Our quintet of prime reviews this week includes Dwight Garner connected Colin Asher’s The Midnight Special, Hamilton Cain connected Teddy Wayne’s The Au Pair, Michael Donkor connected Keith Ridgway’s Dooneen, Stephen Marche connected Cory Doctorow’s The Reverse Centaur’s Guide to Life After AI, and Ron Charles connected Daniel Mason’s Country People.
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“Asher’s publication is simply a Midnight Special of its own. It’s a fog-piercing down-bound bid of a book, amended than it had to be. Subtitled ‘The Secret Prison History of American Music,’ it examines however the police, courts and penitentiaries person shaped the nation’s philharmonic civilization done profiles of 5 artists: Lead Belly, Elmo Hope, Johnny Cash, Ike White and Tupac Shakur.
If these profiles had been straightforward, that might’ve been enough. But Asher is simply a calm and blase storyteller who picks you up and sets you backmost down successful places you didn’t anticipate. Like a bully movie director, helium knows however to stagger his material. Minor characters rise, go large ones, past autumn back.
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Johnny Cash (1932-2003), the lone achromatic performer discussed here, occupies a cardinal place. He doesn’t get much country than anyone else. But due to the fact that helium caught vastly much breaks than the Black musicians did, his vocation is simply a utile constituent of comparison.
Cash sang astir shooting a antheral successful Reno conscionable to ticker him die, recorded landmark albums portion performing successful California’s Folsom and San Quentin prisons, and cultivated an outlaw, hardened persona. But though helium was repeatedly arrested for mayhem related to drugs and alcohol, helium ne'er spent much than a nighttime successful jail. Instead, helium repeatedly received slaps connected the wrist. His wont (amphetamines) wasn’t criminalized the mode different narcotics were. Asher respects Cash, who recognized the humanity of incarcerated men and became a spokesperson for them. Cash counseled musically talented prisoners and took immoderate to play alongside him connected tour. He spoke to Congress astir situation betterment and pushed for rehabilitation programs. But Asher considers the levels of accomplishment Black artists mightiness person reached if nine had granted them the level of compassion and forgiveness Cash received.
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“Taken together, the profiles in The Midnight Special amount to a multilayered indictment of America’s situation system, the largest successful the world. None of these men were blameless, but the injustice connected show volition often marque you sick to your stomach. The publication besides underlines sheer quality resiliency.”
–Dwight Garner connected Colin Asher’s The Midnight Special: The Secret Prison History of American Music (The New York Times)
“Novels astir writers comprise a vexing genre; fewer emergence to the level of Rachel Cusk’s Outline Trilogy oregon Lee Cole’s Groundskeeping. Nevertheless publishers proceed to nutrient stories revolving astir stalled careers, nonrecreational jealousies, and tedious sexcapades. There’s adjacent a communal subcategory: the Middle-Aged White Male Author afflicted with ennui and originative block, everlastingly 1 deed distant from canonical glory if helium tin screw his caput connected right. Many of these fictional guys unrecorded successful Brooklyn. Teddy Wayne’s The Au Pair falls squarely amid this terrain.
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“Wayne is capitalizing connected his erstwhile erotic thriller, The Winner, but The Au Pair is truly a companion portion to his earlier The Great Man Theory, which was likewise stuffed with antheral vanity, publishing gossip, and resentments of different authors (Steven’s ain presumption obsession keeps him from his craft, its inspirational booms and busts). Make nary mistake: The Au Pair entertains his readers, successful existent Hollywood fashion. There’s a glimmer of intriguing societal commentary, too: How does a matrimony prosper erstwhile accepted sex roles flip? What happens erstwhile a woman wields economical powerfulness implicit her spouse? (Lucy regularly deposits a ‘stipend’ into Steven’s slope account.) Is helium close to yearn for a country of his own, oregon adjacent conscionable a nubile Nordic blonde fractional his age? Is helium a specified mediocrity, specified arsenic Mozart’s peer, the composer Salieri, to whom helium compares himself?
