An uneven collection that nonetheless solidifies Enríquez’s reputation as a purveyor of haunting and thought-provoking tales.
A dozen pitch-black Argentinean stories laced with body horror, self-incrimination, and existential dread.
Enríquez’s Our Share of Night (2023) earned her a prominent place among innovative South American writers, and the stories here deliver the same squelchy charms. The stories, mostly from the POV of women, offer some new perspectives in an already rich genre, while the horrors within range from pedestrian to Lovecraftian to surprisingly equal effect. Opening with a ghost epidemic and closing with dead-eyed children, in between Enríquez examines the human condition through a spattered lens of body horror and grotesque surrealism. Following the ethereal “My Sad Dead” and its portrayal of a lonely doctor looking after lost souls, things tend to bounce back and forth between the ordinary and the phantasmagoric. In the first of many everyday nightmares, the title tale tackles the story of Elisa Lam, a Canadian student whose body was discovered in a water tank on the roof of the Cecil Hotel in Los Angeles circa 2013. Twisting a real-life tragedy into a mystery involving suicide and a death cult only makes it that much worse. Some entries are more notion than narrative—“Face of Disgrace” extends the concept of faceless victims to its literal conclusion, while “Night Birds” and “Metamorphosis” both twist Kafka’s themes of transformation to their own purposes. “Hyena Hymns” takes the form of a ghost story of sorts, unearthing eerie imagery from the ruins of a wealthy landowner’s domestic zoo. Ironically, the stories are much more devastating when they don’t delve into the supernatural. Two childhood friends are marked by a game gone awry in “The Refrigerator Cemetery,” giving off vibes from Stephen King’s short story “The Body.” Meanwhile, a search for dresses results in unexpected self-discovery in “Different Colors Made of Tears,” and a painter’s obsession spirals into madness in “A Local Artist.”
An uneven collection that nonetheless solidifies Enríquez’s reputation as a purveyor of haunting and thought-provoking tales.Pub Date: Sept. 17, 2024
ISBN: 9780593733257
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Hogarth
Review Posted Online: July 19, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
Great crime fiction.
An apparent suicide threatens to destroy an Irish farm town in the final volume of French’s Cal Hooper trilogy.
In the fictional western Ireland townland of Ardnakelty, “there’s a girl going after missing.” Soon young Rachel Holohan is found dead in the river. Shortly before, she had stopped at Lena Dunne’s home, and nothing had seemed amiss. The medical examiner determines she’d swallowed antifreeze, and he presumes she then fell from a bridge into the water. The medical examiner and the town agree she’d died by suicide. But there is far more to the plot: 16-year-old Trey Reddy thinks Tommy Moynihan murdered Rachel. Moynihan doles out favors and punishments to the local townsfolk, who know it’s best not to cross him. Now rumors spread that Moynihan wants land and has a secret plan to forcibly buy up parcels from the locals. A factory will be built, or a great big data center, or who knows what. If Tommy’s son, Eugene, can get elected to the local council, then compulsory purchase orders for land will follow, and the farms will disappear. Eugene, who’d been romantically involved with Rachel, is wonderfully described as “on the weedy edge of good-looking” and just fine as long as you “don’t have high expectations in the way of chins.” Lena is engaged to the American Cal Hooper, an ex-cop turned woodworker. They are “more or less raising” Trey, and these three core characters are drawn into the mystery of Rachel’s death and may have to face the looming clouds of civilizational change for Ardnakelty. Lena is chastised for “asking your wee questions all round the townland,” and Trey wants to quit school, against Cal’s advice. Finally, the story’s best line: “You can’t go killing people just because they deserve it.”
Great crime fiction.Pub Date: March 31, 2026
ISBN: 9780593493465
Page Count: 496
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: Dec. 26, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2026
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