Category: Pop

Album Reviews 24/20/06

J.M. Clifford, Trains, Thinkin’ and Drinkin’ (Brooklyn Basement Records)

You know, a lot of people think they don’t like any country music, but they’re usually thinking of a specific subgenre. If you’re like me and hate WWE wrestling-intro country-metal but like Appalachia-tinged bluegrass purism, you’ll like this one, which is from a Brooklyn-based artist and educator, who hatted out to Nashville so he could recruit such renowned session players as Seth Taylor, Jeff Partin, Jeff Picker and Bronwyn Keith-Hynes into this fold. By day, Clifford is a New York City elementary school music teacher, so there’s no NSFW element to it, but innovation does abound (he won a spot as a showcase artist at the 2023 IBMA Business Conference in Raleigh, North Carolina). With titles like “Old Brown Shoes” and “Billy Goose,” you can smell the unplugged, organic moonshine from the get-go. It’s assuredly a curveball, influenced by Norman Blake, Gillian Welch, Leonard Cohen, Tom Waits and Tony Rice, which doesn’t mean it’s not instantly accessible and addictive. It’s simply good, honest stuff that instantly sticks. A+

Blackwater Railroad Company, A Lovely Place to Die (self-released)

Love it when this space can stick to one subject. In this case it’s deeply rootsy stuff; whereas J.M. Clifford’s new record (elsewhere here) is reliant on a sparser sound, this irresistibly folky LP tends to teeter between country, rock, soul and balladic folk, but with real purpose. Reportedly that’s a new development for this band, which recently added drums and saxophone to extend their lineup to five (I wasn’t crazy about the sax sound, which is a bit raw, but some people like it that way, you know, more like a Clarence Clemons type of vibe). Singer Tyson T. Davis has a picket-fence-toothed flavor to him that’s remindful of the dude from Primus; matter of fact, that’s the source of much of the charm here, but oh, did I tell you these guys are from Alaska? Aside: It’d be super cool if our local New Hampshire bands would be less fedora-hat and more like this (my OG readers have seen all the complaints I’ve lodged against bands like Truffle; give me a bunch of crazy rednecks from wayyy up north any day over those guys). A-

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PLAYLIST

A seriously abridged compendium of recent and future CD releases

• Friday, June 21, will bring to us many new albums, try to calm yourselves, frantic fam, but first, a retraction, because for the first time in the 20 years I’ve been your favorite Best Of NH award-winning local music journalist, accept no substitutes, I have made an actual mistake! OK, I’m kidding; misremembering or carelessly bungling something is mother’s milk to me as you well know, but this time someone felt besmirched and expressed hesitance to buy my new book (order it from your local bookseller right away if you haven’t) if I didn’t fix the situation pronto please! Yes yes, in the June 6 issue I talked about The Concrete Jangle, the new album from Steve Conte, and in my abject stupidity I said that he’d only been with the New York Dolls for a very short time. That, I must confess, was FAKE NEWS, because I’d read Wikipedia’s totally incorrect timeline entry for the Dolls instead of digging further into the matter. Anywhatever, Steve messaged me on my cursed Facebook and told me “My actual timeline in the Dolls was this: In 2004 I joined the Dolls with [David] Johansen, Sylvain, Kane & made the live album & DVD, Morrissey Presents The Return Of The New York Dolls: Live From Royal Festival Hall. Then Kane died, was replaced by Sami Yaffa, and in 2005 we began the world tour (which lasted until 2010). In 2006 we made the studio album, One Day It Will Please Us To Remember Even This produced by Jack Douglas, in 2008 we made Live At The Fillmore East and in 2009, we made the Todd Rundren-produced studio album, Cause I Sez So. In 2010 I left the band after 6 years to join up with Michael Monroe (Sami, who was in Hanoi Rocks with Monroe, pulled me in) and that was the end.” Anyway, that’s important, and you should buy this new music album from Steve Conte, because he is awesome and writes great songs; you can buy it from that obscure little boutique online shop, Amazon-dot-something, same as my book, that’d be great.

