A sensitive and well-plotted re-creation of perhaps the most scientifically and culturally significant era in French history.
An adventure tale featuring medicine, madness, and art in Meek’s historical novel set in 19th-century France.
Young Sabrine Weiss is talented, beautiful, innocent, and deeply disturbed. She’s also subject to what seem to be epileptic fits. When the novel opens, her fiercely protective older sister, Julie, has liberated her from the Salpêtrière, the most famous teaching asylum in Europe, hoping that the wider and more stimulating world of the Paris art scene will prove therapeutic. Julie is an editor and translator with ties to the vibrant Impressionist community, and all the expected scenesters are here: Cezanne, Degas, Pissarro, Monet and Manet, Gauguin, and Vincent van Gogh and his fiercely protective brother, Theo. Vincent, of course, is also deeply disturbed, famously slicing off his ear and committing suicide at 37. (Sabrine and Vincent eventually become soul mates.) Julie has many talents, among them hypnosis, by which she can probe a person’s distant past; she also can coax their dreams from them, which is her friend Sigmund Freud’s cue to enter the story. Will Sabrine be cured of her epilepsy, and her traumatic secret unearthed? This epic battle of science versus faith is one of the novel’s recurring themes, while medical advances and discoveries also take center stage. Freud’s alienist theories were just beginning to be warily respected. He had been the mentee of the famous Dr. Charcot, director the Salpêtrière, but they eventually parted ways. Julie sums it up by insisting (rightly) that the cause of her sister’s disturbed mind is not physiological (per Charcot) but psychological (per Freud). Meek notes changes in the three challenging decades that ushered in modern science and modern sensibilities. He’s a competent writer and keeps the plot moving. He revels in detailed scenes like the artists’ wild parties; and, in the denouement, readers get a sympathetic portrait of “Father” Pissarro, getting on in years but still delighting in the service of art. It’s a wonderfully upbeat note to end on.
A sensitive and well-plotted re-creation of perhaps the most scientifically and culturally significant era in French history.Pub Date: April 30, 2024
ISBN: 9781962465342
Page Count: 654
Publisher: Historium Press
Review Posted Online: July 12, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2024
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
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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