Though some sections prove mundane, the work paints an intricate, memorable portrait.
A semi-autobiographical, character driven novel chronicling one American man’s life from author Riske.
In a series of short chapters, readers learn all about a protagonist named Al (who happens to share the same first name as the author). From Al’s younger years in the Pacific Northwest in the 1970s to his retirement in 2024 in California, the narrative presents snippets of his life. One of the main players is a woman he met in college named Annie. The two marry in a “rain-soaked park in Oregon” in 1976. Much to the surprise of many around them, their marriage stands the test of time; Even after 28 years, Al is still wild about Annie’s “beautiful face.” Al’s longtime friend Cory is not so lucky—he has his first potential marriage called off shortly before the wedding. Further down the road, Cory marries a woman after knowing her for only six months. This union is fraught from the get-go and ultimately dissolves in divorce, and Cory spends time sleeping on the floor in a sparse studio apartment. Al is tempted by a co-worker with whom he shares “a certain chemistry” that he admits scares him. His greater struggle, however, is with his lifelong ambition to become a published author. The novel moves quickly as the chapters progress; embellishment is kept to a minimum. Al tells readers things like, “I find it easy to picture Cory alone in his studio apartment” without going overboard with unnecessary details. As a lasting image of Al and those in his life takes shape, readers grow eager to learn their fates. Not that Al’s life is always a roller-coaster—some chapters, such as those devoted to vacations that Al and Annie take, are not always page-turners (a trip to Montana inspires statements like “Montana is full of lakes”). Yet, by the end, the individual stories accumulate into a bigger picture. This bird’s eye view of a life makes for a genuinely pleasing reading experience.
Though some sections prove mundane, the work paints an intricate, memorable portrait.Pub Date: May 13, 2024
ISBN: 9798324974916
Page Count: 239
Publisher: Self
Review Posted Online: July 10, 2024
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
Fans of Stockett’s bestselling debut will love this engaging follow-up.
Stockett heads to Mississippi for another historical novel about feisty women.
This time, perhaps recalling criticisms of cultural appropriation in The Help (2009), she sticks to feisty white women, with one exception. The setting is Oxford in 1933. For two miserable years, 11-year-old Meg has lived in “the Orphan,” a county asylum for parentless girls. Chairlady Garnett—a villain so one-note she’d twirl a mustache if she had one—makes it her mission to ostracize the older girls she deems unadoptable, stigmatizing them as offspring of the “feebleminded” mothers who abandoned them. She particularly has it in for smart, sassy Meg, who refuses to believe her mother’s mysterious disappearance was deliberate. Elsewhere in Oxford, Birdie Calhoun comes to visit her sister Frances, who married a wealthy banker, to ask for money on behalf of their mother and grandmother back in Footely. Frances isn’t thrilled by this reminder of her impoverished small-town origins. But she’s trying to climb up in Oxford society by volunteering at the Orphan, the asylum’s books need to be done before the state inspector shows up in a few weeks, and Birdie is a bookkeeper. Having neatly arranged to keep Birdie in town and draw these two storylines together, Stockett goes on to spin a compulsively readable yarn with enough plot for a half-dozen novels. Birdie and Meg become friends, Meg is adopted despite Garnett’s best efforts, Meg’s mother turns up at the Orphan demanding to know where her child is—and that’s less than a quarter of the way through a long, winding narrative that keeps piling on more dramatic developments until all loose ends are neatly, if hastily, wrapped up in the final pages. Stockett might be making a point about Southern women facing facts and standing up for themselves, but mostly this is just a satisfyingly twisty tale that should make a great miniseries.
Fans of Stockett’s bestselling debut will love this engaging follow-up.Pub Date: May 5, 2026
ISBN: 9781954118812
Page Count: 656
Publisher: Spiegel & Grau
Review Posted Online: Feb. 2, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2026
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
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