A finely wrought portrait of a small-town family in distress.
In Saxsma’s novel, family members locked in private struggles flounder in denial and dissatisfaction.
Lloyd Wood, father of Toby and husband to Dawn, struggles with a failing restaurant business and is fighting the pressure to sell out and leave. Lloyd, while keeping money matters private from his family and ridiculing them to promote thriftiness, opts to maintain a brave face rather than share his financial difficulties with anyone. Dawn, feeling cut off from her husband and son (“In those walls, they were satellites, the three of them. They orbited one another but did not speak, did not interact, but passed each other, feeding information to everyone else, never to each other”) is deemed “lost” by her best friend, Kitty. After she sees a mysterious angel hovering over her farmland, Dawn becomes entangled in a religious cult and is expected to give them time and money she can’t afford. Toby resists his budding gay sexuality and attends therapeutic seminars to reverse it. In these linked stories, the author explores what can happen to the most vulnerable souls in our world and the great measures people will go to survive, make a buck, or remain covert in the face of adversity. The narrative strands are well plotted, with each story leading the way to the next perspective while still culminating in memorably climactic moments. While the characters are vividly rendered, the dialogue is sometimes excessively protracted and repetitive. Saxsma’s prose is rich in sensory detail, enriching the characterizations of the cast (Lloyd has “a stone-sour look and a sweat-stained ball cap atop his head”; Dawn’s “eyes were heavy, and her body was in ache. She smelled of the hard physical day”). The magical realism elements are used effectively and the storytelling is strong, but the heartbreaking ending leaves readers with little sense of hope—it’s hard not to want more for these characters.
A finely wrought portrait of a small-town family in distress.Pub Date: Jan. 23, 2024
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: 431
Publisher: Self
Review Posted Online: Jan. 19, 2024
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
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
SEEN & HEARD
A pleasant if not entirely convincing tribute to the power of art.
A French art historian’s English-language fiction debut combines the story of a loving relationship between a grandfather and granddaughter with an enlightening discussion of art.
One day, when 10-year-old Mona removes the necklace given to her by her now-dead grandmother, she experiences a frightening, hour-long bout of blindness. Her parents take her to the doctor, who gives her a variety of tests and also advises that she see a psychiatrist. Her grandfather Henry tells her parents that he will take care of that assignment, but instead, he takes Mona on weekly visits to either the Louvre, the Musée d’Orsay, or the Centre Pompidou, where each week they study a single work of art, gazing at it deeply and then discussing its impact and history and the biography of its maker. For the reader’s benefit, Schlesser also describes each of the works in scrupulous detail. As the year goes on, Mona faces the usual challenges of elementary school life and the experiences of being an only child, and slowly begins to understand the causes of her temporary blindness. Primarily an amble through a few dozen of Schlesser’s favorite works of art—some well known and others less so, from Botticelli and da Vinci through Basquiat and Bourgeois—the novel would probably benefit from being read at a leisurely pace. While the dialogue between Henry and the preternaturally patient and precocious Mona sometimes strains credulity, readers who don’t have easy access to the museums of Paris may enjoy this vicarious trip in the company of a guide who focuses equally on that which can be seen and the context that can’t be. Come for the novel, stay for the introductory art history course.
A pleasant if not entirely convincing tribute to the power of art.Pub Date: Aug. 26, 2025
ISBN: 9798889661115
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Europa Editions
Review Posted Online: June 7, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2025
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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