• Holy black holes, Batman, I have no idea who any of these artists are, this week, so I will learn about them now, just like you! Let’s see, blah blah blah, first we have indie pop songstress Gracie Abrams, a new nepo baby whose dad is Hollywood super-producer J.J. Abrams; it must have been such a struggle for the poor thing to get a rock ’n’ roll recording contract (sad emoji)! The Secret Of Us is the album, and now I shall sally forth to listen to the single, “Close To You.” Oh boy, now we’re cooking with some serious contrivance, it’s a bloopy, foggy slow tune and she’s trying to sound like Billie Eilish, why didn’t she just buy the T-shirt instead of forcing me and whoever else gets stuck reviewing this stupid thing (someone from Nylon or whatever) to listen to this for content? Can you even stand these nepo babies (eyeroll emoji), #JustBuyTheTeeShirt, let’s make that hashtag happen on the double, eh?

• British singer-songwriter Lola Young cites Joni Mitchell and Prince as influences, so maybe her new album, This Wasn’t Meant For You Anyway, will be good, I don’t know at this juncture! Right, so in the video for the single “Messy” she’s dressed like a unicorn/elf cheerleader and she sounds vaguely like Tina Turner in chill-down mode. There are annoying samples in the beat, but this is actually a good song, go figure.

• Lastly it’s another English indie lady singer, Kate Nash, with her fifth studio album, 9 Sad Symphonies. The LP opens with “Change,” a glitch-pop thingamajig that strikes me as a joke song, what with her dunderheaded, vaguely Bjork-ish vocal approach. It’s weird, if you like that sort of thing in your disposable pop songs.

Not in Love, by Ali Hazelwood

Not in Love,by Ali Hazelwood (Berkley, 400 pages)

Ali Hazelwood prefaces her latest book with what is, essentially, a fair-warning note to her readers: Not in Love, she says “is, tonally, a little different from the works I’ve published in the past. Rue and Eli have dealt with — and still deal with — the fallout from issues such as grief, food insecurity, and child neglect. They are eager to make a connection but are not sure how to go about it except through a physical relationship. The result is, I think, less of a rom-com and more of an erotic romance.”

Hazelwood has thus far been known by fans mainly as a rom-com writer who creates smart female lead characters and puts them in STEM-related work environments amongst other smart people and, inevitably, a male counterpoint. In Not in Love, Rue is a biotech engineer working in food science, so we’ve got the STEM setting, and we have the male counterpoint – in this case, his name is Eli, and he works for a company that’s trying to take over Kline, the company Rue works for.

The difference between Not in Love and Hazelwood’s other STEM romances is a much stronger emphasis on sexual chemistry and very explicitly written descriptions of what happens when that chemistry ignites. When Hazelwood warns readers that this is more “erotic romance” than rom-com, she’s not kidding.

But, in addition to the (plentiful) steamy scenes, everything I’ve liked about Hazelwood’s rom-coms is here too: witty banter, emotional complexity and well-drawn characters.

I love that Rue is science-smart but not unapproachable; there are plenty of relatable I-need-to-Google-this types of moments. Case in point, the book opens with Rue and her friend Tisha trying to figure out what a loan assignment is; they ask her friend’s sister, a lawyer, who doesn’t understand their lack of comprehension (“You guys are doctors,” she says, to which Tisha points out that “the topic of private equity firms and loan assignments did not come up in any class during our chemical engineering PhDs. A shocking oversight, I know….”).

Meanwhile, Rue could not be convinced to dumb down the title of her Ph.D. presentation: “A Gas Chromatography and Mass Spectrometry Investigation of the Effect of Three Polysaccharide-Based Coatings on the Minimization of Postharvest Loss of Horticultural Crops.” Her unapologetic thought is, “I had no talent for enticing people to care about my work: either they saw its value, or they were wrong.”

