Bruce Overby (Author of The Cyclone Release)

Bruce Overby rated a book really liked it Tinkers by Paul Harding	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
Oct 09, 2026 02:37PM · 1 like · like · preview book See a Problem? We’d love your help. Let us know what’s wrong with this preview of Tinkers by Paul Harding. Problem: Details (if other): Thanks for telling us about the problem. Not the book you’re looking for? Preview — Tinkers by Paul Harding <iframe sandbox id="wrongBookKindlePreviewScreen">
Bruce Overby rated a book Stone Yard Devotional by Charlotte Wood (Goodreads Author)	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
Charlotte Wood's Stone Yard Devotional is the story of an unnamed first-person narrator who abandons her life in the city to join a community of nuns in a remote compound near the hometown of her youth. As a member of this community, this charact ...more
Oct 09, 2026 11:50AM · 1 like · like · see review · preview book See a Problem? We’d love your help. Let us know what’s wrong with this preview of Stone Yard Devotional by Charlotte Wood. Problem: Details (if other): Thanks for telling us about the problem. Not the book you’re looking for? Preview — Stone Yard Devotional by Charlotte Wood <iframe sandbox id="wrongBookKindlePreviewScreen">
Bruce Overby rated a book Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
Across pages 76 and 77 of my 2024 Harper-Perennial paperback edition of Barbara Kingsolver’s Pulitzer Prize–winning novel Demon Copperhead, the protagonist, Damon Fields, is invited to a “pharm party” at the foster home where he lives. As he and the ...more
Oct 08, 2026 09:29AM · 1 like · like · see review · preview book See a Problem? We’d love your help. Let us know what’s wrong with this preview of Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver. Problem: Details (if other): Thanks for telling us about the problem. Not the book you’re looking for? Preview — Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver <iframe sandbox id="wrongBookKindlePreviewScreen">
Bruce Overby rated a book it was amazing We Do Not Part by Han Kang	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
Nobel laureate Han Kang is the deserving recipient of a prize that is, as the years pass, doing an admirable job of extending its reach to authors and literary traditions that have too long been overlooked. As a Korean author dependent on translators ...more
Oct 01, 2026 06:00PM · like · see review · preview book See a Problem? We’d love your help. Let us know what’s wrong with this preview of We Do Not Part by Han Kang. Problem: Details (if other): Thanks for telling us about the problem. Not the book you’re looking for? Preview — We Do Not Part by Han Kang <iframe sandbox id="wrongBookKindlePreviewScreen">
Bruce Overby rated a book it was amazing Tell Me Everything (Amgash, #5) by Elizabeth Strout (Goodreads Author)	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
I freely admit that I am a notoriously slow reader. I rarely read a book twice, and there is only one book, Harry Mülisch’s The Assault, that I’ve read more than twice. This is perhaps the least important of the many reasons I love the books of Eliza ...more
Oct 01, 2026 03:05PM · like · see review · preview book See a Problem? We’d love your help. Let us know what’s wrong with this preview of Tell Me Everything by Elizabeth Strout. Problem: Details (if other): Thanks for telling us about the problem. Not the book you’re looking for? Preview — Tell Me Everything by Elizabeth Strout <iframe sandbox id="wrongBookKindlePreviewScreen">
Bruce Overby rated a book it was amazing Young Man in a Hurry: A Memoir of Discovery by Gavin Newsom	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
I’ve been telling close friends for the better part of a year—perhaps longer—that Gavin Newsom will be the next President of the United States, and I actually do believe that. As such, I felt it was something of a duty to read this 2026 memoir to get ...more
Sep 28, 2026 04:21PM · like · see review · preview book See a Problem? We’d love your help. Let us know what’s wrong with this preview of Young Man in a Hurry by Gavin Newsom. Problem: Details (if other): Thanks for telling us about the problem. Not the book you’re looking for? Preview — Young Man in a Hurry by Gavin Newsom <iframe sandbox id="wrongBookKindlePreviewScreen">
Bruce Overby liked Literary Titan's review of Tristan 4 America: "Bruce Overby’s Tristan 4 America is a political satire with the bones of a campaign novel, the mouth of a Silicon Valley happy hour, and the nerves of a country that can’t stop vibrating. Tristan Heller is a laid-off tech executive who misses his tea" Read more of this review »
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Bruce Overby rated a book it was amazing The Wayfinder by Adam Johnson	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
I'm not sure how I feel about the fact that Adam Johnson has spent years and years researching and creating both of his novels, delivering in the end very large books (The Orphan Master's Son, 443 pages; The Wayfinder, 736 pages) that have nonetheles ...more
May 08, 2026 01:11PM · like · see review · preview book See a Problem? We’d love your help. Let us know what’s wrong with this preview of The Wayfinder by Adam Johnson. Problem: Details (if other): Thanks for telling us about the problem. Not the book you’re looking for? Preview — The Wayfinder by Adam Johnson <iframe sandbox id="wrongBookKindlePreviewScreen">
Bruce Overby liked Tripp's review of Y: The Last Man, Book 1: "I see now why this series earned rave reviews not only in the comic book press but in the mainstream press, as well. Effective use of flashbacks and jump cuts, interesting character relationships, pointed but subtle social commentary, and exceptional" Read more of this review »
Nov 29, 2025 12:00PM · see review
Bruce Overby liked Tripp's review of Hazel Says No: "On the first day of her senior year in a new high school, Hazel Blum is propositioned by the school's principal and the novel examines how complexly this terrible action ripples through the small town in Maine where the Blum family moved from New Yor" Read more of this review »
Sep 06, 2025 07:01AM · see review · preview book See a Problem? We’d love your help. Let us know what’s wrong with this preview of Hazel Says No by Jessica Berger Gross. Problem: Details (if other): Thanks for telling us about the problem. Not the book you’re looking for? Preview — Hazel Says No by Jessica Berger Gross <iframe sandbox id="wrongBookKindlePreviewScreen">

