Review by New York Times Review
WINTER, by AN Smith. (Anchor, $15.95.) In the second of Smith's group of seasonal novels, four people - two long-estranged sisters, one of their sons and his girlfriend - converge at a sprawling house at Christmastime. Wordplay, grim humor and the uncanny (including a disembodied head that never speaks) are all thrown into the mix, and Smith has an enormously expansive vision, processing news items and our broader cultural moment. TEN RESTAURANTS THAT CHANGED AMERICA, by Paul Freedman. (Liveright, $23.95.) The restaurants Freedman features aren't necessarily the finest, but they represent a range of pivots in the nation's history. Howard Johnson's, for example, appealed to families and pioneered franchising as a shrewd business plan. Chez Panisse's focus on local ingredients continues to shape American taste. FRESH COMPLAINT: Stories, by Jeffrey Eugenides. (Picador, $17.) The stories in Eugenides's debut collection come in all shades of realism, with particular attention to one of his hallmark themes: failure, whether creative, marital or financial. Our reviewer, Lauren Groff, praised the book, writing, "Nearly every one of the stories in this collection is teachable, a model of its own kind of Swiss-clock craftsmanship." ALI: A Life, by Jonathan Eig. (Mariner/Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, $16.99.) The first full biography of the boxer since his death in 2016, Eig's book offers an unsparing look at All's politics, retirement and final years, including a Parkinson's diagnosis. The themes of All's life are timely and resonate today, and Eig's fluent narrative reads like a novel; he doesn't shy away from the darker sides of boxing that many other accounts ignore. Our reviewer, Joyce Carol Oates, called the book "an epic of a biography." CRAZY LIKE A FOX, by Rita Mae Brown. Illustrated by Lee Gildea Jr. (Ballantine, $16.) In Virginia horse country, a hunting horn goes missing, and only a mysterious selfie video is left behind as a clue. As she works the case, Sister Jane, the charming protagonist of this mystery novel, is surrounded by a number of memorable characters: a wise old gray fox; a hound at the top of his game; and a persnickety calico. SPINELESS: The Science of Jellyfish and the Art of Growing a Backbone, by Juli Berwald. (Riverhead, $16.) Berwald's engaging book is part memoir, part pop science, weaving together stories of her own twisting academic path along with fascinating, vivid details about the delicate creatures: Some giant species can grow to nearly 500 pounds, and others can "reverse-age" like Benjamin Button.
Copyright (c) The New York Times Company [July 11, 2019]
Review by Booklist Review
*Starred Review* Pulitzer Prize-winning Eugenides' first story collection, and his first book since The Marriage Plot (2011), is gifted with the strong voices and luminous prose his novels are known for. Readers will recognize familiar characters and themes: In Air Mail, The Marriage Plot's Mitchell is in India, seeking a kind of nirvana by enduring the stomach complaint otherwise known as amoebic dysentery through willfulness alone, and in The Oracular Vulva, Dr. Peter Luce can't believe he's doing fieldwork again at his age, but ever since a rival sexologist undermined his theories on human hermaphroditism, he's got something to prove. In the title story, a teenager's desperate attempt to evade an arranged marriage requires the involvement of a hopelessly unknowing professor. Stories probe aging and agency, sex and death, with Eugenides' trademark wit and deadpan grace. Cunning, comic, and clueless characters hatch plans to restore their unfairly sapped potential and deal with the results some successful, some unanticipated, some unsavory while Eugenides captures the places they're in, both physical and metaphorical, with precision. Early on, old friends wonder, What was it about complaining that felt so good? Readers will enjoy lamenting that this complete and utterly human collection must, after all, end. HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: New fiction from Eugenides has been thus far a once-per-decade event; readers will rejoice for both the shorter wait and the short form.--Bostrom, Annie Copyright 2017 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Best known for the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel Middlesex, Eugenides here collects the stories he has been steadily producing through the years. The earliest story, "Capricious Gardens," originates from Eugenides's M.F.A. thesis. In it, two American backpackers spend the night at the home of a recently divorced Irishman. Its plot (the host desires one of the travelers, but her companion has other plans) is of less importance than the structural experimentation. In the humorous "The Oracular Vulva," "the famous sexologist" Dr. Peter Luce (also featured in Middlesex) makes one last, uncomfortable attempt to salvage his theory of intersexuality and his