Rue is unapologetic about her dating life, too. She has a “no repeats” rule, meaning one and done, no exceptions; she doesn’t want a relationship, or the emotions that go with it. That was her plan when she matched with Eli on a dating app. She didn’t expect to ever see him again, so of course he ends up at the center of her workplace drama.

Rue probably could have stuck to her no repeats rule — she’s that emotionally stunted — but Eli falls hard for her. I like that the book moves between Rue’s point of view and Eli’s, because we can see how intense his feelings, emotional and otherwise, are, compared to her internal hesitations. And yet Eli is nothing but respectful to her and her hesitations, despite his desire for more, which makes him a very likable character.

The supporting characters aren’t always likable, but intentionally so — they all have a purpose and elevate the story, and many of their interactions with Rue and Eli are hilarious, adding to the novel’s smart, sassy vibe.

The plot is intriguing and believable, as Rue tries to save her scientific work from the grasp of Eli’s company, thinking — incorrectly, of course — that they’re being greedy. More seriously, as Hazelwood points out, there are mentions of grief, food insecurity and child neglect, but it’s not as depressing as it sounds. They’re issues that Rue and Eli dealt with that still impact them as adults, but there are no heavy-handed lessons or weepy sob stories — just real, life-goes-on reminders that what’s in the past doesn’t always stay in the past, and it can take a lot of work to build trust and open your heart after it’s been hurt.

This is another winner for Hazelwood, and I would highly recommend it to anyone who likes their romantic fiction smart, emotional and extra spicy. Just not you, Mom, and if you do read this, please never tell me. A-

Album Reviews 24/13/06

CHVE, Kalvarie (Wicked Cool Records)

Meanwhile on Neptune, we have this one from the vocalist of Belgian post-metal collective Amenra, one Colin H. van Eeckhout, who’s into spiritual gobbledegook and weird old instruments. I was informed this EP was influenced by gloom-metal bands like Neurosis, but what I’m hearing is more like Ianai, more of a monk-like chanting trip meant to, as the artiste claims, heal the soul. In other words it’s New Age stuff that aims to be mind-altering, as van Eekhouts jams out his droning, repetitive patterns on a hurdy gurdy and adds various percussions and effects, which meld nicely with his soft, mid-toned voice throughout a single 15-minute track titled “Eternit.” I repeat, this is an EP, so it’s not reliable backgrounding if you’re holding a yoga class, but it’s certainly atmospheric if a bit long. More meditative than anything else, and there’s really nothing metal about it, which is fine by me. A+

Belly, 96 Miles From Bethlehem (Salxco Records)

This Palestinian-Canadian rapper-singer-songwriter presents this new LP, an ode to his homeland, which is, well, having its calamities. Known for his clever, poetic, and powerful lyrics, Belly delivers searing, emotionally charged performances in this one, outcries that explore the feelings he’s experienced while the catastrophe in his homeland has dragged on, seemingly without end. “God watches while the angels weep,” spat over a woozy, siren-like loop is one of the more measured sentiments on board here. The featured guests in attendance are also Palestinian artists, such as Elyanna, Saint Levant, Ibrahim Maalouf and MC Abdul; the production is from DaHeala (The Weeknd) with traditional instrumentalists. To say the least it’s a profound and heartfelt narrative. All profits from this album will go to organizations supporting various Palestinian relief efforts. A+