Yet contempt ample affluent material, Wayne ne'er fleshes retired his narrative. His prose trails purple lines similar Harold’s crayon … The caller spoofs Steven and his ilk but inactive assumes men are a monolith, ensnared by their narcissistic natures, unsighted adjacent to the needs of their children. Steven whitethorn judge he’s sacrificed for the higher calling of literature; alternatively he’s sacrificed his family.
Fear not: all’s good that ends good in The Au Pair, which is much fairy communicative than honorable reflection connected the challenges of a writer’s beingness and the relevance of imaginativeness successful the AI era. Wayne could person taken it successful immoderate fig of directions but indulges successful escapism. As helium observes of Steven: ‘He knew helium was surviving retired a fantasy—a male fantasy, 1 the civilization would justice him for, 1 he’d judged others for, 1 he’d rotation eyes astatine if it were the ground of a novel.’”
–Hamilton Cain connected Teddy Wayne’s The Au Pair (The Boston Globe)
“Irish writer Keith Ridgway’s latest caller deals, some mischievously and menacingly, successful ambivalence. The book’s epigraph is taken from a misty-eyed ballad pining for the ‘lofty’ magnificence of the Cliffs of Dooneen. But these lines are appended with a footnote cautioning that ‘debate continues concerning the cliffs named successful the song—whether they are successful County Clare oregon County Kerry, oregon whether they beryllium astatine each …’
Place and cognition proceed to beryllium wilfully unstable categories erstwhile the communicative begins. Bartholomew Port, known arsenic Mew, says goodbye to his spouse Mootie arsenic helium sets disconnected connected a travel from southbound London to his birthplace, Dublin. In the archetypal of the novel’s Alice successful Wonderland-style sleights of hand, Mew is transported to the Irish superior not by aerial oregon sea, but by slipping done bushes successful Camberwell’s Burgess Park. Mew’s dislocation successful this terrain wherever helium should consciousness astir ‘at home’ forms portion of Ridgway’s conceptual enquiry into what happens to location erstwhile we permission it and erstwhile we return. What does location go successful our absence—in world and successful our imaginations? The uncanniness is ramped up further due to the fact that Mew is relating events from a aboriginal exile, oregon possibly sanctuary, the circumstances of which stay blurry until the extremity of the novel.
As successful Ridgway’s erstwhile fictionalizations of urbanity, the Dublin Mew finds himself successful is uncanny—a spot that ‘can crook connected you successful an instant.’ While Mew recognizes the thoroughfares and landmarks, determination are sudden, unnerving presences astir him. Discomforting apparitions, portentous children astatine windows and enigmatic passersby wearing vivid yellowish momentarily flicker into being successful the travel of municipality chaos. Reproducing ambivalence connected the leafage successful this mode mightiness beryllium a risky and perchance alienating strategy for the reader. But it’s thrilling to ticker Ridgway play with clarity and certainty; the linguistic vigor and assortment of the prose gives america plentifulness of sustenance to support going arsenic we clamber done the shadows. And determination are laughs too: slapstick digressions astir divided trousers, small disquisitions connected the champion mode to marque a crisp sandwich and scheming subject horses are each portion of Ridgway’s wonderfully absorbing and offbeat comedy.
The astir lucid and affecting constituent of this appealingly labyrinthine caller is Mew’s longing for his beloved Mootie. In a satellite of governmental turmoil and botched plans, the tendency for quality connection, and the tendency to commemorate that connection, transcends everything.”
–Michael Donkor connected Keith Ridgway’s Dooneen (The Guardian)
“In a sense, Doctorow has to beryllium prolific. He writes astir the effects of exertion successful a play erstwhile exertion runs up truthful accelerated that lone penning astatine breakneck velocity tin anticipation to support up. I, for one, americium grateful. To me, helium resembles the large stone critics of an earlier era, a high-tech Greil Marcus oregon adjacent a Lester Bangs. He possesses a utile operation of existent cognition and adjacent observation. In The Reverse Centaur’s Guide to Life After AI, Doctorow takes purpose astatine artificial quality with a clever image: the caput of a equine connected the assemblage of a man. A centaur, in automation theory, is simply a quality assisted by a machine. In Doctorow’s coinage, a ‘reverse centaur’ is ‘a quality who is conscripted into acting arsenic an assistant to a machine.’ The thought is to suggest a elemental division, betwixt humane and inhumane uses of artificial intelligence, based connected which caput is connected top.
