A poetic novel that dances on the edge of hope and despair.
A biracial woman contemplates motherhood, grief, and being Black in America.
The unnamed narrator of Harrison’s debut novel is a 34-year-old Black Japanese photographer and teacher who is struggling with infertility and an increasingly complicated relationship to motherhood. Slipping back and forth in time, the slim novel follows the narrator’s stream-of-consciousness thoughts and meandering memories. The narrator blames herself for a life-altering family tragedy and struggles to believe she deserves good things, including, and perhaps most especially, a child. Between attending therapy sessions and police brutality protests, the narrator remembers falling in love with her husband, Asher Fromm, her recent miscarriage, the agony of her young adulthood, and teaching her photography students, including a talented Black student named Noah. When Noah is shot by police while reaching for a candy bar in his back pocket, the narrator begins to question whether she wants to bring a baby into this world—into a country that murders Black children—despite it being all her husband (who is White and Jewish) wants. Her once-staunch stance against motherhood and marriage changed when she met him, but in the face of her all-consuming grief she asks: “Could my malfunctioning body and the reality of this American nightmare change it back?” As the couple figures out how to move forward after loss, the narrator finds herself secretly visiting Noah in the hospital, working on a new documentary project, and, against all odds, pregnant again. Harrison’s writing is unflinching throughout, but the depictions of miscarriage and infertility—and their effect on a marriage—are particularly haunting: “The light is perfect, and you are far away in some honest, uncharted place. I don’t know where, only that I can’t get there. Not even with directions, a compass, or you holding my hand.” In the vein of Jenny Offill and Raven Leilani, Harrison’s debut offers an intimate slice-of-life portrait with no easy questions or answers.
A poetic novel that dances on the edge of hope and despair.Pub Date: April 4, 2023
ISBN: 9781593767495
Page Count: 160
Publisher: Soft Skull Press
Review Posted Online: Jan. 24, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2023
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
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
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