 Whitbread Book of the Year, and her two previous literary detective novels, "Case Histories" and "One Good Turn," both featuring the rugged yet sensitive Brodie, can expect "When Will There Be Good News?" to follow standard procedure. Fact: Atkinson doesn't write typical crime novels, but literary hybrids. Exhibit A: Unlike Agatha Christie's briskly plotted whodunits, Atkinson's thrillers unfold leisurely. In this case, chapters provide alternating points of view, which, while intimately acquainting us with each character's back story, can at times derail the novel's narrative momentum. Exhibit B: Unlike the hard-boiled dicks and dames in Chandler's and Hammett's page-turners, Atkinson's characters don't exchange shotgun blasts of dialogue or see the world through a dirty glass. They refer to the works of Browning and Hemingway, and quote Scripture. They sing nursery rhymes and dirges, and crack literary jokes. Louise characterizes her previous relationship with Brodie as being "as chaste as protagonists in an Austen novel. All sense and no sensibility, no persuasion at all." And struck by the mounting death toll of those close to her, steady-as-she-goes Reggie wonders whether she's more "troubled teen or angel of death?" Exhibit C: There will be no corraling of suspects into a darkened parlor. No show-stopping moments of revelation à la Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, where the motive and manner of the crime are exposed. Why, you ask? Because there is little mystery as to who committed the crimes, and few clues as to why. The mysteries Atkinson is most invested in are those of the human heart. Note: There are, however, elements of the classic mystery that Atkinson does embrace, most notably the coincidence. As Jackson Brodie says, "A coincidence is just an explanation waiting to happen." To wit: When Brodie's train collides with a car stranded on the tracks, his whole life is literally turned upside down. His wallet, his Blackberry and his memory all go missing. As he sprawls half-dead on the hillside, it is Reggie Chase who breathes life back into him - coincidentally, she learned CPR during her training to become a mother's helper to Dr. Joanna Hunter. And how curious that Hunter and her son are the same age as her mother and brother were when they were stabbed to death. More evidence of Atkinson's fondness for coincidence: It just so happens that the man Reggie has saved is not only a sleuth but "a shepherd," who "couldn't rest until the flock was accounted for, all gathered safely in. It was his calling and his curse. Protect and serve." How fortunate that when Joanna Hunter and her baby suddenly disappear and her handsome ne'er-do-well husband, under suspicion of arson, attempts to stonewall Reggie's efforts to locate her, Jackson is ready to take the case. Though whether or not Joanna Hunter needs protecting, whether or not she's still a victim, remains to be seen. NOTE: Despite an arresting first chapter, what seems of most interest to Atkinson isn't the solving of crimes, but the solving of the problem of being alive. What happens to those left behind, the ones held hostage by sorrow and disappointment? How do we pull ourselves out of the rubble of grief? How do we cope with the death of a loved one, transcend a childhood worthy of Dickens, survive the accident of having married the wrong person? How do we get what we need? Conclusion: While Atkinson engages us with black humor and rich character development and while Reggie Chase is a delight, the absence of sustained suspense begins to fray our connection to the characters. Sensing perhaps that she's lollygagging, Atkinson sprints for the last 75 pages, delivering a rushed, overly neat ending that, while cleanly tying up the big threads, leaves many questions about the characters and their futures unanswered. My powers of deduction suggest Atkinson's "When Will There Be Good News?" is, and this is just a theory, a setup for the next, and, I trust, more satisfying Jackson Brodie mystery. Of course I don't have proof. That's just a guess. Elissa Schappell is editor at large for Tin House magazine, a contributing editor at Vanity Fair and the author of "Use Me," a novel.
