Readers will enjoy this first-rate naval fiction.
An ambitious naval ensign and his girlfriend wake up to the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.
“I love being at sea,” muses young Scott Bradley James. “I could live forever out here.” So he attends the Naval Academy, graduating in 1941. The story proceeds at an unhurried pace as it develops a decent but far from perfect man. Scott scrapes together the money for his girlfriend’s illegal abortion, from which she dies. The academy tests the honesty and honor he had thought were at his core. A cheating scandal erupts; though guilty, he’s not caught. Both events weigh heavily on his conscience as he begins his naval career. In Hawaii, a woman nicknamed Kai enters his life as an integral part of the tale. In bed with her, he’s technically AWOL when Japanese fighters attack Pearl Harbor, but he’s close enough to race back to his crippled ship, the USS West Virginia, as the fight rages. Afterward, ambition, guilt, and jealousy gnaw at his soul, though he keeps the latter in check. Still, goddamn it, other people are getting the medals—like Chief Petty Officer John Finn, who earns a Medal of Honor—and not him? “It’s like I wasn’t even there,” he thinks. He wants to be “in the center of the inferno.” But he grows with his duties at sea and begins to show his mettle. Meanwhile, his relationship with Kai is on the brink of falling apart because he’s gone so long and writes her only infrequently. Will she wait for him? Because a war is on, no one can plan ahead. A Marine might step on a land mine and alter the trajectory of his friends’ lives far into the future. There is an interesting mix of fictional and historical characters: Scott and Kai are imagined, while the admirals and John Finn are not. (That hero was badly wounded at Pearl Harbor but lived to age 100.) Stavridis’ own love of the Navy (where he’s a retired admiral) shows well on these pages as he weaves war with the “career and personal voyage of Scott Bradley James.” The ending leaves an uncertain future, as the war is far from finished, and the author plans a sequel.
Readers will enjoy this first-rate naval fiction.Pub Date: Oct. 8, 2024
ISBN: 9780593494073
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Penguin Press
Review Posted Online: July 4, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 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
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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