A wondrous book of tales of lost worlds.
The best of Yiddish poet Sutzkever’s short stories, made available in English for the first time.
Avrom Sutzkever (1913-2010) is a giant of Yiddish poetry. He was an accomplished author who survived the Vilna ghetto and service in the Lithuanian resistance during World War II to become a major figure in Israel’s revival of Yiddish literature. He increasingly turned to prose in his later years as a means of grappling with his grief over the Holocaust. In the first story here, “Green Aquarium,” the narrator finds himself perched atop the titular structure, as all the dead people he’s ever known swim beneath him. In “The Gopherwood Box,” a man searching for a treasure in a war-ravaged city lowers himself into a well even though he can no longer remember where he first heard of the loot. The earlier stories are shorter and more enigmatic while later ones offer narratives that are more developed. “The Twin,” for example, recounts the tale of a man meeting a woman in Jaffa who tells him a terrible tale of defiance in one of the German death camps. A current of magical realism runs throughout the book as Sutzkever reaches for images appropriate for disruptive times. His skills as a poet are apparent in nearly every sentence, as translated by Berger, who gets across their richness and precision: “The fiery tail of the war was still dragging through the dead city, like a part of a giant prehistoric creature. The black sites of burned-out walls were besieged by clay clouds, as if the clouds were descending to rebuild the city.” It’s easy to see these stories, which use the surreal to understand the unreality of world events, on a continuum of fabulist Jewish writing that includes Franz Kafka and Bruno Schulz as well as contemporary storytellers, such as Etgar Keret and Nathan Englander. Those who are unfamiliar with Sutzkever—or, at least, unacquainted with his prose—will welcome this addition to the canon of experimental short fiction.
A wondrous book of tales of lost worlds.Pub Date: Dec. 1, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-73438-725-4
Page Count: 282
Publisher: White Goat Press
Review Posted Online: Jan. 4, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2021
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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 debut novel with bright spots, but unbalanced and lacking in finesse.
A high school senior pursues an affair with her teacher.
Seventeen-year-old Waldo, the narrator of McCurdy’s fiction debut, lives in Anchorage, Alaska, with her mother, though she’s long been the parent in their relationship. She heats her own frozen meals and pays the bills on time while her mom chases man after man and makes well-meaning promises she never keeps. Waldo blows her Victoria’s Secret wages on online shopping sprees and binges on junk food, inevitably crashing after the fleeting highs of her indulgences. Mr. Korgy, her creative writing teacher, has “thinning hair and nose pores”; he’s 40 years old and married with a child. Nevertheless—or possibly as a result?—Waldo’s attraction to him is “instant. So sudden it’s alarming. So palpable it’s confusing.” Mr. Korgy professes to want to keep their friendship aboveboard, but after a sexual encounter at the school’s winter formal that she initiates, an affair begins. Will this reckless pursuit be the one that actually satisfies Waldo, and is she as mature as she thinks she is? Waldo is a keen observer of people and provides sharp commentary on the punishing work of female beauty. Readers of McCurdy’s bestselling memoir, I’m Glad My Mom Died (2022), will surely be curious about the tumultuous mother-daughter relationship, and it is one of the novel’s highlights, full of realistic pity and anger and need. (“I want to scream at her. I want her to hug me.”) Unfortunately, the prose is often unwieldy and sometimes downright cringeworthy: When Waldo tells Mr. Korgy she loves him, “The words hang in the air in that constipated way they do when you know that you shouldn’t have said them.” Waldo frequently lists emotions and adjectives in triplicate, and events that could be significant aren’t sufficiently explored or given enough space to breathe before the novel races on to the next thing.
A debut novel with bright spots, but unbalanced and lacking in finesse.Pub Date: Jan. 20, 2026
ISBN: 9780593723739
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: Nov. 22, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2026
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
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