19 Apr / Back Talk by Danielle Lazarin [in Library Journal]
Reba Buhr can’t correctly pronounce the California city of Marin, but she sure can modulate her versatile voice to match the various ages and backgrounds of the women and girls who populate the 16 stories of Danielle Lazarin’s superb debut collection. Buhr embodies youth in “Appetite,” about a teenager’s first love after her mother’s death; in “Spider Legs,” about a 17-year-old Manhattanite’s Paris reunion with her mother and older siblings; and in “Gone,” about second-generation BFFs (their mothers are also besties) and the journal they keep filled with dead girls’ names.
Buhr turns resigned as a divorcée-to-be who befriends the pregnant next-door neighbor interested in buying her apartment in “Floor Plans” and detached as a wife and mother who has a five-month affair with an artist in “Landscape No. 27.” She’s just as convincing crossing genders, as a cop brother and his divorced sister in “Hide and Seek,” or becoming both wife and husband who move from Manhattan to New Jersey for their young sons in “Looking for a Thief.”
From humble to fierce, manipulative to submissive, Buhr personifies Lazarin’s vast cast with detailed attention and admirable control.
Verdict: Fans of Carmen Maria Machado, Jenny Zhang, and Tessa Hadley will find considerable resonance here.
Review: “Audio,” Library Journal, April 15, 2018
Readers: Adult
Published: 2018