PLAYLIST

A seriously abridged compendium of recent and future CD releases

• Friday, June 14, will be a special day of albums, isn’t it great to be alive, folks? The first album up for discussion this week is a new one from The Decemberists, titled As It Ever Was, So It Will Be Again, which is very exciting to hear if you like that band, or have a squirrel costume you like wearing to edgy bars full of people dressed in tiger and kitten costumes! Oh well, as they say, to every person their taste, that’s how these things go, like, some people like 1970s music because that’s what they listened to when Millard Fillmore was president, and some people like really bad music because they want to get on my nerves, but some people just like The Decemberists because they’re sort of a cross between Lynyrd Skynyrd (no, people have actually said that) and Crosby Stills Nash & Young except without anything technically complicated going on, for example The Decemberists only know three chords but those notes usually sound pretty good together every time they rearrange them! Oh come on, let’s stop kidding around, I’m just like you and everybody else, like, I only have one Dememberists album that I actually listen to, and in my case it’s Hazards of Love, from the turn of the decade or whenever it was, like only human squirrels know all the words to any Decemberists album, just stop the nonsense, can’t we all just get along? Right, so I haven’t listened to any of this album yet, but I’ll bet the whole thing is available on YouTube for preview, let’s go see, grab your Roblox backpacks and let’s do a rock ’n’ roll music column, whattaya say, gang? Yep, told ya, the whole thing is available for pirating, right there, and it opens with a song called “Oh No!” Well, this is a weird one; it starts out with a mariachi/Ennio Morricone trumpet part, and then it goes into a Roy Orbison (but lively) thing that actually sounds like REM, if you’re old enough to remember bands from the late 1800s. As always it is cool and hip and catchy but not something I will pirate for my drivetime listening pleasure, because as you know I have my required Decemberists album, there is no need for me to experiment further.

• Cola is an art-punk band from Montreal, Canada, so you already know what I’m going to say, like, I am already annoyed that it’ll be too much like every other indie band from Canada and will thus have to censor the first five drafts of this mini-review so that the editors won’t yell at me. But instead of just pretending to listen to it and going to thesaurus.com and looking up synonyms for “offal” and “dross,” I will indeed subject myself to the band’s new album, The Gloss, and its single, “Pallor Tricks,” see what they did there, rock fans? Ack, ack, someone get me my medication, this disgusting mess is like a cross between Blur and Pavement, comprising an angular but badly played guitar line and a fake-drunk pub-rock vocal. Why would someone do this?

• Yikes, look guys, the original debut self-titled album from Monsters of Folk is coming out this week as a deluxe edition! The band is defunct now, because Jim James, M. Ward, Conor Oberst and the dude from Bright Eyes couldn’t fit their egos in the same tour bus, but either way, if you like their loud-jangly-loud sound, this expanded version includes five unreleased studio tracks from 2012, intended for that second album that never happened. OK!

• And lastly we have modern art-poppers Walt Disco, from Scotland, with their new LP, The Warping! The single, “You Make Me Feel So Dumb,” is piano-driven chillout that sounds like mid-career David Bowie if you’re so inclined.

God’s Ghostwriters, by Candida Moss

God’s Ghostwriters, by Candida Moss (Little, Brown & Co., 303 pages)

In the first centuries of the Common Era, literacy was rare. Even when people knew how to read and write, they didn’t want to do it since scratching out letters and symbols on papyrus with no desks or ergonomic chairs was physically taxing. The solution for many elites of the time was to have enslaved people do it.

While most of the early leaders of the fledgling movement that would one day be known as Christianity weren’t men of means, they still had people accompanying them on their travels, and these people — not necessarily Matthew, Mark, Luke and John — were the people who would write down the stories about Jesus of Nazareth, Many of them were enslaved, posits theologian Candida Moss in God’s Ghostwriters.

Formerly a professor at Notre Dame, now at the University of Birmingham in the U.K., Moss is attempting to bring biblical scholarship surrounding the New Testament to a broader audience. In doing so, she may upset some apple carts of belief, specifically for those who perceive Christianity as a religion of the learned built on the writings of Aquinas, Augustine and other intellectual heavyweights. In fact, Moss points out, in its first centuries, the emerging religion was often derided as the fantastical beliefs of women, the lower classes and, most of all, enslaved people.

Some of these ideas are already well-known, chief among them the fact that crucifixion was a form of execution used primarily to punish the enslaved and the worst kinds of criminals, and a threat to keep other people of low status in line. But Moss goes much further out on this limb, arguing that the involvement of the enslaved in the production and dissemination of Christian Bible influenced its content, through the inclusion (and exclusion) of certain things, and descriptions that would more easily flow from the mind of a servile person than from an elite. Descriptions of a netherworld, for example, are often disturbingly similar to conditions of prisons in ancient Rome, she says.

