Publishers Weekly - 09.03.2020

Review_FICTION

40 PUBLISHERS WEEKLY ■ MARCH 9, 2020

Review_FICTION

Dunces, after his suicide. Simon & Schuster

editor Robert Gottlieb, who rejected Dunces

(because it “isn’t really about anything”), is

fairly portrayed, though references to the

1968 novel Superworm, a highly touted

but now forgotten Gottlieb acquisition,

suggest his editorial judgment wasn’t

always perfect. Book industry insiders

will enjoy the account of how Carroll,

then an editor at Grove Press, negotiated

the paperback rights for Dunces with LSU,

netting an instant bestseller after the

book won the Pulitzer in 1981. Less

satisfying is an undeveloped subplot

involving a fictional reporter seeking to

write about Toole. The authors also

indulge in unnecessary historical scene

setting (“in August of 1963, as

Beatlemania continued to entrance the

country, President Kennedy and the First

Lady mourned the death of an infant

son”). This love letter to Toole fans offers

plenty of insights into the tragic literary

figure. (May)

Glorious Boy

Aimee Liu. Red Hen, $18.95 trade paper

(344p) ISBN 978-1-59709-889-2

Liu’s tense, evocative WWII family

drama (after Flash House) explores the

wartime turmoil for British colonials and

indigenous people on the Andaman

Islands in the Bay of Bengal. In 1936,

Shep Durant, a British physician, and his

American wife, Claire, a budding anthro-

pologist, settle in the capital city of Port

Blair, where Shep works as a civil surgeon.

Claire, meanwhile, studies the islands’

indigenous peoples and takes an interest

in Naila, the precocious eight-year-old

daughter of her servants. After the

Durants’s son, Ty, is born in 1937, they

hire Naila as Ty’s nanny. Naila and Ty form

a close bond that helps Ty communicate.

At four, he remains mute, but Naila can

intuit his thoughts. As Japanese troops

advance on the Andamans in early 1942,

British residents are ordered to evacuate,

and career of author John Kennedy Toole

(1937–1969) from Carroll, a publishing

veteran, and Blanco (Please Stop Laughing

at Me, a

memoir) is a bit

of a mixed bag.

The authors do

a good job

depicting the

family life of

only-child Toole

in New Orleans,

in particular the

tension between

the sensitive,

gifted Toole and his overbearing mother,

Thelma, who ensured the publication of

her son’s masterpiece, A Confederacy of

joining him for breakfast the following

morning (she doesn’t). In the final scene,

McBride switches from third- to first-

person narration, at which point the nar-

rator reflects on how her past choices have

“absented” her from herself. The linguistic

prowess found in McBride’s other books

remains present, with the bravado slightly

dialed down for emotional effect. McBride’s

nebulous formalist structure could be

described as a long prose poem masquer-

ading as a novel. As a narrative, though,

it is a half-formed thing. (May)

I, John Kennedy Toole

Kent Carroll and Jodee Blanco. Pegasus,

$25.95 (256p) ISBN 978-1-64313-193-1

This boisterous fictional take on the life

Danny Adams

Allen Appel

Rachel Z. Arndt

Michael Barron

Kate Belew

Vicki Borah Bloom

Leah Bobet

Alexis Burling

Lisa Butts

Donis Casey

Oline H. Cogdill

Lynda Brill Comerford

Sara Grochowski

Jennifer de Guzman

Kate Dunn

Stefan Dziemianowicz

Suzanne Fox

Elizabeth Foxwell

Erin Fry

Krystyna Poray Goddu

Judi Goldenberg

Patricia Guy

Katrina Niidas Holm

Michael M. Jones

Juliet Kahn

Theresa Kaminski

Bridget Keown

Maia Kobabe

Diane Langhorst

Nicholas Litchfield

Sally Lodge

Patty MacDonald

Stephanie Madewell

Chloe Maveal

Alice McMurtry

Sheri Melnick

Julie Naughton

Dai Newman

Dionne Obeso

Nathalie op de Beeck

Devin Overman

Robert Allen Papinchak

Hope Perlman

Leonard Picker

Gwyn Plummer

Margaret Quamme

Holly Rice

Samantha Riedel

Joe Sanders

Antonia Saxon

Martha Schulman

Matt Seidel

Liz Scheier

Will Swarts

Erin Talbert

Namera Tanjeem

Jennifer Taylor

Eris Young

Erica Wetter

Wendy Werris

Michael Zimmerman

Our Reviewers

▲

★ The Party Upstairs

Lee Conell. Penguin Press, $26 (320p) ISBN 978-1-9848-8027-7

C

onell’s smashing debut creates a vivacious

microcosm of life inside a tony Manhattan co-op

building, where middle-aged Martin, the super,

lives with his wife and daughter, Ruby, in the

basement. Ruby, 24, moves back in with her parents

after her art history degree fails to land her a job, and

John, her boyfriend, breaks up with her. Ruby was

raised in the building along with her best friend, Caroline,

whose wealthy family lives in the penthouse. As children,

the girls played games like “Holocaust-orphans-sisters-

survivors,” and didn’t notice the differences in their

social classes. They remained best friends as they got

older despite Ruby’s growing discomfort over Caroline’s economic advantages, a

conflict mirrored in the tension shown in flashbacks with Ruby and John, whom

she saw as a “rich boy with family money who displayed his paltry do-gooder

paycheck as a badge of integrity.” Ruby now aspires to build a diorama of her

building and its residents for the Museum of Natural History. Meanwhile,

memories of Lily, an eccentric and beloved neighbor, haunt Martin after he finds

her dead in her apartment. Lily speaks to Martin vividly and torments the already

anxious super. The story culminates at a party in the penthouse, where Ruby’s

recent disdain for her friend pushes her to an act that changes the course of all

their lives. Conell’s talent for storytelling, wicked sense of humor, and compassion

for her characters will leave readers eager for her next book. (July)