Compelling prose hampered by a lack of momentum and dynamism.
Bradsher-Fredrick’s debut novel explores a man’s life through the prism of minute details.
Notoriously difficult to render, hands and straight lines are considered by Edward Rawlinson to be the trickiest subjects and most important metric for being an artist: “Hands and straight lines engaged me. I applied myself consciously to those two subjects to such an extent that, although I dimly mistrusted dichotomies, I divided the world into ‘hands’ and ‘straight lines.’ ‘Hands' and ‘straight lines’ became huge, ill-defined, virtually limitless categories into which I divided much of my experience.” In this novel, which reads more like a memoir, the author crafts short chapters about Edward, a young, gay, aspiring painter, charting the significant moments of his personal and artistic journey. Edward recounts his whimsical obsession with watercolors; his graduation to more pigmented, expensive paints; touring the art and points of interest of Turkey and Mexico with his brother, Burke; his bond with his great-aunt, Estelle, and her ornate home of treasures; playing jacks with a local girl, Christine; his fear of horses; his not-so-secret love of a college professor (“I felt that I could not endure the details about Professor Baussan that bit into me while normal things happened”); and many other elements that add up to define a life and an artistic sensibility. In addition to Edward’s painting practice, the book charts many of the supporting characters’ passions, including equestrianism, crochet, and drawing. As he comes to terms with his sexuality and the depths of his desires, Edward must decide which among his relationships with friends and family are worth saving and which he must forgo for the sake of living the life he wants.
Bradsher-Fredrick has created a novel the way artists create collages, mosaics, and still lifes, combining small, mercurial moments to create an overall impression and arc. Edward’s narration is full of ruminating, tangible details that poignantly allude to his artistic eye: “The violet shapes, crocheted discs and parts of discs, coarsely—painfully—imitated grape clusters…I’d painted, that morning, as if no fence existed, as if no fence existed beyond the bushy fountains, as if no knives existed under cut flowers.” Unfortunately, his delivery is occasionally marred by strangely clunky lines (“Friendly, Christine treated me as a friend”; “I felt his weight: thrillingly bodily”). Despite the prose’s compelling imagery, the author’s nonlinear and anecdotal treatment of Edward’s life quickly becomes convoluted and confusing, disrupting momentum to move around in time and poring over the same moments of Edward’s life across multiple chapters; the lack of discrete scenes and action make it hard to understand any characters other than Edward, who readers are never really given a full description of. No consistent plot emerges until Edward goes away to college and meets “the fiery lining” of his life, his professor, Lawrence Baussan, who is 20 years his senior. Even their tender relationship comes to feel redundant; the book never answers the question of what Edward’s story means.
Compelling prose hampered by a lack of momentum and dynamism.Pub Date: Dec. 15, 2023
ISBN: 9798988690344
Page Count: 366
Publisher: Tailwinds Press Enterprises LLC
Review Posted Online: Oct. 26, 2023
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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