Bruce Overby rated a book really liked it

Tinkers
by Paul Harding

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Stone Yard Devotional
by Charlotte Wood (Goodreads Author)

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Charlotte Wood's Stone Yard Devotional is the story of an unnamed first-person narrator who abandons her life in the city to join a community of nuns in a remote compound near the hometown of her youth. As a member of this community, this charact Charlotte Wood's Stone Yard Devotional is the story of an unnamed first-person narrator who abandons her life in the city to join a community of nuns in a remote compound near the hometown of her youth. As a member of this community, this character settles into a routine of simple tasks that affords her time for reflection and personal exploration, but that routine is interrupted by an infestation of rodents that overwhelms all sense of calm and consistency, and by two arrivals: the body of a beloved community member who died while on a far-off mission and the person of a revered community member, who also happens to be a nemesis from the narrator’s childhood years.

The act of abandonment this character undertakes is, of course, a radical act in its own right, but this character’s decision to join a religious community—and to take part in rituals such as daily prayers—is even more radical given that she is a sworn atheist. The result of this radical act appears to be just what the character wants: a lengthy meditation on her life experiences and life choices. A failed and disillusioned environmental activist, she settles permanently into this Catholic enclave, sharing in the chores and routines and, while refusing to embrace the faith, engaging in an inner journey that is, if anything, spiritual. The disruptions to this routine give both the character and the reader much to think about. The rodent invasion challenges the character’s long-held beliefs about protecting the natural world, and the arrival of the outsized figure of Sister Helen Parry thrusts her into reflection on the foibles of her youth. It turns out she was one of several girls who had bullied the young Helen Parry, an awkward and poverty-stricken adolescent.

The unusual structure of the book is described by the critic Ron Charles with his usual adroit turn of phrase:

“The novel progresses like a diary of clipped, undated entries — some a few pages long, some only a few lines long — a mix of observations and reflections, pedestrian and cosmic, created with the apparent spontaneity and artlessness that only the most skillful writers can attain.”

It’s a structure that suits Wood’s meditative narrative style perfectly. Stone Yard Devotional is a story of transformation about a character creating a new present that will allow her to explore her troubled past, and we’re taken along for the ride in a small, intimate compartment in which we sit directly across from her, experiencing her every thought and gesture. ...more

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Demon Copperhead
by Barbara Kingsolver

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Across pages 76 and 77 of my 2024 Harper-Perennial paperback edition of Barbara Kingsolver’s Pulitzer Prize–winning novel Demon Copperhead, the protagonist, Damon Fields, is invited to a “pharm party” at the foster home where he lives. As he and the Across pages 76 and 77 of my 2024 Harper-Perennial paperback edition of Barbara Kingsolver’s Pulitzer Prize–winning novel Demon Copperhead, the protagonist, Damon Fields, is invited to a “pharm party” at the foster home where he lives. As he and the other boys fostered and forced into hard labor at this remote tobacco farm exchange pills from a random collection of prescription drugs, young Damon thinks to himself:

“A ten-year-old getting high on pills. Foolish children. This is what we’re meant to say: Look at their choices, leading to a life of ruin. But lives are getting lived right now, this hour, down in the dirty cracks between the toothbrushed nighty-nights and the full grocery carts, where those words don’t pertain. Children, choices, ruin, that was the labor and the materials we were given to work with.”