Copyright (c) The New York Times Company [October 27, 2009]
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Starred Review. Without leaving home or spending a cent on gas, readers of this book can enjoy a scenic view of the entire U.S. that is as familiar as it is disorienting. Weiland, deputy editor of the Paris Review, and Wilsey, editor-at-large for McSweeney's, have gathered a group of 50 disparate voices to explore not just their experience in America, but the way each state was presented in the American Guide series of the Federal Writers Project in the 1930s, in which the Works Project Administration (WPA), as part of F.D.R's New Deal, put more than 6000 American writers to work creating a portrait of this country. The editors wanted to make a book inspired by the ideals behind the WPA Guides but they also wanted something more personal, more eccentric, and more partial. Obvious heavy-hitters--Dave Eggars (Illinois), Rick Moody (Connecticut), Jhumpa Lahiri (Rhode Island), Barry Hannah (Mississippi), William T. Vollmann (California)--are included, as well as some wonderful surprises. Alison Bechdel's illustrated story about her life after moving to Vermont brilliantly combines personal history with historical fact, as does Charles Bock's essay on growing up and working in his parent's Las Vegas pawnshop. Mohammed Naseehu Ali's tale of life in Michigan, after moving there from Ghana as a teen, illuminates what the unconditionally generous Michigan nature shares with the traditions of his own Hausa-Islamic culture. And Franzen's imaginary interview with the state of New York is perhaps the high point among this collection of beguiling summations of something all the writers share: a love-hate relationship with how their chosen state has changed and evolved during the course of their lives. (Sept.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved All rights reserved.
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Library Journal Review
Weiland (deputy editor, Paris Review) and Wilsey, who coedited The Thinking Fan's Guide to the World Cup, were inspired by the famous WPA guides of the 1930s to bring together this collection of original essays. Each piece here may be smaller in scope than the original WPA state guides, but the overall editorial task is ambitious. Consisting of 50 essays from 50 different authors, including Dave Eggers (Illinois), Anthony Bourdain (New Jersey), S.E. Hinton (Oklahoma), and Jhumpa Lahiri (Rhode Island), this work aims to provide more than mere demographic information about each state (though it does include that). Each also offers a personal, distinct, and often humorous look at the state in question. Particularly inventive are two pieces told in the style of graphic novels, one by Joe Sacco (Oregon) and the other by Alison Bechdel (Vermont). Readers with an interest in the endless variety of attitudes, lifestyles, viewpoints, and experiences to be found across America will enjoy this work. Recommended for public libraries.--Elizabeth L. Winter, Georgia Inst. of Technology, Atlanta (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
Self-consciously modeled after state guides sponsored by the Federal Writers' Project in the 1930s, this ambitious effort features a terrific roster of writers and arrives just in time for the November elections. Best here are the immigrant stories: Mohammed Naseehu Ali's reflections on his introduction to America's generosity as a Ghanaian high-school student at a Michigan arts academy; Ha Jin's account of his early years developing as a writer in Georgia; Jhumpa Lahiri's informative memoir about growing up in Rhode Island. Jack Hitt writes hilariously of the South Carolina temperament, made up of "easy rage, china-shop recklessness and merry eccentricity"and he's from the genteel outpost of Charleston. Jonathan Franzen invents a lame interview with a couple of New York State lackeys eager to give him the official scoop, while Lydia Millet offers an openly hostile view of Arizona and the wasteful populace that doesn't value it. But many writers display genuine love for their state, alongside satisfactory morsels of truth, as in Ann Patchett's monologue on changes she's witnessed over the years in Tennessee, Alison Bechdel's charming cartoon about her life in Vermont, William T. Vollmann's expression of enduring faith in California and Philip Connors's riff on the phenomenon of the "Minnesota Nice." Othersseemingly all New Yorkersbriefly pass through their assigned state on vacation: Sad Sayrafiezadeh in South Dakota, David Rakoff in Utah and Will Blythe in New Hampshire, whose "paradoxical pride in one's modesty" he likens to that of the natives in his natal North Carolina. Susan Orlean puts to bed the myths about Ohio, and Andrea Lee, raised in Philadelphia, expresses her conflicted feelings about the utopian ideals of her birth state. Like most anthologies, it's uneven, and individual essays are somewhat narrow in focus. But Paris Review deputy editor Weiland and McSweeney's editor at large Wilsey (co-editors: The Thinking Fan's Guide to the World Cup, 2006, etc.) keep it positive and heartfelt. Ranges from delights to self-indulgent snores. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.