It’s not necessary to have read Dickens’ famous novel to appreciate Kingsolver’s absorbing tale, but those who have will savor the tough-minded changes she rings on his Victorian sentimentality while affirming his stinging critique of a heartless society.

Inspired by David Copperfield, Kingsolver crafts a 21st-century coming-of-age story set in America’s hard-pressed rural South. Although some of the plot is predictable (for example, the relationship between Patrick and young actor Emory), there’s true insight here into the psychology of gay men, Hollywood, and parenting.Ī novel with some real depth beneath all its witty froth. He must learn to reveal his feelings and rejoin the world, and the children will help him do so. Patrick, meanwhile, hides his vulnerability and grief behind an armor of wit.

The tension between Patrick and the kids initially manifests because their uncle doesn’t follow the same routines as their parents did, but it becomes clear that the maladjustment stems from a deeper wellspring of emotional turmoil. Grant and Maisie are in Palm Springs because their mother has recently died and their father, Patrick’s brother, is near Palm Springs rehabbing from a drug addiction Patrick becomes the niblings’ de-facto parent and therapist for the summer.

Self-critical but charming, suave yet insecure, Patrick is a memorable character, and it’s genuinely thrilling to read screenwriter-turned-novelist Rowley’s take on the mechanics of stardom, especially about a star who’s no longer young. “He was so afraid people wouldn’t laugh if everyone knew how twisted he looked on the inside,” Rowley writes about Patrick. One of the stars of the beloved TV sitcom The People Upstairs (think Friends), Patrick has for four years marooned himself in the desert, tetchy about his fame, his career, and his unresolved grief over the loss of his partner, Joe, the victim of a drunk driver. The children, Grant and Maisie, are 6 and 9, respectively, spending the summer with their Uncle Patrick, or GUP as they call him: Gay Uncle Patrick.

A Hollywood star banishes himself to Palm Springs only to be thrust back into the limelight by, of all people, his young “niblings,' or niece and nephew.

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