Review_FICTION Review_FICTION82 PUBLISHERS WEEKLY ■ SEPTEMEBER 2, 2019
Reviews
Johary Ravaloson’s Return to the Enchanted
Island repurposes Malagasy mythology
through one man’s return home from Paris
(reviewed on p. 84).Welcome to the Pine Away
Motel and Cabins
Katerina Bivald. Sourcebooks Landmark,
$16.99 trade paper (448p) ISBN 978-1-4926-
8101-4
Bivald (The Readers of Broken Wheel
Recommend) delves into what’s important in
life in this bittersweet tale about life after
death. Henny Broek, the novel’s narrator,
is only in her 30s when she’s accidentally
killed by a passing truck, but she’s not
ready to leave those in her life behind —so
she moves invisibly through places, and
observes interactions. Her lifelong best
friend is running the motel where Henny
worked her entire adult life. The other two
friends from their teenage quartet have
come back to the small town of Pine
Creek, Ore., for Henny’s funeral, and
they’re staying at the motel. Michael was
the love of Henny’s life, but he’d been
traveling the world as a successful geologist.
Camila, who inherited the motel, had
been gone since she went to L.A. after high
school to make the transgender transition
to her proper female self. Henny hangs
out with all of them, trying to interact
with them but not seeming to get through,
and struggling to discover how she can
move on. Although her friends are
bereaved, they somehow become invigo-
rated by the loss, whether it’s Michael
helping his brother get his life on track or
all of them painting a pride flag on the
high school. In a story about the lives a
single person can touch, the highlight is
fittingly Bivald’s memorable characteriza-
tions, as she makes each person and their
needs distinct and complex. This is a win-
ning novel about the lasting impact of
love. (Jan.)Light Changes Everything
Nancy E. Turner. St. Martin’s/Dunne, $27.99
(304p) ISBN 978-1-250-18601-0
In her warm-hearted latest, Turner (The
Star Garden) returns to the Arizona
Territories and the world of Sarah Agnes
Prine. This time, the story begins in 1907and is told by Sarah’s niece, 17-year-old
Mary Pearl Prine, who rarely leaves home
without her pistol and her beloved horse,
Duende. Mary Pearl’s Aunt Sarah fostered
a love of books and learning, and though
Mary Pearl loves her large family, she longs
to see the world outside her pa’s pecan
farm, so she’s thrilled when she’s invited
to attend art school at Wheaton College
in Illinois. A quick betrothal complicates
her plans, but at Wheaton she discovers a
love of photography and finds joy in new
friendships. After a terrible betrayal from
someone close to her, Mary Pearl’s future
is imperiled, and when range wars threaten
her family, she leaves Wheaton to help.
Turner’s satisfying, immersive, and often
heart-pounding tale of one indomitable
young woman’s frontier life, touched by
tragedy and hope, is realistically drawn, and
readers will appreciate the portrayal of
Mary Pearl’s chaotic but loving family life.
Fans of the Sarah Agnes Prine novels and
new readers alike will fall in love with the
smart and spirited Mary Pearl. (Jan.)The Story of a Goat
Perumal Murugan. Grove, $16 trade paper
(192p) ISBN 978-0-8021-4751-6
This superb fabulist tale from Murugan
(One Part Woman) dives into the inner life
and turmoil of a Asuras, a fictional farming
village in rural India, through a small but
determined goat and her unlikely care-
takers. A large, mysticlike man gifts a rare
black goat to an old farmer one day on his
way home from the field. When the oldfarmer brings the malnourished goat home
to his wife, she quickly gets to work caring
for the goat, whom she names Poonachi. It’s
not an easy start for Poonachi, who must
deal with the abuses of the village children,
refuses to suckle, and is attacked by a tiger.
But in the hands of the old woman,
Poonachi eventually thrives and becomes
her inseparable companion. As Poonachi
grows older, she learns that life is filled
with struggle and suffering, but also that
it holds moments of beauty and love.
Anthropomorphic Poonachi lets readers
into many of her thoughts and experi-
ences, including a vibrant view of life
under a government regime that banned
black goats (which supposedly can’t be
seen in the dark) and oversaw long periods
of famine and food rationing. Murugan
explores the lively inner life of an obser-
vant goat in this imaginative exploration
of rural life under the caste system. (Dec.)Parade: A Folktale
Hiromi Kawakami, trans. from the Japanese
by Allison Markin Powell. Soft Skull, $11.95
trade paper (96p) ISBN 978-1-59376-580-4
A pair of mysterious creatures from
Japanese folklore become a young girl’s
companions during a trying period in
Kawakami’s sweet and original tale (a
companion piece to her novel Strange
Weather in Tokyo). After a leisurely dinner
of somen noodles with her old teacher,
Sensei, Tsukiko relates the story of the
creatures, called tengu, who began to follow
her in childhood. “The tengu had human
bodies... long noses, and wings. Their faces
were beautiful shades of red, just as
depicted in books.” Tsukiko is shocked
when the tengu first appear, but her friends
and family see nothing amiss: her mother
merely greets the tengu, and her third-
grade classmates reveal that they’ve long
had their own folktale companions, “a
badger, a little old lady, and a rokurokubi
woman with a very long neck.” Used to and
somewhat comforted by the tengu, who
drink the nectar of flowers and communi-
cate through “bristling sounds,” Tsukiko
is worried when one of them falls ill—an
illness that coincides with the mass
shunning of her classmate, Yuko: “a cruel
game, administered according to sheer
whim.” Part fairy tale, in which some
readers will discern a moral, part gentle
reminiscence of childhood’s passingFiction
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