Review by New York Times Review
CORRUPTION IN AMERICA: From Benjamin Franklin's Snuff Box to Citizens United, by Zephyr Teachout. (Harvard University, $18.95.) The founding fathers were deeply concerned with the threat corruption posed to their emergent government. Teachout, a Fordham law professor, powerfully argues that their commitment to safeguarding against it has been undermined by the Supreme Court since at least the 1970s - especially in the realm of corporations' financial contributions to politics. I REFUSE, by Per Petterson. Translated by Don Bartlett. (Graywolf, $16.) The two men at the heart of this story, Tommy and Jim, rediscover each other after decades apart, and marvel at the divergent paths their lives took. Petterson, the Norwegian novelist who wrote "Out Stealing Horses," examines the forces that pulled "the boys in different directions, the small quiet moments that forged their friendship and then pulled it apart," Harriet Lane wrote here. BARBARIAN DAYS: A Surfing Life, by William Finnegan. (Penguin, $17.) Finnegan, a staff writer for The New Yorker and the winner of this year's Pulitzer Prize for autobiography, recalls his shifting relationship to the sport: As an adolescent, he found in surfing a respite from the petty cruelties of middle school in Hawaii; later, it led him to join hordes of young surfers across the world in search of the ideal wave. THE INCARNATIONS, by Susan Barker. (Touchstone, $16.) In the taxi he drives in contemporary Beijing, Wang Jun finds a series of mysterious letters - signed by writers who claim to be his soul mate - that link him to five key episodes across 1,500 years of Chinese history. Barker's wildly inventive novel reveals Wang's previous roles, in the form of his earlier lives, in each of those moments from his country's past. THE BROTHERS: The Road to an American Tragedy, by Masha Gessen. (Riverhead, $16.) From their childhoods in Central Asia and Russia to their early days in the United States, Gessen pieces together the lives of Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, the two Chechen immigrants responsible for the Boston Marathon bombing in April 2013. A SPOOL OF BLUE THREAD, by Anne Tyler. (Ballantine, $16.) Tyler's novel chronicles the multigenerational Whitshanks, who remain anchored to their family home in Baltimore, and the celebrations, secrets and joys that stitch them together. "Tyler has a knack for turning sitcom situations into something far deeper and more moving," our reviewer, Rebecca Pepper Sinkler, wrote. LISTENING TO STONE: The Art and Life of Isamu Noguchi, by Hayden Herrera. (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, $25.) This illuminating biography of the sculptor (1904-88) traces his early influences - as the son of a distant Japanese father and mercurial American mother, Noguchi rarely felt at home, and was shaped by his diverse travels. Herrera's account is a fitting companion guide to the artist who "sought and found, by making sculpture, a way to embed himself in the earth, in nature, in the world."
Copyright (c) The New York Times Company [May 29, 2016]
Review by Booklist Review
After the success of Out Stealing Horses (2007), a new Petterson novel is bound to be highly anticipated. And this story offers fans all of the author's signature moves, including a spare style, bleak setting, and intense focus on a boyhood friendship. An accidental meeting on a bridge sets off a torrent of memories as Tommy and Jim, who haven't seen each other for 35 years, remember their once-close relationship. A mother who abandoned the family and an abusive father have left their scars on Tommy, who has risen above his childhood difficulties to become a wealthy financial analyst but still feels deeply the absence of any real relationship in his life. Jim, meanwhile, came from a stable religious home, but a traumatic incident while out skating on a frozen lake with Tommy one night served to so destabilize him that he has been plagued by psychological problems ever since. Petterson evokes the frigid Norwegian cold and his characters' corresponding melancholy in clean prose, conveying how the absence of emotion offers no protection from life's vicissitudes.--Wilkinson, Joanne Copyright 2015 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
This latest from the internationally acclaimed novelist (Out Stealing Horses) might be his saddest, most powerful take yet on families torn asunder, missed opportunities, lost friendships, and regrets that span a lifetime. As the story opens, Tommy, a successful financier, unexpectedly encounters his estranged childhood friend Jim, who is fishing off a bridge during Tommy's early-morning drive. In chapters that switch among several narrators and periods (the 1960s, '70s, and the present story in 2006), the history of Tommy and Jim's relationship unfolds. Tommy grows up in a dysfunctional household in rural Norway, in a small town where everyone knows everyone else, and their business. Tommy's father beats him and his three younger sisters daily; the mother disappeared two years earlier without a trace, although her fate is eventually revealed in a striking subplot. After Tommy stands up to his father, the four siblings are separated by the authorities. Having lost his family, Tommy and Jim become inseparable until a seemingly minor incident on a frozen lake one night during their teens forever changes their relationship. Set against a stark landscape, this is a brilliant, meditative story about how one small, impulsive act can have an irrevocable impact upon one's life, as well as a rippling effect upon the lives of others. (Apr.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Kirkus Book Review
Norwegian Petterson (It's Fine By Me, 2012, etc.) shows his considerable gift for exploring the darker crevices of boyhood in this elegiac story of two long-estranged friends whose lives have not turned out as they expected. In 2006, Tommy and Jim speak briefly on a bridge in Oslo where Jim is fishing and Tommy is driving his Mercedes. While Tommy is a successful if lonely businessman, emotionally fragile Jim has not worked at his job at the Oslo Libraries for a year, and his sick leave has run out. More than 30 years ago, the two were best friends growing up together in the working-class neighborhood of Mrk. Back then, Jimraised by his devoted single mom, who taught religion and instilled in Jim the belief that "you had to make yourself worthy"seemed headed for success. Tommy's childhood was a disasterafter his mother's disappearance in 1964, his father abused his three younger sisters until 13-year-old Tommy attacked him with a bat and his father disappeared, too. The children were sent to different homes. While living with kindly neighbor Jonsen, Tommy tried to maintain a bond with his sister Siri, although her heavily Christian new parents considered him a bad influence. In adolescence, Siri was no longer close to Tommy but began a romance with Jim when he started attending her high school. The triangular connections became complicated, but all three had a sweetness and innocence about them. Then one afternoon Jim had a moment of what he considered cowardice while skating with Tommy and never forgave himself. Going about what turns into a trying day for each in 2006, both middle-aged men are drawn back to memories of that earlier time and each other, exposing how the scars from their (and Siri's) pasts formed them. Don't expect redemption here, but hope for connection. Without pyrotechnics, Petterson brings his characters and working-class Norway vividly, even passionately, to life; days after they finish the novel, readers may still have dreams of ice cracking. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
