A shimmery prose style cannot save this slim, simplistic, and pretentious tale.
When a young British mother discovers her husband’s infidelity, she is transformed by rage.
“They were colleagues, then friends, and at first I suspected nothing. There were long emails, glimpses appearing on his phone, apparitions. The virgin blue of his notification light in the darkness.” Hunter’s second novel after a successful debut with similar mythical and maternal preoccupations (The End We Start From, 2017) is narrated by Lucy Stevenson, who receives a voicemail from the husband of a woman her husband, Jake, works with in academia informing her that the spouses are sleeping together. The other couple is about a decade older, which drives the knife even deeper. With no further ado or psychological development, Lucy goes right off her rocker, spurred by a lifelong obsession with the mythological figure of the harpy, a vengeful bird with a woman’s face, developed in brief, portentous interludes. “I asked my mother what a harpy was, and she told me: they punish men for the things they do.” This aspect of the book recalls the work of Angela Carter but lacks her black humor and stringency. Rather quickly, Lucy and Jake settle on a plan to even the score—she will hurt him three times. So she does. Then something happens at the end, but it’s not quite clear what. Hunter’s taut, intentional prose is strong on physical descriptions—“toddlers scooting fatly past me on balance bikes,” droopy daffodils resembling “grumpy children dressed by their mothers”—but she studs her narrative with philosophical assertions that are perplexing at best: “Marriage and motherhood are like death in this way, and others too: no one comes back unchanged.” “A children’s party, like a death, is never real until it is happening.”
A shimmery prose style cannot save this slim, simplistic, and pretentious tale.Pub Date: Nov. 3, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-8021-4816-2
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Grove
Review Posted Online: Aug. 17, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2020
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
A delightfully nostalgic novel about how the things we loved in the past have the power to shape our future.
A boy band cruise is the site of one woman’s post-divorce healing.
Annie never meant to end up alone on a Boy Talk cruise, but that’s exactly what happens when her sister breaks a leg and has to bow out of their vacation. Now Annie is sharing a cabin with a stranger, stuck on the cruise ship American Fantasy with the 1990s band—and thousands of their biggest fans, known as Talkers. Annie doesn’t consider herself a Talker, even if she was a fan back in the day. But reeling from a recent divorce and dealing with complex feelings about turning 50, Annie throws herself into the distraction of the trip. What she doesn’t expect is to truly connect with the music, the band, the other fans, and herself. As Annie observes, “This was why people turned to religion or watched the Super Bowl at a sports bar instead of alone in their living room. It felt good to be a part of something where your passion was celebrated instead of mocked.” All the Talkers dream of having a special bond with “the guys,” but when Annie actually does meet Keith, a Boy Talk member who’s clearly going through a hard time, she wonders if their connection is real or if she’s just as delusional as the other (mostly) women on the ship. Straub depicts a wonderfully immersive world aboard the American Fantasy, one where each woman assigns herself a favorite guy and everyone is bedecked in Boy Talk merch. For five days, the Talkers live in a fantasy world where the only thing that matters is their connection with a band that meant everything to them so many years ago. As Annie puts it, “Inside her head, which is where she heard the music, it had touched some lever so deep that it couldn’t be reversed…the music was a direct vein to her own childhood, the least complicated part of her life.”
A delightfully nostalgic novel about how the things we loved in the past have the power to shape our future.Pub Date: April 7, 2026
ISBN: 9798217046850
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Riverhead
Review Posted Online: Jan. 19, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2026
PERSPECTIVES
PERSPECTIVES
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