While conceding at the start that much of what she writes in God’s Ghostwriters is inferred from what is uncontested about this period of history, Moss makes a compelling, if provocative, case. She is used to controversy, having previously published a book that questioned the number of early Christians who were killed for their faith. Moss’s 2013 The Myth of Persecution, for some, seemed an attack on Christianity itself, given that the martyrdom of early Christians is often used as an argument for the validity of Christianity’s claims. God’s Ghostwriters presents a similar problem, she acknowledges, writing, “If the New Testament is not the work of Jesus’ disciples, can it be trusted?”

Moss does not answer that question outright, but she is reportedly Catholic, so she must think there’s something of value in the Christian Bible. But she likens its “invisible” authors to delivery workers during the pandemic, writing “We speak of Amazon ‘delivering things,’ as if an abstract multinational company brought purchases to our home,” rather than low-wage workers.

For many readers, Moss might dance too close to the edge of blasphemy when she refers to certain biblical descriptions of Jesus as “slavish” and says that the narrative of Mark’s gospel, in particular, leaves room for interpretation that Mary was either enslaved or a sex worker. Some early critics of the fledgling Jesus movement argued that Jesus’s father was a Roman soldier named Pantera. This is not new information to scholars of the New Testament and early Christianity; just as there were people eager to advance the deity of Jesus, there were many people eager to stamp it out.

But Moss’s excavation provides an engrossing history of Roman life and how slavery was part and parcel of the time, and she offers a rudimentary and accessible snapshot of biblical scholarship that is rarely, if ever, delivered from a pulpit. She shows, for example, that the story of the adulterous woman about to be stoned that Jesus forgave — which she calls “something of a fan favorite” — was not in the earliest manuscripts of the Gospel of John, where it resides today, and speculates on how it came to be there. Her descriptions of life in ancient Rome do not give it the romantic overtones held by the many people on social media who say they think about ancient Rome daily — as much as Rome is marked by military conquest, roads and aqueducts, it was also a place where animal feces was used as mortar, and dogs, as well as humans, were crucified. Perhaps modernity isn’t as bad as we make it out to be.

Does it matter that the Gospel of Mark was not written by a disciple called Mark, but dictated by Peter to Mark or even to an unnamed, enslaved person? Does it matter if the letters of Paul were not physically composed by Paul, but by a person who was enslaved or formerly enslaved? For some, Moss acknowledges, yes, this would present “an insurmountable problem” to their faith. But it seems that for most people who see the Bible as the inspired word of God, it would not matter who actually held the stylus or reed. For those who are willing to have their preconceptions challenged, God’s Ghostwriters will do just that. B —Jennifer Graham

Album Reviews 24/06/06

Steve Conte, The Concrete Jangle (Wicked Cool Records)

You may know Conte from his guitar contributions to the New York Dolls (or, more likely, not; he was with them for about five whole minutes, and yes, David Johansen was there at the time); he was also the guitarist for Michael Monroe’s band, in which he continues to perform. This dude has for-real rock star cachet either way, though, having been a utility player with Peter Wolf, Eric Burdon and even Paul Simon, by which I’m saying he knows how to write great songs. Half of this album was co-written with Andy Partridge of XTC, but after listening to the whole thing I get the sense that Conte is never the weak link when collaborating with the big stars he’s played with; it’s probably the other way around. Though this is billed as a Beatles-meets-’80s-pop-rock affair, the underlying vibe is undoubtedly Raspberries, i.e. ’50s-informed radio rock from the ’70s. The songs all get right into your head and take root right away. Really top-drawer stuff here. A+ —Eric W. Saeger

Marshall Jefferson, House Masters – Marshall Jefferson (Defective Records)

