Reality bites in these odd portraits of people unmoored by their own sense of how things work.
A disastrous film festival paired with an all-encompassing virtual reality game offers more philosophical gymnastics from Aira.
This slim volume by the ever-prolific Aira collects two novellas, distinct in style and character, that lean into the author’s dark humor a little more than usual. The opener, Festival, is an uncomfortably cringe-laden comedy of errors. It concerns an independent film festival in an unnamed country, focused on its guest of honor and the mundane chaos introduced by his decidedly unwelcome guest. Readers are meant to think the Belgian film director Alec Steryx is Aira’s main subject—he’s come by invitation to chair the contest’s Grand Jury, premiere his latest esoteric science fiction film, and celebrate his body of work. But Aira cleverly slips in two wrenches: the first and most divisive is the director’s elderly, half-blind, and bad-tempered mother, who proceeds to turn the carefully curated event into a rolling logistical disaster; the second is where the story lives, in the head of Perla Sobietsky, the festival’s fiercely competitive organizer and author of a book about Steryx. While the dichotomy between Perla’s snobbishness and her charge’s unapologetically bad behavior is jarring, it’s also a funny and unpredictable way for Aira to talk about fame and perception. Meanwhile, in Game of the Worlds, a different kind of alienation comes via a virtual reality game in which children vaporize intelligent civilizations on a daily basis. Aira claims with a straight face that these are real worlds, in the manner of Ender’s Game, facing down “a gaggle of brats—whose prey surely didn’t suspect as much—with nothing better or more constructive to do with their afternoons.” Parenthood and generational angst often catalyze cliches, but here they enable Aira to talk about technology and disconnection in a way that’s both biting yet somehow full of affection for our confusing, complicated world.
Reality bites in these odd portraits of people unmoored by their own sense of how things work.Pub Date: June 11, 2024
ISBN: 9780811237307
Page Count: 192
Publisher: New Directions
Review Posted Online: April 5, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2024
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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