Fans of Kenzaburo Oe’s Death by Water and Haruki Murakami’s 1Q84 will enjoy Ono’s enigmatic story.
Atmospheric tale, with shades of the procedural and the coming-of-age story, by Mishima Prize–winning novelist Ono.
Cross García Márquez and Simenon and set the piece on the Sea of Japan, and you’ll have a feel for Ono’s latest, told through the point of view of a middle schooler who’s uprooted from the city by her unambitious father, newly appointed the police chief of a small fishing village. Strange things are afoot there. Dad’s first friend is the town drunk, who’d “endured no real defeats, exhausted by an endless struggle against barriers (the enemy without) and hesitation (the enemy within).” The two stay up late, night after night, drinking while other townies make a sport of sending bottle rockets flying toward the home of a widow named Toshiko. Meanwhile, an election brings out political opponents, one of whom doesn’t have much of a platform except to keep those rockets out of the air, and more than a little whiff of corruption. Ono’s yarn brims with unexpected turns that not only link these matters, but also nimbly move the villagers backward and forward in time and space: Toshiko and the stumbling drunk have a connection that stretches across the sea to Manchuria, where a Japanese army of occupation behaved brutally during World War II, and now Chinese migrants are crossing the same waters in search of jobs in Japan, some dying miserably in the holds of rusting freighters even as a pollution-born red tide devastates the fisheries. Throughout, Ono peppers the story with magic-realist moments: The drunk finds a corpse buried in seaside muck that only he seems able to see while a "rock-like" fisherman and a chemically toxic colonel hover on the edges of an altogether beguiling, swiftly flowing story, one in which everything—well, almost everything—connects in the end.
Fans of Kenzaburo Oe’s Death by Water and Haruki Murakami’s 1Q84 will enjoy Ono’s enigmatic story.Pub Date: June 9, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-949641-03-5
Page Count: 160
Publisher: Two Lines Press
Review Posted Online: March 28, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
An affecting portrait of a prickly woman.
A lifetime’s worth of letters combine to portray a singular character.
Sybil Van Antwerp, a cantankerous but exceedingly well-mannered septuagenarian, is the titular correspondent in Evans’ debut novel. Sybil has retired from a beloved job as chief clerk to a judge with whom she had previously been in private legal practice. She is the divorced mother of two living adult children and one who died when he was 8. She is a reader of novels, a gardener, and a keen observer of human nature. But the most distinguishing thing about Sybil is her lifelong practice of letter writing. As advancing vision problems threaten Sybil’s carefully constructed way of life—in which letters take the place of personal contact and engagement—she must reckon with unaddressed issues from her past that threaten the house of cards (letters, really) she has built around herself. Sybil’s relationships are gradually revealed in the series of letters sent to and received from, among others, her brother, sister-in-law, children, former work associates, and, intriguingly, literary icons including Joan Didion and Larry McMurtry. Perhaps most affecting is the series of missives Sybil writes but never mails to a shadowy figure from her past. Thoughtful musings on the value and immortal quality of letters and the written word populate one of Sybil’s notes to a young correspondent while other messages are laugh-out-loud funny, tinged with her characteristic blunt tartness. Evans has created a brusque and quirky yet endearing main character with no shortage of opinions and advice for others but who fails to excavate the knotty difficulties of her own life. As Sybil grows into a delayed self-awareness, her letters serve as a chronicle of fitful growth.
An affecting portrait of a prickly woman.Pub Date: May 6, 2025
ISBN: 9780593798430
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Feb. 15, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2025
A dark and twisty look at just how far one woman is willing to go to find inspiration.
A struggling writer finds an unexpected muse when a mysterious man shows up at her cabin.
Petra Rose used to pump out a bestselling book every six months, but then the adaptation happened—that is, the disastrous film adaptation of her most famous book. The movie changed the book’s storyline so egregiously that fans couldn’t forgive her, and the ensuing harassment sent Petra into hiding and gave her a serious case of writer’s block. Petra’s one hope is her solo writing retreat at a remote cabin, where she can escape the distractions of real life and focus on her next book, a story about a woman having an affair with a cop. When officer Nathaniel Saint shows up at her cabin door, inspiration comes flooding back. Much like the character from Petra’s book, Saint is married, and he’s willing to be Petra’s muse, helping her get into her characters’ heads. Petra’s book is practically writing itself, but is the game she’s playing a little too dangerous? Does she know when to stop—and, more importantly, is Saint willing to stop? Hoover is no stranger to controversial movie adaptations and internet backlash, but she clarifies in a note to readers that she’s “just a writer writing about a writer” and that no further connections to her own life are contained in these pages—which is a good thing, because the book takes some horrifying twists and turns. Petra finds herself inexplicably attracted to Saint, even as she describes him as “such an asshole,” and her feelings for him veer between love and hate. The novel serves as a meta commentary on the dark romance genre—as Petra puts it, “Even though, as readers, we wouldn’t want to live out some of the fantasies we read about, it doesn’t mean we don’t enjoy reading those things.”
A dark and twisty look at just how far one woman is willing to go to find inspiration.Pub Date: Jan. 13, 2026
ISBN: 9781662539374
Page Count: -
Publisher: Montlake
Review Posted Online: Sept. 27, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2025
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