A scintillating collection, full of imaginative stories and strong, vivid writing.
Violent dads, a lovelorn hedgehog, and a teenage grim reaper are among the engrossing figures showcased in this anthology of fiction, poetry, and essays.
Editors Landfield and Ellerhoff have gathered contributions from 27 authors, many of them current or former clerks at Tsunami Books in Eugene, Oregon. Their works often feature intense regional flavor—Eugene’s blend of college-town hippie and rural orneriness—along with muscular language, fantasy, and genre forms with offbeat twists. Among the many standout pieces, Meli Hull’s essay “Non-Words” takes a delightful romp through her baby’s language acquisition. (“Additions to our lexicon include…asking her if she wants to ‘fly high in the sky’ and then doing a cheerleading count-off of ‘one-two, down-UP!’ as I lift her into the air. She squeals and giggles and opens her round mouth in a big grin.”) Matthew Dickman’s story “Leveling Up” imagines Death as a 15-year-old punk playing Ms. Pacman at a video arcade in prose that mixes cosmic grandiosity with adolescent pique. (“I was in Pompeii, fucking Pompeii, and I can’t get this stupid asshole on the screen to move fast enough not to get eaten by fucking ghosts.”) And Ellerhoff’s adult fable “The Fox and the Hedgehog” has the former consoling the latter when he’s dumped by the Solar Witch in favor of an old flame in a gush of bawdy Irish wisdom. (“That witch already had the big story’f her life goin on before ya showed up….Chapter Fifty-Nine: The Hedgehog Arrives. Chapter Sixty: Feckface Returns ’n’ Gives It to Her in the Arse Again.”) The series opener’s excellent poetry includes Erik Muller’s cycle “A Boy’s Eyes,” a plangent exploration of a father’s brutality told in grim language (“It is not clear why he / strikes our mother. Something snarls, / something drives the Old Man. / Later she bows her head / over a bucket so she doesn’t / bleed onto what she has to clean”). And Jenny Root’s “That Which Lies Beside the Slough” is a searing evocation of a homeless camp. (“The blankets that lay heaped beneath the bridge covered them / head to toe. / The blankets, which once lay folded upon a quiet shelf, trembled in / the scolding wind.”) The result is an enthralling read with literary flair and lots of heart.
A scintillating collection, full of imaginative stories and strong, vivid writing.Pub Date: Nov. 14, 2023
ISBN: 9798988151203
Page Count: 248
Publisher: Tsunami Press
Review Posted Online: May 16, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 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
An existential crisis that steps on its own final moments.
With only a month left until the world ends due to a swiftly approaching black hole, Don and Rodney, a retired gay couple, road-trip from Maine to Washington to spend their final days with their son.
After reports that a planet-swallowing black hole is making its way toward Earth, Rodney and Don—who have been together for 40 years and survived everything from homophobia to the HIV crisis—decide to pack their belongings into an RV, say goodbye to their neighbors, and travel from Camden, Maine, to Washington to uphold a promise to spend their final days with their son. They can’t wait any longer, since there’s already chaos around the country: “Military vehicles in the streets of most cities and towns. Looting, rioting, the burning of cars and buildings and people, all of it had already happened.” As they make their way west across the country, they encounter fellow travelers ranging from close-knit families to free-spirited hippies, some of whom have come to terms with the impending end of the world and others who haven’t. While the story seems to be asking readers what they would do if they had 30 days left to live, and reflects on what different kinds of acceptance might look like in the face of unavoidable tragedy, it loses some of its poignancy in a series of thinly padded monologues about the meaning of life. Clearly intended to pack an emotional punch, it’s failed by an abrupt ending, and the way the journey’s mystery—which will be obvious to many readers—is revealed by an info dump in the last chapter.
An existential crisis that steps on its own final moments.Pub Date: April 28, 2026
ISBN: 9781250881236
Page Count: 176
Publisher: Tor
Review Posted Online: March 9, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2026
© Copyright 2026 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
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