Well-developed characters energize this story of camaraderie.
An England-born Scot lives a life in the 1980s that teems with eclectic acquaintances in this debut novel.
Archie Henderson sees attending university as an escape from life with his unpleasant mother. He studies history and becomes particularly fond of stories of the United States’ past, so he and his best friend, Tommy, obtain student work visas and travel around America. As the young men make their way south, Archie learns about the country’s history of slavery, the Civil War, and current racism. Along the way, he meets remarkable people, including the amicable New Orleans local Willie B. Back in the U.K., Archie gets a job working the Asian equities desk at an investment firm, which finds him mingling with colorful clients and colleagues. He reunites with someone he once rescued from a bully at their all-boys school; now she goes by Vincenza and waits tables at a drag club in Soho. Archie later focuses on his own life, including a possible romance and a family secret. Davies’ appealing, selfless protagonist often puts himself at risk to help both friends and strangers. However, he frequently comes across as a tourist in supporting characters’ more compelling stories. Willie B, for example, is a Black man who’s victimized by a justice system that doesn’t do much harm to Archie, who’s White. At another point, Archie witnesses someone else jump into a raging river to save a young girl, and he spectates during a character’s entanglement in an attempted murder trial. Still, the cast is superb, including a surprisingly charming undertaker and a former Royal Marine who’s the son of a British noble and a stage performer. Sharply written prose maintains a steady narrative momentum, as when Archie and Tommy travel through Texas: “Discovering the delights of Tex Mex cuisine they headed for a bar where they found a crowd of students enjoying Freshers Week….Being back among their own kind Archie and Tommy soon got into the swing of it with plenty of stories and plenty of nonsense.” The marvelous opening and closing scenes also enrich the novel.
Well-developed characters energize this story of camaraderie.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: 300
Publisher: Manuscript
Review Posted Online: March 19, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2023
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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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