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.

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.