Harun's novel reverberates with nostalgia, psychological insight, and the sacredness of community.
An intimate look at a small Pacific Northwest town and the complex lives of its people.
In early 1963, in order to reinvigorate the American people after the nervous terrors of the Cuban missile crisis, President John F. Kennedy had an idea for a national event that could bring folks together and make a show of the country’s spirit. It was called “The Big Walk,” and it was originally aimed at the Marine Corps—a challenge to walk 50 miles in 20 hours. Soon people all over the country had taken up the challenge and with grit, stamina, and patriotic fervor, planned out and hiked 50 mile paths in and around their towns and cities. This community effort is the framing device of Harun’s novel, a premise that works extremely well not only as a way to delineate her characters as they painstakingly traverse the thick woods and hunters’ paths of the Washington coast and forestland, but also thematically, as a metaphor for the ways in which these people climb, slip, stumble, bump, and redirect themselves through their lives. The residents of Humtown making up this motley pack of sojourners include the local gossip, who happens to be the town’s sole phone operator; a teenage girl, desperately afraid of her abusive brother, with a stolen item to dispose of; a recently widowed schoolteacher racked by grief and plagued by thoughts of suicide; a cheerful yet peculiar man who may or may not be a Catholic priest; and an assortment of Boy Scouts and old-time farmers with naturalist skills to display and courage to prove. Overshadowing all in this exceptionally well-drawn, dusky world is the eerie disappearance of a young mother and her two children, the husband likely enough responsible for it but with no evidence against him, a dark man skittering nervously, threateningly round the edges of the group’s physically punishing, ultimately redemptive path.
Harun's novel reverberates with nostalgia, psychological insight, and the sacredness of community.Pub Date: Sept. 15, 2023
ISBN: 9781946724656
Page Count: 248
Publisher: Acre
Review Posted Online: July 13, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2023
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A welcome literary resurrection that deserves a place alongside Wright’s best-known work.
A falsely accused Black man goes into hiding in this masterful novella by Wright (1908-1960), finally published in full.
Written in 1941 and '42, between Wright’s classics Native Son and Black Boy, this short novel concerns Fred Daniels, a modest laborer who’s arrested by police officers and bullied into signing a false confession that he killed the residents of a house near where he was working. In a brief unsupervised moment, he escapes through a manhole and goes into hiding in a sewer. A series of allegorical, surrealistic set pieces ensues as Fred explores the nether reaches of a church, a real estate firm, and a jewelry store. Each stop is an opportunity for Wright to explore themes of hope, greed, and exploitation; the real estate firm, Wright notes, “collected hundreds of thousands of dollars in rent from poor colored folks.” But Fred’s deepening existential crisis and growing distance from society keep the scenes from feeling like potted commentaries. As he wallpapers his underground warren with cash, mocking and invalidating the currency, he registers a surrealistic but engrossing protest against divisive social norms. The novel, rejected by Wright’s publisher, has only appeared as a substantially truncated short story until now, without the opening setup and with a different ending. Wright's take on racial injustice seems to have unsettled his publisher: A note reveals that an editor found reading about Fred’s treatment by the police “unbearable.” That may explain why Wright, in an essay included here, says its focus on race is “rather muted,” emphasizing broader existential themes. Regardless, as an afterword by Wright’s grandson Malcolm attests, the story now serves as an allegory both of Wright (he moved to France, an “exile beyond the reach of Jim Crow and American bigotry”) and American life. Today, it resonates deeply as a story about race and the struggle to envision a different, better world.
A welcome literary resurrection that deserves a place alongside Wright’s best-known work.Pub Date: April 20, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-59853-676-8
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Library of America
Review Posted Online: March 16, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2021
BOOK TO SCREEN
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
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