Miss Subways

March 1, 2018
A woman stumbles into the realm of myth when a supernatural creature offers her a heartbreaking choice.Fresh off a new season of the evergreen X-Files and a late-blooming music career, the multitalented Duchovny (Bucky F*cking Dent, 2016, etc.) offers a spooky domestic drama that is equal parts Nick Hornby and Neil Gaiman. In this tale based on an ancient Irish legend about two star-crossed lovers, Duchovny transposes the story to present-day New York, a city he clearly loves. Emer Gunnels is a masterful second-grade teacher who still experiences fleeting visions from a childhood brain tumor. Her boyfriend is Cuchulain Constance "Con" Powers, an academic who is writing an obscure, right-wing treatise on pre-Christian deities and folklore--"J.K. Rowling meets Michael Lewis in a London pub, they fuck and have a baby that William Buckley raises," more or less. Things go dark when Emer is confronted by Bean Sidhe, a wildly profane Celtic fairy, who offers her an impossible choice: Con (who has been canoodling with the scary spider goddess Anansi, by the way) may live, but the lovers must separate forever--or he dies right here, right now. After a glimpse of how each choice plays out, Emer makes her fateful decision. "The man lives. Love dies," declares Sidhe. Duchovny finds a deft balance here between Emer's domestic rituals and the machinations of actual gods and monsters. It's also worth praising the novel's upside-down love story in which Emer grows into the hero of her own story, not merely the object of a man's quest. As happens, Emer and Con are drawn to each other over and over, while the old gods yearn to break their eternal cycle. With mythical embodiments scattered among the book's surprisingly down-to-earth milieu--a trio of goddesses and a foulmouthed "mistress-dispeller" among them--Duchovny adroitly couches a Nora Ephron-esque romance in the sphere of Joseph Campbell.An entertaining, postmodern fairy tale that tests the boundaries of love and fate.

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July 16, 2018
Duchovny’s possibility-fueled romance, both intellectual and approachable, seamlessly blends frenetically paced pop culture references with the antics of bored, nearly forgotten gods in this modern retelling of the Emer and Cuchulain myth. Emer is a teacher and New Yorker who has a comfortable life with her partner, Con. When she’s offered a difficult choice by a mysterious man who calls himself Sid, she finds comfort in the inevitability of change and the strange, déjà vu quality of life in Manhattan. Then life takes a bit of a different turn, sliding seamlessly into an alternate reality in which the consequences of her choice expand like ripples on a pond; each interaction takes her simultaneously closer to and further away from who she is. It doesn’t help that her path is being manipulated by someone—or something. The story’s fantastical nature provides an elegant foundation for an in-depth exploration of self laced with sharp social commentary and a generous dose of the absurd. Agent: Andrew Blauner, Blauner Books.

April 15, 2018
Emer rides the subway to her job as a second-grade teacher in a private school, while her longtime boyfriend, Con, works on his opus on pre-Christian deities. One night, Emer is visited by a doorman who looks a lot like the principal of her school but at the same time seems to be a figure from Celtic folklore. He tells her she holds Con's life in her hands. The catch: if Con is to survive, all memories and traces of their relationship will disappear. Except it doesn't quite work out that way. Riffs on mythology and folklore fill the book; the name Emer is borrowed from Irish legend. Emer has a dreamy side, compounded by a benign brain tumor, that makes her, and the reader, wonder whether she is hallucinating or if her reality keeps changing as she wages a battle for her right to love. Duchovny's (Bucky F*cking Dent, 2016) humor and fondness for New York City enliven every page. Give this to readers willing to go on a wild ride.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2018, American Library Association.)

May 1, 2018

Actor (The X-Files) and novelist (Holy Cow; Bucky F*cking Dent) Duchovny uses an Irish folktale as a central idea for this excellent exercise in magical realism. Emer provides moral and financial support for her live-in boyfriend, Con, in New York City and seems relatively happy despite Con's infidelities. Every day, she takes the subway to work. One night, a Celtic fairy knocks on her door and shows her the future using a cell phone app in which Con is killed in a car accident. In order to avoid this fate, Emer must agree to sever all connections to Con. She agrees to this and wakes to a reconfigured life. However, she keeps running into Con on the subway, and their familiar attraction is inescapable. Their reunion causes the fairy to reappear, and a third life as queen of the subway begins for Emer. This experience is short-lived as partnerships rearrange themselves and Con steps in front of a train. Not to worry. True love, it appears, is unconquerable. Infusing humor and New York history throughout, Duchovny captures the female psyche in Emer, whose inner monologs supply the bulk of this story. VERDICT Fans of magical realism and/or New York City will relish this third effort from Golden Globe winner Duchovny. [See Prepub Alert, 11/12/17.]--Joanna Burkhardt, Univ. of Rhode Island Libs., Providence

Copyright 2018 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

May 1, 2018

In Golden Globe-winning actor Duchovny's third novel, Emer lives contentedly in New York with boyfriend Con. But she travels down parallel paths, leading other lives and losing and regaining love in a story that draws on worldwide mythologies, especially the Irish myth of Emer and Cuchulain, but always circles back to Emer's beloved city.

Copyright 2017 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.