A masterfully controlled tear-jerker of a novel about found family.
In Miller’s debut literary novel, a runaway unexpectedly comes to rely on an elderly woman.
The unnamed boy who narrates the novel first encounters Ruth while he’s smashing sunflower seeds with a rock outside her apartment. Ruth is a patient, joke-loving elderly woman who lives in a retirement community. The narrator is a grumpy, unhoused 8-year-old who hates approximately “573” things, including lollipops, home renovation shows, and anything that doesn’t make sense or wastes time. After Ruth slowly gains the boy’s trust by offering him cookies over a few days, the two build up a dialogue over games of hearts and televised baseball (the boy is a devoted collector of baseball cards). When it becomes clear that the boy has nowhere else to go, Ruth invites him to stay on her couch. She has a few ground rules related to the bathroom and the remote control, but Ruth seems especially set on one rule: “Under this roof,” she tells the boy, “there’s no talking about the past. No asking me how I got here. No asking what happened to me the day before we met, or the week before, or a year ago, or 10 years ago, or 70 years ago. That goes for both of us, including you.” The boy agrees, though his residence must remain a secret due to the rules of the retirement community. Life is good for a time; the boy hides under the sink whenever anyone comes over, and Ruth sneaks him food from the cafeteria. She encourages the boy to let his guard down and appreciate the good things in life, though he resists as much as he relents. But after an accident suffered during an impromptu vacation results in a dramatic shift in Ruth’s personality, the boy is forced to adapt—and learn about the interconnectedness of love and loss.
The boy narrates the story from the cusp of his adulthood, referring to Ruth as “you.” He channels his younger worldview as he does: “I tried not to think about cookies. I flipped through the puzzle book to distract myself. I told myself I would never go back to see you. Never ever. Not even for $1,000,000 worth of donuts. I started working on a medium-hard puzzle, messed up right away, and ripped the page out of the book.” The relationship between Ruth and the boy in the first half of the novel is a bit reminiscent of the film Harold and Maude (minus the romantic element); Ruth is a bighearted, language-loving extrovert who delights in nearly everything. Miller’s innovation comes in the book’s second half, when Ruth’s kindness to another boy backfires horribly, forcing the narrator to become her caretaker. From then on, the novel becomes an increasingly heartbreaking story of the boy realizing who Ruth really is to him and what he needs to be to her. Miller’s deeply felt tale illustrates how life’s greatest challenges always arrive before we’re ready for them, and how they shape us into the people we become.
A masterfully controlled tear-jerker of a novel about found family.Pub Date: June 21, 2024
ISBN: 9798990770904
Page Count: 230
Publisher: Lost Pictograph Publishing
Review Posted Online: June 20, 2024
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
SEEN & HEARD
A pleasant if not entirely convincing tribute to the power of art.
A French art historian’s English-language fiction debut combines the story of a loving relationship between a grandfather and granddaughter with an enlightening discussion of art.
One day, when 10-year-old Mona removes the necklace given to her by her now-dead grandmother, she experiences a frightening, hour-long bout of blindness. Her parents take her to the doctor, who gives her a variety of tests and also advises that she see a psychiatrist. Her grandfather Henry tells her parents that he will take care of that assignment, but instead, he takes Mona on weekly visits to either the Louvre, the Musée d’Orsay, or the Centre Pompidou, where each week they study a single work of art, gazing at it deeply and then discussing its impact and history and the biography of its maker. For the reader’s benefit, Schlesser also describes each of the works in scrupulous detail. As the year goes on, Mona faces the usual challenges of elementary school life and the experiences of being an only child, and slowly begins to understand the causes of her temporary blindness. Primarily an amble through a few dozen of Schlesser’s favorite works of art—some well known and others less so, from Botticelli and da Vinci through Basquiat and Bourgeois—the novel would probably benefit from being read at a leisurely pace. While the dialogue between Henry and the preternaturally patient and precocious Mona sometimes strains credulity, readers who don’t have easy access to the museums of Paris may enjoy this vicarious trip in the company of a guide who focuses equally on that which can be seen and the context that can’t be. Come for the novel, stay for the introductory art history course.
A pleasant if not entirely convincing tribute to the power of art.Pub Date: Aug. 26, 2025
ISBN: 9798889661115
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Europa Editions
Review Posted Online: June 7, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2025
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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