If you love novels set in the world of moviemaking, this is as good as the best of them.
A 50-something film composer meditates on the summer of 1977, when she worked with director Billy Wilder on one of his last films.
As her own daughters prepare to leave home, Calista Frangopoulou, born in Athens, now living in Britain, thinks of the backpacking trip she took at 21 to the United States. A friend she made on her way west invited her along to a dinner in Hollywood arranged by her father. As it turned out, their companions were Billy Wilder, who owned the restaurant; his wife, Audrey; his writing partner, Iz Diamond; and Iz's wife, Barbara. Though the girls were wildly underdressed and totally out of their depth, and though the friend absconded halfway through the meal and the Wilders had to have the drunken Calista sleep on their couch, she made such an impression that she was brought on to be their interpreter when they went to film Fedora in Greece the following year, then continued on during shooting in Germany and France. There is so much to enjoy about this book, which is rooted in extensive research about Wilder's life and the making of Fedora, including the recollections of someone who actually lived a version of this experience—and yet it reads like a fairy tale. Calista forms deep relationships with both Billy and Iz and changes from a naïve know-nothing to someone with a deep understanding of the impact of World War II on a generation of artists. "I realized that for a man like him, a man who was essentially melancholy...humour was not just a beautiful thing but a necessary thing, that the telling of a good joke could bring a moment, transient but lovely, when life made a rare kind of sense, and would no longer seem random and chaotic and unknowable." She also finds along the way the inspiration for her own future career as a composer of film scores. Beautifully written and full of wisdom, this unusual and fascinating book contains many treats, including a miniscreenplay done in Wilder's style and an unforgettable scene in which Calista and Billy sample Brie de Meaux on a French farm where it is made.
If you love novels set in the world of moviemaking, this is as good as the best of them.Pub Date: Sept. 27, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-60945-792-1
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Europa Editions
Review Posted Online: June 21, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2022
BOOK TO SCREEN
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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