Deeply emotional and satisfying.
A story of love, drugs, and hope.
In Anastasia, Florida, Olney Kartheizer had been a doting father to his son, Cully, and a devoted husband to Kat, who eventually leaves him. The lad was a star athlete who could pitch with either hand and write in Spanish with one hand while writing in English with the other. One day, he tells Olney he’s quitting sports because “fun will only get you so far.” Cully has some minor but painful accidents that lead to his use of OxyContin—or does the Oxy lead to the accidents? We never know, but the addictive poison wedges itself between father and son. Cully keeps asking his dad for money for one thing or another to “turn his life around,” and Olney is increasingly reluctant to give it. Cully tells his father he doesn’t need his approval and is “uncomfortable with constant parental proximity, preferring, himself, the bliss of distance.” Cully says he wishes his dad would treat him like a human being who has feelings, but Olney seems to be doing his best. Then Cully disappears, Olney looks for him and finally finds him—but not for long. The young man is on a self-destructive path, even getting fired from jobs such as sign twirling. His sometime girlfriend aptly calls him an “oxy moron,” one of the many examples of clever wordplay that help lighten the story. Olney, who doesn’t believe in God but likes to watch religious programs on TV, by chance meets Mireille Tighe, who is sweet, funny, and dying. Her throat is constricting from dysphagia, and soon she’ll be unable to swallow. “I intend to get to know you,” he tells her. “Better hurry up,” she replies. Readers will feel worse for this lovely woman than she does for herself, adding a layer of emotion atop the tale of filial loss. Olney could be any single father, any ordinary man who loves his child. But he spends a lot of time daydreaming about the past because that’s where he left his son. Meanwhile, does Olney love Cully only for who he was and not for who he is? Or is the love unconditional, as it may seem to the reader? Cully keeps leaving without a trace, and Olney keeps looking. And hoping.
Deeply emotional and satisfying.Pub Date: Jan. 14, 2025
ISBN: 9781324035732
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Norton
Review Posted Online: Feb. 1, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2025
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
© Copyright 2026 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
