Spoonbenders

April 17, 2017
A family plagued with malfunctioning superpowers, persistent federal agents, and the mafia should make for a fast-paced and enthralling story, but a stalled plot grounds the latest from the author of Pandemonium. Expert con man Teddy Telemachus believes only in a good hustle until he meets Maureen McKinnon. Believing her act’s a scam, he soon realizes that she’s what he always pretended to be: a true psychic. Teddy and Maureen fall in love, get married, and have three supernaturally gifted children: Irene the “lie detector,” Frankie the psychokinetic, and Buddy the clairvoyant. After Maureen dies of cancer, any potential for a functional family unit falls apart. In 1995, 21 years after Maureen’s death, the family is in shambles: Irene, unemployed and broke, is forced to move back in with her father in Chicago; Frankie has big dreams but also a big debt to the local mob; and Buddy seemingly bumbles around with no attachment to reality. But when Matty, Irene’s 14-year-old son, realizes he can astral project, it begins a series of events that lead to September 4th, the last day Buddy can see in the future. Gregory seamlessly switches between different points of view, creating vivid voices for each Telemachus family member. But the intermittent bursts of incomplete information seem aimed at creating a surprise reveal, and result in a less-than-concrete understanding of the Telemachuses’ dynamics. 75,000-copy announced first printing.

April 15, 2017
In a nimble and substantial novel, Gregory (Harrison Squared, 2015, etc.) delves into the lives of the members of the eccentric and psychically gifted Telemachus family.On a summer day in 1963, Teddy Telemachus, a flamboyant and charming con man, card shark, and devotee of sleight of hand, cheats his way into a government study about psychic abilities. He meets Maureen McKinnon, a genuine psychic of enormous and mysterious power, and immediately falls in love with her. They get married, have three children with particular psychic gifts, and become famous as the Amazing Telemachus Family until a combination of televised embarrassment and personal loss begins to unravel their lives. Thirty years later, the Telemachus family's lives are in tatters and sliding ever further into the dreariness of debt, unhappiness, and possible mental instability when the 14-year-old Matty Telemachus plunges them back into a world of cleverly plotted and swiftly paced adventure. Gregory's novel deploys a cast of odd, damaged, enormously likable characters in a complex story that gracefully balances the outrageous melodrama of Chicago mobsters and shadowy government agencies with the ordinary mysteries of family dynamics. Each of the characters, even when absurdly cartoonish, has a precise energy and depth that makes him or her irresistible. The chapters shift between their points of view, revealing different threads of the story with masterful control and giving the novel an illusion of gleeful messiness and the argumentative, frequently poignant feeling of a family gathering. While the novel revels in elements that entertain--criminal capers, magic, nostalgia for the internet chat rooms and computer paraphernalia of the 1990s--it never shies away from the real emotion of digging up the lies and illusions that sink into every family history. Readers will emerge from the fray sure they know each Telemachus down to the smudges on their hearts. A skillfully written family drama that employs quirk and magic with grace.

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December 1, 2017

Behold the Amazing Telemachus family: mother, father, and three children (Frankie, Irene, and Buddy) and their varied powers make up a phenomenal traveling show. Alas, the Telemachuses' fame fades into oblivion after they are discredited on live television. Patriarch Teddy, a talented con man, pretends to be a soothsayer to take on anyone he can squeeze money out of-including the Chicago Mafia. Beautiful Maureen, an honest-to-goodness psychic with a heart of gold, worked for the CIA during the Cold War. After her death, the children, now motherless, inherit strange but powerful abilities-and their genetically inherited talents continue down the line to Irene's son, Matt. All of the characters, gifted in some way, are also cursed by their powers. Multiple members of the lovably flawed Telemachus family narrate this complex but highly relatable tale, which spans several decades. Gregory takes his time developing the story, but readers are rewarded when everything coalesces beautifully at the end. VERDICT This raucous, mind-bending, time-jumping tale is hilarious and occasionally touching and will appeal to teens who appreciate quirky family characters like those in Cynthia D'Aprix Sweeney's The Nest.-Tara Kehoe, formerly at the New Jersey State Library Talking Book and Braille Center, Trenton

Copyright 2017 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

June 1, 2018

Here, a savory mix of disparate ingredients are blended into a perfectly delicious dish of a novel. Stir in psychic powers and family drama, throw in the essence of a 1980s coming-of-age film, with a sprinkling of heist plot and mob action. The voices of the Telemachus family are compelling, whether following Matty and his awakening powers; his mother, Irene, through the difficulties of loving people when she knows their every lie; or Buddy, who is lost in precognitive visions. VERDICT Come for the magic, the family relationships, or the mysteries of the Telemachuses themselves. Readers won't be able to put down this compelling literary fantasy.

Copyright 2018 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

May 1, 2017
Matty Telemachus knows he comes from an unusual lineage. As the grandson of the Great Teddy Telemachus, he also knows he has a gift. Famous for their magic and sleight-of-hand skills, the Telemachus family used to be the toast of talk shows and late-night television. With Teddy's con-artist gifts, Maureen's skills at astral projection, Buddy the clairvoyant, and Irene the human lie detector, the family enjoyed fame and fortune. When a visit to the Mike Douglas Show goes horribly wrong, the family quickly falls from grace. An onslaught of outside forces, including the CIA and the Mafia, threatens to undo the clan, and it is young Matty's job to help them rediscover their true skills. Gregory (We Are All Completely Fine, 2014) tells the story of a family blessed with unique abilities who must learn to find the extraordinary in their everyday lives. Fans of Katherine Dunn's Geek Love (1989) will be delighted to meet another quirky family making their way in the real world while living far-from-ordinary lives.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2017, American Library Association.)

July 31, 2017
In his newest work of speculative fiction, World Fantasy and Shirley Jackson Award–winner Gregory introduces the dysfunctional Amazing Telemachus Family, all but one of whom possess some variation of a seventh sense. The outlier is grandfather Teddy, con man and cardsharp. His deceased wife, Maureen, was a true psychic, as is his son Buddy. His older son, Frankie, is telekinetic, his daughter, Irene, a human lie detector. Her young son, Matty, takes out-of-body journeys. The author uses this mix of fantasy and family life to present a multigenre mash-up that includes a couple of romances, scams, a coming-of-age tale, government duplicity, gangsters with guns, and, not least of all, genuine magic. Narrator Fliakos vocally underlines Teddy’s love for Maureen, Frankie’s frantic attempts to avoid the wrath of mobster Nick Pusateri, Irene’s difficulty living in a world of liars, Buddy’s inability to cope with his knowledge of the future, and the poignancy of Matty’s sweetly sad love for his cousin, and the greasiness of CIA Agent Smalls’s deal with the family. In flashbacks, Fliakos gives Maureen the voice of the most caring, dependable psychic wife a fast-talking wheeler-dealer could want. A Knopf hardcover.