A well-considered collection full of wistful imagery.
Gedaliah’s wide-ranging poetry collection provides a step-by-step consideration of growing older in an increasingly unfamiliar world.
Gedaliah muses on the aging process in his latest book of poems, which comprises five sections—“Transformations,” “The Thing” (“Das Ding”), “Dying in the Belly of the Beast,” “What We Hold No Longer,” and “The Invisible River”—all of which aim to tackle the effects of aging, memory, identity, and time on the individual. Each section begins with quotes from various sources in different fields of study, from author Peter Beagle and philosopher Søren Kierkegaard to psychiatrist Sigmund Freud and Cuban poet José Marti. While there are the occasional lighthearted poems (“I want to change myself! / I sincerely do! / So why are you looking at me / in that funny way?” in “Changing Myself”), Gedaliah is typically more serious. He sporadically assumes different personas, such as the famously exiled Greek philosopher Anaxagoras in the poem “Anaxagoras Speaks.” Other real-world inspirations include poet Walt Whitman, whose famous line, “I sound my barbaric yawp over the roofs of the world” from Song of Myself (1855) is echoed in Gedaliah’s “First Cry”: “Suffering slowly teachers / the cost of Being. The price paid / for wonderous gifts: / the unbearable awe / and manifold beauty. / And one day I will rise-up / to greet them with / a barbaric yawp!” Certain poems are more prose-like than others, such as “Epiphany” (“I’m building a master’s thesis, studying / the nature of breathlessness in AIDS / Forcing myself to read one more paper, / before sleep becomes insistent”).
The collection essentially walks readers along the various stages of life; each section loosely meanders through time, mimicking the effects of coming-of-age in a way that may remind readers of subjects explored by William Blake. From wide-eyed innocence (“I am an immigrant standing / at the river’s edge. / Dazed in twilight before / a vast new world,” in “Hope”) to hardened experience (“The sum of experience cries-out: / I want no more of this! / Yet, I have no appetite for death,” in “Disquiet”), the narrators take readers through a journey that extends through years, joys, and hardships. And while the passage of time isn’t exactly a new or revelatory topic for poetry, Gedaliah approaches it in a way that feels fresh—and not just because of modern references to the social media generation (“prep, pose, picture, gaze repeat…Now, I only see an anguished child, oppressed / by a voice inside that taunts her: / Less-than! Less-than! Less-than! Less-than!”). The freshness also comes from highlighting the duality of aging and memory, of being present while also looking backward, perhaps most clearly encapsulated in the book’s titular section. In “New Year’s Day,” for example, the narrator notices a young girl being held (despite being “too old to be carried far”) and notes that in the not-so-distant future, “innocence crumbles beneath / tumultuous years of adolescence.” In that moment, the narrator is both the child and the adult looking at the child. These musings ultimately make for a layered experience that rewards rereading.
A well-considered collection full of wistful imagery.Pub Date: Oct. 24, 2025
ISBN: 9798317812409
Page Count: 100
Publisher: BookBaby
Review Posted Online: Nov. 7, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2026
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
Great crime fiction.
An apparent suicide threatens to destroy an Irish farm town in the final volume of French’s Cal Hooper trilogy.
In the fictional western Ireland townland of Ardnakelty, “there’s a girl going after missing.” Soon young Rachel Holohan is found dead in the river. Shortly before, she had stopped at Lena Dunne’s home, and nothing had seemed amiss. The medical examiner determines she’d swallowed antifreeze, and he presumes she then fell from a bridge into the water. The medical examiner and the town agree she’d died by suicide. But there is far more to the plot: 16-year-old Trey Reddy thinks Tommy Moynihan murdered Rachel. Moynihan doles out favors and punishments to the local townsfolk, who know it’s best not to cross him. Now rumors spread that Moynihan wants land and has a secret plan to forcibly buy up parcels from the locals. A factory will be built, or a great big data center, or who knows what. If Tommy’s son, Eugene, can get elected to the local council, then compulsory purchase orders for land will follow, and the farms will disappear. Eugene, who’d been romantically involved with Rachel, is wonderfully described as “on the weedy edge of good-looking” and just fine as long as you “don’t have high expectations in the way of chins.” Lena is engaged to the American Cal Hooper, an ex-cop turned woodworker. They are “more or less raising” Trey, and these three core characters are drawn into the mystery of Rachel’s death and may have to face the looming clouds of civilizational change for Ardnakelty. Lena is chastised for “asking your wee questions all round the townland,” and Trey wants to quit school, against Cal’s advice. Finally, the story’s best line: “You can’t go killing people just because they deserve it.”
Great crime fiction.Pub Date: March 31, 2026
ISBN: 9780593493465
Page Count: 496
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: Dec. 26, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2026
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