Demon Copperhead is a faithful, yet innovative retelling of the Dickens classic David Copperfield, and this passage illustrates not only the choices Kingsolver makes in constructing the narrative, but also the author’s immense talent. We see here the silky smooth, native use of the southern vernacular, which adds so much color, movement, and intrinsic humor to the prose that it provides an almost unfair advantage for southern writers like Kingsolver. (British writers publishing in the North America have a similar advantage.) We also see, on a pure structural level, a story told from the perspective of an adult looking backwards at his life, an approach, clearly adopted from David Copperfield, that offers the reader some comfort that the protagonist came out on the other side, while also enabling Kingsolver to express the daily struggle of the addict, who must address past indiscretions and injustices before he can hope to tame the addiction and move on with his life.

The passage also encapsulates the theme, and perhaps the overall purpose, of the book, which is to deliver a full-throated defense of Appalachia, a corner of America often disparaged for its descent into opioid-fueled death and decline. This is where Kingsolver, a native of Kentucky, lives today, and the impulse to portray the region’s universal humanity while at the same time honestly laying bare its foibles and dysfunctions must run strong in her veins. Kingsolver, in fact, seems to have a chip on her shoulder when it comes to the popular view of Appalachia. Demon certainly drives this home, but another character, his friend Tommy, really channels the impulse near the end of the book when he recruits Demon, a cartoonist, into the project of creating a graphic novel to open the country’s eyes to the unfair ridicule of Appalachia. This may be a bit of a tangent, but I can relate to some extent because I come from Silicon Valley, a place that has also been the subject of national ridicule (as in the titular TV series). And now, what was a relatively harmless caricature of nerd culture has morphed into socioeconomic disdain for the billionaires who have made their fortunes in the valley. Trying to write about the millions of everyday people who actually people the valley and its workforce is exceedingly difficult, as one has to break through the prejudice wrought by a few superficial, fascistic idiots. But I digress…

Demon Copperhead is just a beautifully written book that takes the reader on a journey of extreme hardship and inspiring discovery. The writing is masterful, the characters are both enraging and endearing, and the story is both remarkable and painfully real. ...more

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We Do Not Part
by Han Kang

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Nobel laureate Han Kang is the deserving recipient of a prize that is, as the years pass, doing an admirable job of extending its reach to authors and literary traditions that have too long been overlooked. As a Korean author dependent on translators Nobel laureate Han Kang is the deserving recipient of a prize that is, as the years pass, doing an admirable job of extending its reach to authors and literary traditions that have too long been overlooked. As a Korean author dependent on translators to give her work international reach and exposure, Han Kang is a writer who approaches the page with an authorial sensibility that remains foreign to many English-language readers like myself. We who have been reared and trained on the literary traditions of a language and a league of nations that have, for centuries, taken up the mantle of the oppressor and the colonizer are called to expand our thinking and to open up our receptors to works like We Do Not Part. For some, like the fellow book club member of mine who championed this book, that process is easy: We Do Not Part is instantly revered and appreciated. For others, like me, the process is more complicated.

We Do Not Part presents a story of two friends, young women, one, Inseon, a sculptor, and the other, Kyungha, a writer who is the story’s narrator. The two are connected by a shared history and, more recently, an ambitious artistic project idea triggered by a recurring nightmare Kyungha has of being overcome by a raging avalanche that, we learn, represents the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Koreans during the conflict with the north in the 1950s. Inseon has suffered a serious hand injury, the treatment of which requires constant painful injections directly into the fingers, and Kyungha visits and is given the task of rushing to Inseon’s house on Jeju, south of the Korean mainland, to rescue Inseon’s pet parakeet. So begins a difficult journey into the frozen, snowed-in reaches of Jeju, followed by an episode clearly disconnected from objective reality: a bird, too far gone to rescue, is resurrected, then Inseon appears, no sign of the aforementioned injury, and the harrowing 1950s-era narrative of her uncle is unfurled in a vivid retelling.