At 64, Jefferson is one of the still-ticking vanguards of OG Chicago/deep house music; indeed, he’s generally regarded as the father of house music, if you wanna know. If you’re intimately familiar with the genre, this 40-song retrospective needs no introduction, but there are many years of his oeuvre to cover; this collection kicks off with an extended mix of his 1986 single for Trax Records, “Move Your Body,” the first house tune to use piano (Trax chief Larry Sherman didn’t consider it a house tune, so Jefferson added the line “The House Music Anthem” to the title, and the rest is literally history). “Devotion” is here also, another classic that clearly proves the ’70s-disco roots of deep house, with its sizzly hi-hat-driven beat and such. You may or may not also know that Jefferson put together plenty of songs with other stars like baritone singer CeCe Rogers; that collaboration is represented here in a club mix of their 1987 hit “Someday,” which is also a legendary jam. To say this collection is essential for house fans would do it no justice whatsoever. A+ —Eric W. Saeger

PLAYLIST

A seriously abridged compendium of recent and future CD releases

• Bulletin, this just in, fam, there will be new rock ’n’ roll music CDs released this Friday, June 7, which is three days before my second book, My Year In The Online Left: Social Media, Solidarity, And Armchair Activism, becomes available for sale worldwide, can you even believe it folks, now there’s a coincidence! So, the hot weather is here, and we will roast, because unbelievably hot, but that’s OK, because we will have new albums to keep us cool, like f’rinstance the new one from Bill Belichik’s favorite hair-metal rocker, Bon Jovi, titled Forever! In celebrity gossip news, the other day I learned that Millie Bobby Brown (no relation to rapper Bobby Brown) married Bon Jovi’s son, Jake, in a beautiful ceremony celebrating the doomed special sort of love that lasts forever when you get married 10 minutes after reaching the age when you can get a driver’s license! No, I kid Millie Bobby Brown, here’s to many years of blissful whatever, now let’s go listen to the new rope-in single from Mr. Jovi — actually, forget that, the whole album is free on the YouTube, so I’ll just listen to the first song, “Living Proof,” and then tell you about it! Yeah, so this sounds like the new-old version of Bon Jovi, after Desmond Child stopped helping the band write songs like “Livin’ On A Prayer,” you remember, those microwaved tunes that wanted to be interesting and catchy but they were just sort of lumpy and boring (“It’s My Life,” anyone?). That’s what this song is, but Mr. Jovi is using that Peter Frampton talk box effect again, good lord. Other than that it’s truly thrilling and innovative, seriously.

• Bonny Light Horseman is something of an American folk supergroup, because the people in the band used to play in bands like The Shins and The National. Their 2020 self-titled debut album had a mix of traditional British folk songs and some originals, but since then they’ve gone more Americana. This new album, Keep Me On Your Mind/See You Free, comes to us from Jagjaguwar Records, which has always sent me good stuff, and so unsurprisingly the single “I Know You Know” is a nice, refreshing burst of ’70s cowboy-pop, the beat evoking Linda Ronstadt while singer Eric Johnson (who’s aka the Fruit Bats, by the way) lays a sort of twangy Les Claypool vocal over it. It’s really not bad at all.

• The Mysterines are a British alt-grunge foursome fronted by guitarist Lia Metcalfe, and that’s really all there is to say about them for the moment; I was drawn to the band’s name, so I have no idea what I’m even doing with this. Wikipedia doesn’t know what to say about them either, so why don’t we just mosey over to YouTube to see what this is about, that’d be great. Bazinga, there they are, their new LP is Afraid Of Tomorrows, and the featured video is for the tune “Stray,” a gothy, Joy Division-infused creep-rocker that’s got something of a Trent Reznor vibe going, except there’s a girl singer and she has a low voice because she intentionally wants to scare you, like, there should be a parental warning, because I’ll tell you, I got the shivers myself.