prestige by journeying into a remote jungle village to do field work. "Airmail" is an epistolary account of a young man's journey towards enlightenment-and gastric peace-in India. "Baster" is a tale of a woman taking her fertility into her own hands with a marvelous O. Henry ending. The title story is an adroit and moving exploration of an Indian-American teenager's desperate attempts to avoid an arranged marriage. "The Great Experiment" is the collection's highlight: working for a small press called Great Experiment-run by Jimmy Boyko, an elderly former pornographer turned free speech advocate-Kendall spends his days collecting quotes from de Tocqueville's Democracy in America for a slim volume to be entitled The Pocket Democracy. When Jimmy's accountant tells Kendall over drinks, "If you and I weren't so honest we could make a lot of money" by embezzling from Jimmy's publishing venture, Kendall must weigh the price of his integrity against taking his slice of the American Dream. The collection is uneven, but even the weakest story is never boring, and Eugenides's prodigious abilities are showcased throughout. (Oct.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Library Journal Review
Although Fresh is Eugenides's (Middlesex) first-ever collection, the contents might seem familiar as only two of the ten stories are actually "fresh"-the opening "Complainers" and closing "Fresh Complaint." The rest appeared in various publications between 1989 and 2013. What's truly new here is that Eugenides makes his narrating debut, voicing the second story, "Air Mail," about a world traveler more familiar with dysentery than enlightenment; while -Eugenides's presentation tends toward dry, he clearly enjoys adopting multiple other-than-American English accents. Cynthia Nixon, whose acting prowess serves listeners well, narrates the two stories before and after Eugenides's, voicing friends who have known each other for 40 years in "Complainers" and a 40-year-old's ex-boyfriend (in a clever "sleight of voice") in "The Baster." The performance of the remaining seven pieces belongs to reliably engaging Ari Fliakos, who comfortably settles into articulating a frustrated clavichordist in "Early Music," a son visiting his parents' newly acquired motel in "Timeshare," a man estranged from his family in "Find the Bad Guy," a gender expert in "The Oracular Vulva," a relics thief in "Capricious Gardens," an embezzling editor in "Great Experiment," and an academic accused of more than impropriety in "Fresh Complaint." VERDICT With Eugenides's reputation, libraries will want to acquire this collection for discerning patrons. ["These stories skillfully explore the often elusive quest for happiness and self-knowledge, along with the many complexities that attend relationships with family, friends, and lovers": LJ 9/1/17 starred review of the Farrar hc.]-Terry Hong, Smithsonian BookDragon, Washington, DC © Copyright 2018. 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
Well-off, well-intentioned people find their just-so lives upended, often in curious ways, in this first collection of short stories by Eugenides (The Marriage Plot, 2011, etc.).Two of the stories here are close cousins to Eugenides' novels: "Air Mail" features Mitchell, the lovelorn spiritual seeker in The Marriage Plot, battling a case of dysentery in Thailand, while "The Oracular Vulva" concerns a researcher studying the same intersexual characteristics that stoked the plot of Middlesex (2002). But neither of those stories reads like a lesser dry run for a more serious work, and the collection throughout is marked by a rich wit, an eye for detail, and a sense of the absurd. The plots often involve relationships hitting the skids, as in "Early Music," in which a couple watches their artistic ambitions crash into the brick wall of fiscal responsibility, or "Find the Bad Guy," about a green-card marriage gone awry. (The contents of the narrator's pockets tell a pathetic tale in itself: "loose change, 5-Hour Energy bottle, and an Ashley Madison ad torn from some magazine.") Eugenides enjoys putting his characters into odd predicaments: "Baster" centers on a woman pursuing a pregnancy via the title's kitchen gadget, while the writer who narrates "Great Experiment" contemplates defrauding his wealthy but stingy employer, using de Tocqueville's writings as a rationalization. But Eugenides never holds up his characters for outright mockery, and the two fine new stories that bookend the collection gracefully navigate darker territory: "Complainers" is narrated by a woman confronting her longtime friend's dementia, and "Fresh Complaint" turns on a young Indian-American woman's provocative scheme to escape an arranged marriage. We humans are well-meaning folk, Eugenides means to say, but life tends to force us into bad behavior. Sprightly or serious, Eugenides consistently writes about complex lives with depth and compassion. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