These events, retold in lyrical prose that teeters between poetry and narrative recollection, seem to portray states of being between earth and sky, between the immediate present and distant memory, between life and death. Beyond the very direct portrayal of the brutal events of 1950s Korea, I found these ethereal states of being difficult to grasp. Indeed, a full understanding of the relationship between Inseon and Kyungha escaped this western reader’s comprehension almost entirely.

This passage from Lydia Millet’s New York Times review of We Do Not Part resonated with me, reflecting as it does my experience reading the book:

The plot is intercut in a design that is intentionally disorienting, Han parsimoniously doling out revelations like the slow peeling of an onion: an unwinding of time frames and information that at times doesn’t feel worth the trouble.

Reading this book, I found myself conflicted. I probably won’t seek out more of Kang’s work, simply because it engages the reader in a style that is foreign to me. I’m much more drawn to reading (and creating) realistic work, work that deals directly with something the author draws near and present. Kang, by contrast, floats above the work’s subject matter, or dances around it, eventually getting into the nitty gritty of it, but not until the reader wades through pages and pages of metaphor. I can see with absolute clarity that it’s an approach that is relevant—and in fact, important—in and of itself, despite the fact that it defies the grasp of this western reader. And it is perhaps the perfect approach for conveying unfamiliar historical territory like the atrocities of the Korean War period. ...more

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Tell Me Everything (Amgash, #5)
by Elizabeth Strout (Goodreads Author)

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I freely admit that I am a notoriously slow reader. I rarely read a book twice, and there is only one book, Harry Mülisch’s The Assault, that I’ve read more than twice. This is perhaps the least important of the many reasons I love the books of Eliza I freely admit that I am a notoriously slow reader. I rarely read a book twice, and there is only one book, Harry Mülisch’s The Assault, that I’ve read more than twice. This is perhaps the least important of the many reasons I love the books of Elizabeth Strout. Tell Me Everything, her 2024 novel, is substantial by Strout’s standards, running 326 pages, but those pages are sparsely typed, and the creamy texture of the prose makes them flow deliciously like my morning coffee.

Tell Me Everything is, at its core, a story of romantic tension. It features four titular characters from earlier Strout novels converging in the fictional town of Crosby, Maine. Two of the characters, Lucy Barton ( My Name Is Lucy Barton ) and Bob Burgess ( The Burgess Boys ), who had become platonic friends in those earlier Strout novels, now find themselves relying on one another with increasing intensity during their regular walks along the seashore. Outside of those walks, Bob is embroiled in a difficult legal case and Lucy is managing a newfound friendship with an aging Olive Kitteredge ( Olive Kitteridge ). Olive invites Lucy to come sit with her in her tiny assisted-living apartment, and the two begin to exchange stories from their lives, and to then interpret the meanings of those stories. As all this is happening, Lucy is living with her ex-husband William ( Oh William! ), and their relationship is evolving in surprising ways that add to the ultimate convergence of all these plotlines by the end of the book.

Tell Me Everything is also a meditation on the power and centrality of storytelling within the human experience. When Lucy and Olive—perhaps the most consequential and revealing characters in Strout’s novels—are thrown together in Olive’s tiny apartment, the stated purpose is to “tell a story.” Olive has a story for Lucy, which prompts Lucy to tell Olive a story of her own, which then leads the two of them to make a ritual of Lucy’s visits: each will tell the other a story, the result of which could be acknowledgment and understanding, or confusion and bemusement. (For the reader, of course, both possibilities hold equal value.) On her walks with Bob, Lucy engages in a similar ritual, though the stories Bob and Lucy tell each other are more immediate: recitations of day-to-day occurrences that deepen their mutual understanding, and their affection for one another.

The twists and turns of these relationships, portrayed by the modern canon’s leading purveyor of human frailty, feel both unique and universal. In the hands of a prose stylist of Strout’s undeniable talent, the reading is easy, but also completely engrossing. In these pages, readers are taken by the hand and led through an astonishing range of human emotion, pages filled with shame, sorrow, joy, exaltation, platonic and romantic love (indistinguishable at times), and ultimately, regret and resignation. Strout is an important American author, and as I have shared my adoration of her work over the years, it’s been a huge surprise to me to discover that she’s not for everyone. Because to me, these stories of everyday people are the absolute pinnacle of literary perfection. ...more

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Young Man in a Hurry: A Memoir of Discovery
by Gavin Newsom

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I’ve been telling close friends for the better part of a year—perhaps longer—that Gavin Newsom will be the next President of the United States, and I actually do believe that. As such, I felt it was something of a duty to read this 2026 memoir to get I’ve been telling close friends for the better part of a year—perhaps longer—that Gavin Newsom will be the next President of the United States, and I actually do believe that. As such, I felt it was something of a duty to read this 2026 memoir to get an even better sense of the man. This on top of the very strong sense we Californians have gotten over the years he has served as an influential mayor, as our lieutenant governor, and, for the past seven-plus years, as our governor. The book did not disappoint, nor did it do anything to alter my view that, indeed, he will be our next president.