• OK, let’s take it home with a new album from — oh no, it’s The Eels, terrific, I have to think of something relevant to say about David Malcolm Werewolf or whatever his name is, once again! Here’s a riddle, you know what you call a Tom Waits concert with The Eels opening up? A show I wouldn’t go to for $100! I’ve got a million of ’em, folks, but whatever, I’ll go see what’s going on with their new song, “Goldy.” It’s slow and grungy and kind of messy — interesting, I don’t hate this. Wait, there’s a sample part that’s boring and dumb. Backing away slowly from this. —Eric W. Saeger

The Guncle Abroad, by Steven Rowley

The Guncle Abroad, by Steven Rowley (G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 320 pages)

It took me a minute to get back into the world of Patrick O’Hara, also known as GUP (Gay Uncle Patrick) to Maisie and Grant, Patrick’s now 14- and 11-year-old niece and nephew, respectively. The last time we saw these characters, in Rowley’s The Guncle, they were five years younger. Maisie and Grant had just lost their mom, and their dad, Greg, was struggling with addiction, so a very unprepared Patrick stepped in as their temporary guardian while his brother checked himself into rehab. Hilarity, along with a good dose of all the emotions that come with family, love and loss, ensued.

Now GUP is back in charge as he leads Maisie and Grant on a journey to understand love ahead of their dad’s impending wedding to Livia; meanwhile, Maisie and Grant are on a mission to get Patrick to get their dad to call off the wedding. They’re not fans of Livia (although they seem to like their soon-to-be Launt — Lesbian aunt — much to Patrick’s annoyance).

“The key was not so much for the kids to understand their own [love] languages … but for Patrick to open their eyes to the ways in which Greg and Livia might be a good match, and ways in which Livia might be expressing love for the two of them that they were currently missing. Guncle Love Languages.”

The wedding is set to take place in Lake Como, Italy. As Greg and Livia prepare for their big day, Patrick takes Maisie and Grant to some pretty amazing places that he believes exemplify love: Salzburg, Austria (where they all joyfully revive some famous The Sound of Music moments), Paris and Venice. The locations make for beautiful backdrops for this quest of Patrick’s, even while his message is largely unheard and his niece and nephew dig their heels in.

Patrick’s conversations with the kids are often hilarious — he doesn’t coddle or hold back his opinions in the way most adults might. The kids aren’t quite as fun as they were in the first book, which makes sense because they’re older and not as amused by Patrick. Grant has lost his adorable lisp, but he hasn’t lost his unintentional wit.

“‘Careful, your mug might be hot,’” Patrick tells Grant when they’re in Paris drinking fancy hot chocolate. “‘This hot chocolate is for sipping, not gulping like a pelican.’ ‘I wish I was a pelican,’ came Grant’s reply. ‘Then I could store more of this in my throat pouch.’ Patrick shuddered. ‘Don’t say throat pouch in a chocolaterie.’”

What Rowley does really well here is explore how grief can still take a hold of us even as the years pass and our lives move forward. Moments big and small — a wedding or a memory of watching The Sound of Music — can evoke all kinds of emotions, from acute sadness to a sense of peace in knowing that the person you loved and lost would be proud of the people she left behind.

While Patrick is mainly focused on getting Grant and Maisie to accept Greg and Livia’s relationship, he’s nursing his own heartbreak while struggling to come to terms with hitting the half-century mark in age. Patrick broke up with Emory because he felt like he was too old for him, so even while he’s found renewed success in his acting career, he’s feeling lonely and missing Emory. It’s the kids who pick up on the missing-Emory part and ultimately force Patrick to acknowledge his fears.

All in all, there’s a good mix here of lighthearted fun and emotional depth. When things start to get heavy, it’s a good bet that there’s going to be a laugh-out-loud moment or a clever quip that maintains the levity. Launt Palmina is especially good for a laugh (at one point she “mistakenly” mistranslates Patrick’s new role in Grease, to which an annoyed Patrick quickly clarifies that his role is to teach the boys the hand jive).

If you’re looking for a not-too-serious-but-not-too-fluffy summer read, The Guncle Abroad delivers. Definitely start with the first book, though, if you haven’t had the pleasure of reading it yet. B
—Meghan Siegler

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