Review by New York Times Review
CHOKEHOLD: Policing Black Men, by Paul Butler. (New Press, $26.95.) A law professor and former federal prosecutor argues in this readable and provocative book that releasing prisoners who are not dangerous would free up resources to combat the segregated poverty that underlies our criminal justice system. LESS, by Andrew Sean Greer. (Lee Boudreaux/Little, Brown, $26.) On the eve of his 50 th birthday and a former lover's wedding, a mediocre novelist takes refuge in literary invitations that enable him to travel around the world. The novel is smart, humane and laugh-out-loud funny. THE RETREAT OF WESTERN LIBERALISM, by Edward Luce. (Atlantic Monthly, $24.) Luce, a columnist for The Financial Times, employs fluid prose and telling statistics to argue that the tradition of liberty and democracy, and by extension the open international and economic system that has characterized the Western world since 1945, is under mortal threat. THE ANSWERS, by Catherine Lacey. (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, $26.) Funny, eerie and idea-dense, Lacey's novel features a woman hired by a team of researchers to perform the transactions that make up a romantic relationship for a famous actor. She is "Emotional Girlfriend," bound to affirm his opinions and text him often. WHO IS RICH?, by Matthew Klam. Illustrated by John Cuneo. (Random House, $27.) The protagonist of this challenging novel, a middle-aged illustrator, is a conflicted adulterer. Klam agilely balances an existentially tragic story line with morbid humor and self-assured prose. LIGHTS ON, RATS OUT: A Memoir, by Cree LeFavour. (Grove, $25.) This gritty account of a woman's struggle with self-abuse describes nearly gothic suffering. It is also a love story about a dedicated and gifted analyst and his difficult but equally gifted patient. Courageous and unsettling, LeFavour's memoir is infused with humor and wry insight as well as pain. THE LAST LAUGH, by Lynn Freed. (Sarah Crichton/Farrar, Straus & Giroux, $25.) Three friends, nearing 70, decide to spend a year in Greece in this darkly, mordantly funny novel. There they encounter sexy locals and their angry wives, while people from their pasts keep turning up. HOUSMAN COUNTRY: Into the Heart of England, by Peter Parker. (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, $30.) This critical biography attributes Housman's contemporary popularity to his ability to evoke a timeless countryside while England was becoming increasingly urban. THE CRIME WRITER, by Jill Dawson. (Harper Perennial, paper, $15.99.) Dawson's novel uses the life of Patricia Highsmith to probe the territory between reality and fantasy that so fascinated her. Told in both the first- and the third-person, it is full of pomo fun. The full reviews of these and other recent books are on the web: nytimes.com/books
Copyright (c) The New York Times Company [August 27, 2017]
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
When acclaimed suspense writer Patricia Highsmith, the antiheroine of this dreamlike, high-tension novel from Dawson (Lucky Bunny), moves into a Suffolk cottage in 1965, she welcomes the quiet seclusion. She looks forward to working on her new book, collecting snails, and maybe enjoying a weekend with her married lover, Sam Gosforth, who's "everything I'm not." Unfortunately, a nosy journalist, who Pat swears she's met before, pressures her for an interview, and when Sam finally visits, her volatile husband, Gerald, follows in her wake. Pat has always been fascinated by what moves a person to murder, and she applies fierce resolve to the aftermath of a shocking act of violence that would not have been out of place in her novel The Talented Mr. Ripley. Dawson smoothly marries fact with fiction to capture the famously prickly Highsmith while astutely exploring love, obsession, and the myriad shades of darkness within us all. Agent: Caroline Dawnay, United Agents (U.K.). (June) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Library Journal Review
If, as they say, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, this fictionalized account of -author Patricia Highsmith's 1964 sojourn in Sussex is high-grade flattery indeed. In it, Highsmith (the author of The Talented Mr. Ripley, among others, noted for her taut psychological fiction, who detested the label "crime writer") is thrust into a typical Highsmith plot. She is ostensibly seeking seclusion in an English cottage, but just can't seem to manage. There is a nosy neighbor; a stalker who may or may not have followed her to rural England; a journalist who insists on popping up in all the most unlikely places; and, finally, the author's lover Samantha (Sam), whose clammy husband is problematic. Many might wish him gone. In addition to remembered details of growing up in Fort Worth, TX, Dawson also incorporates more unusual aspects of the author's biography: invited to a party, she secreted hundreds of snails, along with a head of lettuce, in her handbag; they were her "guests" and presumably provided more entertainment than the humans on offer. VERDICT Dawson (The Tell-Tale Heart) obviously admires the prickly Highsmith. Fans of The Price of Salt (the basis for the 2015 film Carol) will savor this phantasmagoria. New readers who happen upon it unawares may end up seeking out the novels of Highsmith, who was as private and horned as a snail.-Bob Lunn, Kansas City, MO © Copyright 2017. 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
Suspense novelist Patricia Highsmith finds herself caught in a real-life situation that seems to have sprung from the pages of one of her novels.It's 1964 and Pat, struggling with her work and seeking to escape the fan who's been writing her disturbingly intimate letters, has fled to a small English cottage. Her preference for solitude is disturbed by a prying journalist, Ginny (who may have an ulterior motive), and her emotional well-being is disturbed by her affair with Sam, a married Englishwoman. This fictional Highsmith is a melding of both biographical details from the author's real life and a fantasy of what kind of person would produce the misanthropic fiction she did. Pat has little compassion for either the pushy young journalist or the old woman who lives in the cottage behind her. On the other hand, in a manner that seems deliberately modeled on Highsmith's novel The Price of Salt (filmed recently as Carol), Pat is absolutely unguarded against her love for the upper-class Sam. These two sides come together in a catastrophe that occurs halfway through the novel. It's a clever conceit, plunging an author into a scenario right out of her own queasy-making fiction, and it's adroitly handled, forcing Pat to live out her ideas of crime and guilt. But there is also something a bit nave about the device. Finally, it's as if Dawson (The Great Lover, 2010, etc.) is saying that only someone capable of committing the crimes Highsmith wrote about would be able to think them up in the first place. This homage to Highsmith is a curious mix of devotion and naivet. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