Young Man in a Hurry is very much a standard memoir in that it follows Newsom’s life from childhood to business and political success, stepping aside at times to reflect on the legacy handed to him by both his mother and his father. Newsom’s struggles came early in life: the trauma of his parents’ divorce brought disruption and displacement into the lives of Gavin and his younger sister Hilary, and the undiagnosed dyslexia made the simple act of attending school into a recurring nightmare. Acknowledging these challenges and the strategies he developed at a young age to deal with them, Newsom goes on to honestly portray the many advantages he was afforded that helped bring him to where he is today. The son and grandson of influential attorneys in San Francisco society, Newsom became something of an adopted son to Gordon Getty, who was a client of Newsom’s grandfather and father. Gordon was the youngest son of billionaire industrialist J. Paul Getty and a father of four sons of his own. Newsom tells of being sent, as a young adolescent, to the San Francisco Wilkes Bashford store to be fitted—by Wilkes Bashford himself—with suitable clothes for a week-long cruise with the Getty family, one of many vacations and outings he and Hilary would take with the Gettys. For Newsom, these outings were exciting, but also awkward, as he would have to admit to those who asked that he was not, in fact, the “fifth Getty boy,” but would instead be returning from these adventures to the modest house in Marin where he and Hilary lived with their mother. The dichotomy of his youth gave Newsom a unique perspective on the societal and emotional chasms separating the super-rich from the rest of us, even as they provided very real connections and relationships that would help fuel the business and political success of his later years.

Critical readers will notice episodes that Newsom intentionally leaves out. His electoral campaigns are given short shrift, surprising given that he enjoyed repeated electoral success right from the start. And then there is the almost complete omission of the COVID pandemic that descended on the country during his second year as Governor of California. This was a period that saw Newsom deftly manage the crisis, but also saw indiscretions such as the lavish—and mask-free—dinner he attended at the Michelin-star French Laundry restaurant in Napa Valley, even as he was publicly imploring Californians to mask up and stay inside.

However harshly one might view Newsom’s omissions, there is no disputing the fact that he does address deeply personal blunders. His marriage to risen-now-fallen MAGA star Kimberly Guilfoyle, for instance, is covered in some detail, including Guilfoyle’s emotionally fraught visit with Newsom’s disapproving mother at the side of her deathbed. He also gives his side of the affair he had in 2005 with Ruby Rippey, wife of his political advisor Alex Tourk, though his account has been disputed by Rippey in the pages of Vanity Fair. Nonetheless, in both cases, Newsom addresses personal relationships that could have easily been set aside for a political memoir, doing so while reserving the harshest of his judgments for himself, and no one else. Writing of his affair with Rippey, in fact, he describes how his sister Hilary, seeing a troubling dynamic emerging between Newsom and Rippey, confronted both her brother and Rippey in an attempt to circumvent the affair.

What these and other revelations show is that focusing on the omissions in Young Man in a Hurry overlooks the fact that the book is much more than a political memoir. Newsom has grown into an ability to do what typical politicians rarely do: to leave himself vulnerable. He certainly gives full coverage to political successes like his defiant stance, just months into his first term as San Francisco’s mayor, on gay marriage, and the “care not cash” approach to the city’s homelessness crisis that reframed a critical debate even as it angered local progressive activists and advocates. But he is also refreshingly open about his childhood struggles with dyslexia, his difficult, yet formative relationships with his immediate and extended families, his family’s history in San Francisco and both the strengths and foibles of his forebears, the aforementioned dichotomous relationship with the Getty family, and his life with wife Jennifer and their four children. (Spoiler: He’s anything but the perfect father.) These are the revelations of a man who is not a typical politician, arriving on the national scene when America is rejecting politics as usual. Having elected both its first African-American president and a reality TV star who turned out to be a convicted criminal and a cartoon fascist, America is ready for someone like Newsom: an imperfect human being who knows how the system works—who, in fact, could game the system if he wanted—who has nonetheless chosen the path of clarity and compassion.

