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NY Times review praises novel about spiteful U-M academic

Wednesday, March 17, 2010

Ann Arbor

The new book "Next" goes from Ann Arbor to Austin and takes a few daring twists and turns along the way according to one The New York Times book editor.

Excerpt:

Kevin Quinn, the protagonist of James Hynes�s �Next,� is first seen on an airplane that is making its descent into Austin, Tex. He�s wondering whether one of those shoulder-launched missiles with the same name as a cocktail � a Stinger � will hit the plane, which itself reminds him of a can of chips. �A Pringles can with wings, packed full of defenseless Pringles,� is what Kevin sees.

Some of Kevin�s paranoia is prompted by news reports of terrorist attacks. But most of it comes from the same wellspring of anxiety that led Virginia Woolf, in a 1915 diary entry cited by Mr. Hynes, to be jolted by the sound of a bursting tire into envisioning an attack from the sky. Woolf�s diary added that alongside our instinct to exaggerate such fears is our real if misplaced confidence that peril will leave us unscathed.

As Kevin frets his way through the single day on which �Next� takes place, he envisions many different threats. But the true stealth attack in �Next� is the one launched at the reader by Mr. Hynes. This is a book that begins innocently and is careful not to tip its hand, even though there�s something very unusual at work. The title signals nothing. The cover art depicts an empty sky. Blurbs on the back allow four very different writers to skip the hosannas and cut to the chase. They find roundabout ways to say that �Next� took nerve to write, is much more potent than it may initially appear and has an ending that beggars description. That ending will not be given away here.

Mr. Hynes encrypts so much foreshadowing into �Next� that there might as well be none at all. Little jabs are everywhere. Kevin�s fantasy life is activated by a surreptitious one-day trip from Ann Arbor, Mich., to Austin for a job interview. He is one of those spiteful academics about whom Mr. Hynes has written so well in earlier novels, �all of them as amiable and collegial as scorpions.�

Read the rest of the story here.

In the News

NY Times review praises novel about spiteful U-M academic

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