Raven Leilani the Novelist Makes a Shining Debut with Luster, a Mesmerizing Story of Race, Sex, and Power P
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Featuring 417 Industry-First Reviews of Fiction, Nonfiction, Children'sand YA books KIRKUSVOL. LXXXVIII, NO. 15 | 1 AUGUST 2020 REVIEWS Raven Leilani The novelist makes a shining debut with Luster, a mesmerizing story of race, sex, and power p. 14 Also in the issue: Raquel Vasquez Gilliland, Rebecca Giggs, Adrian Tomine, and more from the editor’s desk: The Dysfunctional Family Sweepstakes Chairman BY TOM BEER HERBERT SIMON President & Publisher MARC WINKELMAN John Paraskevas # As this issue went to press, the nation was riveted by the publication of To o Chief Executive Officer Much and Never Enough: How My Family Created the World’s Most Dangerous Man MEG LABORDE KUEHN (Simon & Schuster, July 14), the scathing family memoir by the president’s niece. [email protected] Editor-in-Chief For the past four years, nearly every inhabitant of the planet has been affected TOM BEER by Donald Trump, from the impact of Trump administration policies—on [email protected] Vice President of Marketing climate change, immigration, policing, and more—to the continuous feed of SARAH KALINA Trump-related news that we never seem to escape. Now, thanks to Mary Trump, [email protected] Ph.D., a clinical psychologist, we understand the impact of Donald Trump up Managing/Nonfiction Editor ERIC LIEBETRAU close, on his family members. [email protected] It’s not a pretty picture. Fiction Editor LAURIE MUCHNICK The book describes the Trumps as a clan headed by a “high-functioning [email protected] Tom Beer sociopath,” patriarch Fred Trump Sr., father to Donald and the author’s own Young Readers’ Editor VICKY SMITH father, Fred Jr. “None of the Trump siblings emerged unscathed from my grand- [email protected] father’s sociopathy and my grandmother’s illnesses, both physical and psychological, but my uncle Don- Young Readers’ Editor ald and my father, Freddy, suffered more than the rest,” she writes. “In order to LAURA SIMEON [email protected] get a complete picture of Donald, his psychopathologies, and the meaning of Editor at Large his dysfunctional behavior, we need a thorough family history.” MEGAN LABRISE [email protected] Too Much and Never Enough offers just that, including the shameful treat- Vice President of Kirkus Indie ment of Fred Jr., who lost his father’s favor, developed a drinking problem, and KAREN SCHECHNER was left to die alone. The author’s aunt struggled to survive, feeding herself with [email protected] Senior Indie Editor coins collected from the washers and dryers in Trump buildings and brought to DAVID RAPP her by her mother. Greed and human disregard are refrains throughout. Our [email protected] Indie Editor reviewer writes, “Dripping with snideness, vibrating with rage, and gleaming MYRA FORSBERG with clarity—a deeply satisfying read.” [email protected] If is the ne plus ultra of dysfunctional family Associate Manager of Indie Too Much and Never Enough KATERINA PAPPAS memoirs, it joins a crowded field. Published the same week as the Mary Trump [email protected] book, Kirkland Hamill’s Filthy Beasts (Avid Reader Press, July 14) tells the story Editorial Assistant JOHANNA ZWIRNER of a blue-blood New York childhood turned upside down when the author’s parents divorced and he [email protected] and his brothers found themselves, financially insolvent, with their alcoholic Mysteries Editor mother in Bermuda. Hamill, our reviewer writes, “explores in visceral detail THOMAS LEITCH Contributing Editor how children of addicted caregivers struggle to construct meaning, establish GREGORY McNAMEE their own identities, and simply survive while living in the wake of a family Copy Editor illness.” BETSY JUDKINS On the subject of mothers: One of the most memorable in recent mem- Designer ory is Adrienne Brodeur’s mother, Malabar, who looms larger than life in ALEX HEAD Director of Kirkus Editorial Brodeur’s childhood, as she does in her memoir, Wild Game: My Mother, Her LAUREN BAILEY Lover, and Me (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2019). When the author was 14, [email protected] Production Editor Malabar came into her bedroom one night and confided that she had kissed HEATHER RODINO their family friend, Ben—thus making her teenage daughter an accomplice in [email protected] her yearslong extramarital affair. Our reviewer called it a “vivid chronicle of a Website and Software Developer PERCY PEREZ daughter’s struggle to find herself.” [email protected] Some other recent standouts in the genre: Tara Westover’s (Random House, 2018), about Advertising Director Educated MONIQUE STENSRUD growing up in—and escaping from—a reclusive fundamentalist Mormon family; Lisa Brennan-Jobs’ [email protected] Small Fry (Grove, 2018), by the daughter of