The most extensive passage in Young Man in a Hurry portrays November 17th, 2018, the day Governor-Elect Newsom spent touring the sites of California’s devastating wildfires with then-Governor Jerry Brown and President Trump. In Newsom’s telling, Trump, who was accompanied by his son-in-law Jared Kushner, displayed all the abhorrent behaviors of a soulless cretin: mercilessly ridiculing his son-in-law, who sat next to Newsom with an awkward crease in his lip, showing off the magnificence of Marine One, the presidential helicopter, as though he had designed and built it himself, and completely ignoring—in fact, not even seeing—the suffering of the tens of thousands of fire victims who had lost everything. This was the political core of this very unusual memoir, but to this reader’s eyes, it did not detract from the view into the depths of Gavin Newsom’s person and personality that this book affords us. ...more

Bruce Overby liked Literary Titan's review of Tristan 4 America:

"Bruce Overby’s Tristan 4 America is a political satire with the bones of a campaign novel, the mouth of a Silicon Valley happy hour, and the nerves of a country that can’t stop vibrating. Tristan Heller is a laid-off tech executive who misses his tea" Read more of this review »

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The Wayfinder
by Adam Johnson

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I'm not sure how I feel about the fact that Adam Johnson has spent years and years researching and creating both of his novels, delivering in the end very large books (The Orphan Master's Son, 443 pages; The Wayfinder, 736 pages) that have nonetheles I'm not sure how I feel about the fact that Adam Johnson has spent years and years researching and creating both of his novels, delivering in the end very large books (The Orphan Master's Son, 443 pages; The Wayfinder, 736 pages) that have nonetheless enthralled me and left me satisfied in the end. As a monumentally slow reader, Johnson's books are a challenge for me, but I can honestly say, I've never regretted the months it has taken me to read them. (My theory about very large books like The Wayfinder, by the way—including, for instance, the later volumes of the Harry Potter series—is that editors tend to modify their approach with authors who achieve high acclaim—The Orphan Master's Son won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and was followed two years later by Johnson's story collection Fortune Smiles, which won the National Book Award. My theory is that editors adopt a much lighter touch with highly acclaimed authors—which has some logic to it, I guess—sometimes resulting in very large books that might have been dramatically cut down had the author been an up-and-comer like me.) Anyway, I digress...

The Wayfinder is a sweeping narrative written in the style of an ancient myth, with the culture, as opposed to the characters, taking center stage. Set in two slightly different timelines that come together at the end of the book, the story takes us to the south sea islands of centuries ago, where the early inhabitants of Tonga and Fiji struggle to survive and adapt, and to ultimately evolve beyond the brutal, misogynistic, colonialist customs that dominate when we enter the story. A young woman from a small island in decline is thrust together with two young princes of the Tongan Empire, and as the three navigate treacherous waters together, they also navigate the predominant customs of their peoples and their own roles in this dangerous world. As they struggle against both the elements and the wars thrust upon them by their forebears, they ultimately manage to find meaning and purpose in their lives, and to change their world for the better.

Don't get me wrong, the characters are expertly drawn, but the mythical style Johnson adopts to tell this story of a primitive culture—a style that evokes oral storytelling—elevates the collective over the individual. The writing focuses on journeys, survival, and social structures, on humans' relationship to land and nature, with the landscape as a central force. The result is a story about a culture rather than a character, which suits the setting, the subject matter, and the themes in the story beautifully. Themes of environmental preservation, gender roles, the power of storytelling, and the mystery of the afterlife are all explored in Johnson's gorgeous, seemingly effortless prose. This is a classic that will appear on the shortlist for every major award, and even for a slow reader like me, it's well worth the time and effort. ...more

Bruce Overby liked Tripp's review of Y: The Last Man, Book 1:

"I see now why this series earned rave reviews not only in the comic book press but in the mainstream press, as well. Effective use of flashbacks and jump cuts, interesting character relationships, pointed but subtle social commentary, and exceptional" Read more of this review »

Bruce Overby liked Tripp's review of Hazel Says No:

"On the first day of her senior year in a new high school, Hazel Blum is propositioned by the school's principal and the novel examines how complexly this terrible action ripples through the small town in Maine where the Blum family moved from New Yor" Read more of this review »

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