An entertaining shaggy dog of a futuristic whodunit.
An SF–tinged romp that blends elements of the noir thriller and the picaresque novel.
Son of the late John le Carré, Harkaway comes by his moody thriller credentials honestly. Yet here he echoes not his father so much as the Thomas Pynchon of Inherent Vice. His book stars schmo of a detective Cal Sounder, who’s pulled into a tangled tale of corporate intrigue and ethnic cuisine (“the Goan-Hungarian place is called Bela’s but the chef’s name is Atilla....His wife, Mâri, runs the business and she’s the brains”). The men blunder through, for the most part, while the women do the thinking. One topic at the top of everyone’s list is why a “nerd,” as Sounder describes him, should be lying dead on his apartment floor, his outfit a pastiche of high-flood pants, a clip-on tie, and orthotic shoes that “complete the anti-chic vibe.” Oh, and the dead nerd with the bullet in his brain is 7 feet, 8 inches tall and 91 years old: a superman, in other words, known in Harkaway’s metropolis of the near future as a Titan. And how does one get to be so old and gigantic? Therein lies a tale of genetic manipulation—familiar to fans of movies such as RoboCop and Elysium—the mastermind of which is, naturally, a Very Bad Man—or half-man, half-whatever—named Stefan Tonfamecasca. The mad science required to produce a Titan might be intellectually interesting, but it has produced a few monsters to make Sounder’s life miserable. And, Tonfamecasca being the creator of a new life form, who knows how many to produce before “ruining that post-scarcity thing for the few”? There are the inevitable crooked cops and femmes fatales (some of them quite oversized) along with some fun culinary side notes (“Barbecue...is the only food apart from lobster where a grown man is permitted to wear a bib without criticism”) to pepper Harkaway’s tale.
An entertaining shaggy dog of a futuristic whodunit.Pub Date: May 16, 2023
ISBN: 9780593535363
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: March 13, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2023
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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