Apple co-founder Steve Jobs, who first denied paternity and Advertising Associate TATIANA ARNOLD then dropped mercurially in and out of her life; Blake Bailey’s The Splendid Things We Planned (Norton, [email protected] 2014), in which a troubled, drug-addicted brother wreaks as much havoc in a young man’s life as any Graphic Designer narcissistic parent could. LIANA WALKER [email protected] To write a family memoir like these is to invite readers into that charged space to become bystand- Controller ers, almost silent partners. For her part, Mary Trump recalls election night 2016 in almost exactly those MICHELLE GONZALES terms. “It felt,” she writes, “as though 62,979,636 voters had chosen to turn this country into a macro [email protected] for customer service version of my malignantly dysfunctional family.” It’s all in the family now. or subscription questions, please call 1-800-316-9361 Print indexes: www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/print-indexes Submission Guidelines: www.kirkusreviews.com/about/submission-guidlines Kirkus Blog: www.kirkusreviews.com/blog Subscriptions: www.kirkusreviews.com/subscription Advertising Opportunities: www.kirkusreviews.com/about/advertising- Newsletters: www.kirkusreviews.com/subscription/newsletter/add Cover photo by opportunities Nina Subin 2 | 1 august 2020 | from the editor’s desk | kirkus.com | you can now purchase books online at kirkus.com contents fiction INDEX TO STARRED REVIEWS ...........................................................4 The Kirkus Star is awarded REVIEWS ...............................................................................................4 to books of remarkable EDITOR’S NOTE.....................................................................................6 merit, as determined by the COVER STORY: RAVEN LEILANI ...................................................... 14 MYSTERY ............................................................................................. 34 impartial editors of Kirkus. SCIENCE FICTION & FANTASY .........................................................40 ROMANCE ........................................................................................... 41 nonfiction adult young INDEX TO STARRED REVIEWS ......................................................... 45 REVIEWS ............................................................................................. 45 EDITOR’S NOTE...................................................................................46 INTERVIEW: REBECCA GIGGS .........................................................52 INTERVIEW: ADRIAN TOMINE ......................................................... 58 children’s INDEX TO STARRED REVIEWS ......................................................... 87 EDITOR’S NOTE...................................................................................88 REVIEWS ............................................................................................. 89 INTERVIEW: WADE HUDSON & CHERYL WILLIS HUDSON ....... 94 LATE FALL HOLIDAY PICTURE BOOKS..........................................138 young adult INDEX TO STARRED REVIEWS ....................................................... 149 REVIEWS ........................................................................................... 149 EDITOR’S NOTE..................................................................................150 INTERVIEW: RAQUEL VASQUEZ GILLILAND ...............................154 Paola Mendoza and Abby Sher write about a dystopian America in which a Colombian immigrant family flees indie cross-country from Vermont to a seceding California, INDEX TO STARRED REVIEWS ........................................................167 seeking sanctuary from the ever harsher policies of an REVIEWS ............................................................................................167 authoritarian government. Read the review on p. 161. EDITOR’S NOTE.................................................................................168 Don’t wait on the mail for reviews! You can read pre-publication reviews as they are released on kirkus.com—even before they are published in the magazine. BOOK TO SCREEN ............................................................................186 You can also access the current issue and back issues of Kirkus Reviews on our website by logging in as a subscriber. If you do not have a username or password, APPRECIATIONS: GEORGE ORWELL’S ANIMAL FARM AT 75 .... 187 please contact customer care to set up your account by calling 1.800.316.9361 or emailing [email protected]. | kirkus.com | contents | 1 august 2020 | 3 fiction These titles earned the Kirkus Star: INSIDE STORY Amis, Martin Knopf (544 pp.) INSIDE STORY by Martin Amis .......................................................... 4 $28.95 | Oct. 6,