Fresh, funny, intelligent, and deeply satisfying.
Myers’ lively comic novel focuses on the raw passions of four women, not for men or each other—well, maybe those too—but mostly for the physical experience of archaeology, the grueling grunt work of a hot summer dig.
The dig in question takes place in Greece under the auspices of autocratic Dr. Charles Barton, from an unnamed university. Zara, Kara, Elise, and Patty arrive with different skills and expectations. Patty, a clueless undergraduate intern who knows nothing about archaeology, has become Barton’s spy and general whipping girl. Zara had a wonderful experience in Greece as an undergrad on the dig six years ago until she broke up with her grad student boyfriend, Gary, now a committed archaeologist. She’s drifted through various botched jobs and boyfriends ever since. Aware that Gary will be there, she joins this year’s dig on a desperate whim. But Gary is engaged to ambitious, high-strung perfectionist Kara, who was also on Zara’s first dig and now runs the site lab; she’s worried that her goal of a job at Sotheby’s could be derailed if she doesn’t find two missing discuses for which she’s responsible. Eccentric, independent 44-year-old Elise lacks academic credentials but is highly respected as an adept professional excavator. She and Kara blame each other for a loss suffered several years earlier, a small but valuable statue Elise found and Kara restored before it was supposedly destroyed by an earthquake. Is there a connection between the discuses and the statue? Maybe. Myers gives the angst-ridden, imperfect women entertainingly distinct voices and personalities. The men are fun too, both the appealing ones and the creeps. (And then there’s the voice of the buried.) Desires collide and relationships realign rapidly as the dig begins to go awry. Myers is adept at academic satire with a feminist bent and at unsentimental romance, but she really shines at bringing to life a working excavation: the smells, the grime, the exhaustion. And the exhilaration.
Fresh, funny, intelligent, and deeply satisfying.Pub Date: July 4, 2023
ISBN: 9780063304512
Page Count: 288
Publisher: HarperVia
Review Posted Online: April 11, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2023
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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