reviews | fiction
HThe Knockout Queen By Rufi Thorpe
Coming of Age Rufi Thorpe has made a name for herself as a heavyweight in the literary world with her incisive, morally complex coming-of-age stories. Her debut novel, The Girls From Corona del Mar, was long-listed for several major literary prizes in 2014, and her follow-up, Dear Fang, With Love, was published to wide acclaim two years later. Now Thorpe comes back swinging with her best novel yet, a darkly comedic and tragic tale of a friendship between two outsiders. Set in sunny Southern California, The Knockout Queen (Knopf, $26.95, 9780525656784) is narrated by Michael, a closeted gay teen sent to live with his aunt after his mother is sentenced to prison for stabbing Michael’s father following one of the father’s violent outbursts. With long hair, a nose piercing and a penchant for eyeliner, Michael doesn’t fit neatly into the glossy world of his suburban North Shore neighborhood. Then again, neither does his next-door neighbor, Bunny, infamous for her dead mother and her extremely tall height. Thrown together by proximity and a shared sense of alienation, Michael and Bunny forge a fierce friendship and navigate their early high school years as an inseparable duo. Bonded by a mutual love of drag queens and a keen understanding of what it means to be rejected and relegated to the fringes, the two are ferociously protective of each other, and their love for one another is unconditional—or so Michael thinks, until a shocking act of violence triggers a devastating sequence of events that tests the limits of their friendship and changes the trajectory of their lives. From the very start, the story is infused with an unsettling sense of menace, which Thorpe skillfully wields to pierce through the veneer of her shiny California setting to honestly examine weighty topics such as friendship, sexuality, identity and belonging. Michael tends to see things in black and white, but the canvas of Thorpe’s novel is textured with shades of gray, its world morally ambiguous. With charismatic characters and a surprising and devastating storyline, The Knockout Queen is a moody and mordantly funny con-
templation of the rigors of growing up that will leave readers reeling. —Stephenie Harrison
My Mother’s House By Francesca Momplaisir
Literary Fiction It’s not often a contemporary novel is narrated by an inanimate object. In the 18th century, this convention was quite a bit more popular, referred to as “it-narratives” or “object narratives.” Francesca Momplaisir takes this classic form and combines it with contemporary issues in My Mother’s House (Knopf, $26.95, 9780525657156), narrated by the titular dwelling. When we first meet the house, called La Kay, it is describing its own suicide by fire. La Kay wants to burn itself down because of a man named Lucien. Decades before the fire, Haitian immigrant Lucien moved to Queens, New York, with his young wife, Marie-Ange. Now she is dead, and Lucien, elderly and frail, is estranged from their three daughters. Amid the fire, Lucien swears that “his girls” are in the house’s fireproof safe room. Is Lucien mistaken in his addled state? Though we first meet Lucien when he’s weakened, we learn soon enough that he’s not a good man. Momplaisir shows how Lucien’s wickedness and perversity allow him to exploit other Haitian immigrants, especially women. In this way, Momplaisir illuminates the darker side of immigrant life, in particular Haitian immigrant life, with parents separated from their children—by the parents’ own design— and people with expired green cards or visas who descend into the perilous underground economy or are otherwise forced to live in sketchy circumstances. There is also the ghastly legacy of colorism, in which light-skinned Haitians like Lucien are valued over those of darker hues. La Kay watches Lucien’s crimes for years, and even after it sets itself on fire, it still watches and waits. Still, Momplaisir makes you feel an ember of sympathy for Lucien, whose sole refrain since childhood has been “I am nothing.” He’s nothing without his wife, his daughters, the women whom he uses, discards and then reels
back in. He seems buffeted by love, an emotion whose demands he can’t understand or fulfill. Yet these women survive against terrible odds. In Momplaisir’s novel, cracks of light are always there to penetrate the dark. —Arlene McKanic
The Heirloom Garden By Viola Shipman
Popular Fiction It’s poetic that internationally bestselling author Wade Rouse uses his grandmother’s name, Viola Shipman, as the pen name for his books centered on family and heirlooms. His portrayal of strong, emotionally engaging protagonists is fresh and free of excessive sentimentality, while his unrushed pace and elegant language capture an old-world charm that makes for an enchanting reading experience. His latest novel, The Heirloom Garden (Graydon House, $16.99, 9781525804618), is a beautifully understated story about the loss and discovery of family and ourselves. In the summer of 1944, Iris Maynard loses her loving husband to World War II. Four years later, she loses her beloved daughter, Mary, to polio. Flash forward to 2003, when Iris, now reclusive, finds sole comfort in the flowers she propagates. They are her friends, family and the focus of her lonely life. When the Peterson family—steadfast Abby, husband Cory, who returned from the Iraq War a changed man, and their precocious daughter, Lily—moves in next door, Iris is drawn to them. Together, the four find healing connections and become a family. Shipman patiently and gently unearths the deeply flawed characters’ sorrows and reveals the delicate buds of happiness that eventually blossom. Iris’ anguish over the loss of her loved ones is palpable, and every memory stirs sadness, which makes bright moments—when she talks to her flowers and connects with the Petersons—so uplifting. Without making a political statement or moralizing, Shipman incorporates themes of loss and war into the story, credibly revealing how Abby’s family works through the effects of Cory’s PTSD. Iris’ and Abby’s alternating perspectives add a dynamic element to the story, while Iris’ flashbacks smoothly add backstory that deepens
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