Featuring 359 Industry-First Reviews of Fiction, Nonfiction, Children'sand YA books KIRKUSVOL. LXXXIX, NO. 7 | 1 APRIL 2021 REVIEWS hilip oth edux How biographer Blake Bailey captured the life and times of America’s provocative literary legend Also in the issue: Katherine Heiny, Margarita Engle, and Cookie Hiponia Everman FROM THE EDITOR’S DESK | Tom Beer Chairman A Towering Novelist (With an Asterisk) HERBERT SIMON President & Publisher MARC WINKELMAN John Paraskevas “Philip Roth, Towering Novelist Who Explored Lust, Jewish Life and # Chief Executive Officer America, Dies at 85” read the New York Times headline on May 22, 2018. “Tow- MEG LABORDE KUEHN ering” pretty much summed up the prevailing sentiment about the New Jer- [email protected] Editor-in-Chief sey–born novelist who had been writing, prolifically and provocatively, for TOM BEER nearly 60 years. [email protected] Vice President of Marketing Roth certainly had racked up the awards to buttress his reputation: two SARAH KALINA National Book Awards, a Pulitzer Prize, two National Book Critics Circle [email protected] Managing/Nonfiction Editor Awards, a PEN/Faulkner. (But oh, that elusive Nobel Prize!) Portnoy’s Complaint ERIC LIEBETRAU was a big bestseller, the kind of novel people talked about at smart cocktail par- [email protected] Fiction Editor ties (back when people held parties and talked about novels at them), a book LAURIE MUCHNICK whose sexual frankness and unhinged humor perfectly [email protected] Young Readers’ Editor captured the ’60s zeitgeist. (Kirkus, in its contemporary review, wasn’t 100% VICKY SMITH [email protected] sold: “masterful in parts, phony in others.”) American Pastoral swung for the Young Readers’ Editor fences as a Great American Novel (and the Pulitzer board ruled in favor). Roth’s LAURA SIMEON [email protected] late-life burst of creativity—four compact, decently reviewed novels written Editor at Large between 2006 and 2010, when the author was in his 70s—seemed to seal the deal. MEGAN LABRISE [email protected] But the public perception of Roth was never uncomplicated, and that “tow- Vice President of Kirkus Indie ering” came with an asterisk. As Marion Winik writes in our cover story on Page KAREN SCHECHNER [email protected] 58, many readers “believed Roth was Portnoy—an oversexed ‘self-hating Jew’ Senior Indie Editor whose attitudes were so provocative that some claimed he might incite a second DAVID RAPP [email protected] Holocaust.” And charges of misogyny always shadowed him. Were his female Indie Editor MYRA FORSBERG characters sufficiently developed? What about the accusations of cruelty leveled [email protected] by ex-wife Claire Bloom in her memoir Leaving a Doll’s House? Associate Manager of Indie KATERINA PAPPAS Grappling with this complex legacy was the job before Blake Bailey when he was tapped by Roth in [email protected] 2012 to tell his life story. The resulting book, (Norton, Nancy Crampton Philip Roth: The Biography Editorial Assistant JOHANNA ZWIRNER April 6), will not end all debate about the author, but at 880 pages and bolstered [email protected] by more than 150 interviews and deep archival research, it paints as full a portrait Mysteries Editor of the man as we’re likely to get. “There are people who have very settled ideas THOMAS LEITCH Contributing Editor about who Philip was, and they often tend to be negative,” Bailey told Winik in GREGORY McNAMEE their interview. “It’s quite possible that these people will read my book and still Copy Editor BETSY JUDKINS have a disparaging view. But if you read with an open mind, I think Philip comes Designer across as a flawed human being, certainly, but mostly quite lovable.” ALEX HEAD Whatever your ultimate assessment of the man, it’s worth spending time Kirkus Editorial Production Editor ROBIN O’DELL with his books. For those, like me, who have encountered Roth’s work only in a [email protected] scattershot fashion, I asked Bailey to recommend the five essential books that Kirkus Editorial Associate Philip Roth Production Editor everyone should read. Here are his recommendations and his reasons for choos- STEPHANIE SUMMERHAYS [email protected] ing them: Website and Software Developer (1959): “The book that made Roth the youngest winner of the National Book PERCY PEREZ Goodbye, Columbus [email protected] Award at age 26. A charming and definitive look at midcentury Jewish life in the suburbs.” Advertising Director (1969): “One of the funniest, filthiest novels ever written. It made the author a MONIQUE STENSRUD Portnoy’s Complaint [email protected] millionaire and an international scandal.” Advertising Associate TATIANA ARNOLD The Ghost Writer (1979): “The first novel of Roth’s Zuckerman sequence, in which the Rothian alter [email protected] ego is forced to choose between family and art.” Graphic Designer KYLA NOVAK American Pastoral (1997): “The first Pulitzer-winning novel in Roth’s American Trilogy. A decent man [email protected] is blindsided by history.” Controller MICHELLE GONZALES Everyman (2006): “ ‘You’ll love this book!’ said Roth. ‘It’s all about death!’ ” [email protected] The Roth reassessments—and the reading—go on. for customer service 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-guidelines 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 from the opportunities Philip Roth Estate 2 | 1 april 2021 | from the editor’s desk | kirkus.com | you can now purchase books online at kirkus.com contents fiction The Kirkus Star is awarded INDEX TO STARRED REVIEWS ...........................................................4 REVIEWS ...............................................................................................4 to books of remarkable EDITOR’S NOTE.....................................................................................6 merit, as determined by the INTERVIEW: KATHERINE HEINY ..................................................... 14 impartial editors of Kirkus. MYSTERY .............................................................................................42 SCIENCE FICTION & FANTASY .........................................................46 ROMANCE ...........................................................................................48 nonfiction INDEX TO STARRED REVIEWS ......................................................... 50 REVIEWS ............................................................................................. 50 EDITOR’S NOTE................................................................................... 52 COVER FEATURE: BLAKE BAILEY ....................................................58 children’s INDEX TO STARRED REVIEWS ......................................................... 87 EDITOR’S NOTE...................................................................................88 REVIEWS ............................................................................................. 89 INTERVIEW: COOKIE HIPONIA EVERMAN ................................... 94 MOTHER’S DAY & FATHER’S DAY PICTURE BOOKS ....................139 young adult INDEX TO STARRED REVIEWS .......................................................144 REVIEWS ...........................................................................................144 NoNieqa Ramos and Jacqueline Alcántara EDITOR’S NOTE.................................................................................146 offer up an ebullient celebration of Latinx INTERVIEW: MARGARITA ENGLE .................................................150 motherhood, one of the stars of our Mother’s indie Day & Father’s Day picture-book roundup. INDEX TO STARRED REVIEWS ....................................................... 160 Read the review on p. 141. REVIEWS ........................................................................................... 160 Don’t wait on the mail for reviews! You can read pre-publication reviews as EDITOR’S NOTE..................................................................................162 they are released on kirkus.com—even before they are published in the magazine. You can also access the current issue and back issues of Kirkus Reviews on our BOOK TO SCREEN ............................................................................ 178 website by logging in as a subscriber. If you do not have a username or password, please contact customer care to set up your account by calling 1.800.316.9361 or APPRECIATIONS: NORA EPHRON ..................................................179 emailing [email protected]. | kirkus.com | contents | 1 april 2021 | 3 fiction These titles earned the Kirkus Star: SILENCE IS A SENSE AlAmmar, Layla Algonquin (304 pp.) SCORPION by Christian Cantrell ........................................................8 $25.95 | Mar. 16, 2021 978-1-64375-026-2 EVERYONE KNOWS YOUR MOTHER IS A WITCH by Rivka Galchen ................................................................................17 A young Muslim woman watches her VOICES IN THE EVENING by Natalia Ginzburg; neighbors as she comes to terms with her trans. by D.M. Low ..............................................................................17 own tragic history. In AlAmmar’s second novel, a young THE OTHER BLACK