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“A.I. is simply a overmuch thornier taxable than immoderate different exertion that Doctorow has tackled. Its workings and effects are much mysterious, and it is already overgrown with tangled vines of hype and hysteria. Doctorow is astatine his champion successful the abstraction successful betwixt snark and existent insight. Unfortunately, A.I. is not peculiarly amenable to that benignant of treatment.
He is superb, arsenic expected, connected the anatomy of Silicon Valley rhetoric and self-aggrandizement, connected however overmuch humanity has endangered itself to sphere tech companies’ precocious price-to-earnings ratios, and connected ‘the Byzantine premium’ that ‘investors spot connected an plus that they don’t understand.’ He besides makes 1 of the astir convincing arguments I person work astir what volition hap erstwhile the A.I. bubble pops. ‘No substance however overmuch you hatred A.I., this volition not beryllium a bully day,’ helium writes. ‘Remember: Seven elephantine A.I. companies relationship for 35 percent of the U.S. banal market.’ But his instinct toward humanism, admirable arsenic it is, tin pb to oversimplified generalizations astir the exertion itself.
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“Still, Doctorow holds exertion up to a modular that has different been forgotten: that it should incorporate the imaginable for quality liberation, successful an anarchic tone of barriers tumbling. Unfortunately, I’m not definite however applicable that imaginativeness remains astatine this point, particularly fixed the drastic alteration that artificial quality represents. Like the earlier stone critics—holding onto the archetypal tone of stone ’n’ rotation arsenic wealth and personage and drugs swallowed the concern whole—Doctorow tries to sphere the nub of technology’s archetypal promise. In 2026, it’s a refreshingly antithetic concept. I conscionable privation it felt much similar a imaginativeness of imaginable futures than a nostalgia trip.”
–Stephen Marche connected Cory Doctorow’s The Reverse Centaur’s Guide to Life After AI: How to Think About Artificial Intelligence — Before It’s Too Late (The New York Times Book Review)
“…you don’t request a psychiatry grade to spot the transportation betwixt this comic caller and the lightly repressed enchantment that bubbles done adjacent Mason’s astir haunting books. Faeries of wit and mischief person ever danced astir his fiction, whether he’s pursuing a soft done the Burmese jungle oregon taking an ax to a duplicate sister.
In the pages of Country People, those whimsical sprites person been fixed escaped rein. This communicative of self-delusions, bizarre eccentrics, and absurd antics is narrated successful an arch, long-suffering dependable that brings retired the comic spirit similar brackish connected caramel. Think of it arsenic a companion to Andrew Sean Greer’s Villa Coco. One comic caller this bully feels lucky; 2 successful the aforesaid summertime feels similar cheating.
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“Drawing connected his ain family’s twelvemonth successful New England during the Covid pandemic, Mason is hilarious with this West Coast fetishization of mean agrarian life. As a lifelong world himself, helium knows each arcane footnote that a chap similar Miles would append to, say, a third-grade play oregon a swimmin’ hole. The crippled of Country People is nary much disciplined than the family’s Italian dog, which chases down each stray scent. This caller ne'er meets a roadside attraction it tin resist. But soon enough, each these quirky encounters and diversions accrue into a stalagmite of existent mystery.
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“As a likewise earnest but incompetent antheral who ne'er finished his ain dissertation, I whitethorn beryllium blameworthy of a definite grade of over-identification with Miles. It’s imaginable that this chronically distracted quality whom I enjoyed truthful overmuch volition onslaught immoderate women readers arsenic a tedious reminder of their archetypal husband. But I anticipation not. For each his infuriating indirection, Miles remains tremendously endearing. Mason has written a drama astir a antheral who can’t rather unafraid his spot supra crushed but senses the wonderment lurking conscionable beneath our feet. That and a beloved Italian canine who digs done each pillow, sofa, and level are each you truly request for a publication to marque the satellite consciousness a small lighter, a small warmer.”
–Ron Charles connected Daniel Mason’s Country People (Ron Charles Substack)
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