A novel of family dysfunction that veers into startling and original territory.
Three sons of alcoholic parents return to an idyllic setting of long-ago trauma.
Fluidly translated from the Swedish by Willson-Broyles, this is Schulman’s first U.S. publication. In a frame story anchoring the narrative, three brothers have convened, after a long absence, at their family cabin on a lake to scatter their mother’s ashes. In the mind of protagonist Benjamin, the middle brother, events and memories spiral and circle in flashback upon flashback—it’s a take-no-prisoners kind of nonlinearity. During childhood summers at the lake, Benjamin, his aloof older brother, Nils, and irascible younger brother, Pierre, get into various scrapes. “Mom and Dad,” as they're always called, exercise minimal supervision between frequent “siestas” and extended cocktail hours, leaving the children to disappear for hours in the woods and nearly drown in the lake. Their parents’ volatility and inconsistent care have fostered an awkward semi-estrangement among the adult siblings, which, at the water’s edge, erupts into a brawl, with their mother’s urn weaponized. Shocks escalate, from the boys’ unthinking cruelty toward a fish to a disastrous family outing on Midsummer Eve to the heist of Mom’s ashes from a crematory. All this may seem over-the-top, but Benjamin’s meditative perspective lends gravitas to the proceedings. His memories hover over one incident he recoils from confronting, even questioning his own sanity to avoid it. A pivotal figure in the novel is the family dog, Molly, a bellwether of unease; she is anxious and seems to only trust Benjamin and Mom. The behavior of Mom in particular is portrayed as classic alcoholic personality disorder; but it slowly dawns on the reader that there is far more to it than that. A final truth emerges, forcing the reader to reevaluate all that has gone before.
A novel of family dysfunction that veers into startling and original territory.Pub Date: Oct. 5, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-385-54756-7
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: July 27, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2021
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
Still, a respectful and absorbing page-turner.
Hannah’s new novel is an homage to the extraordinary courage and endurance of Frenchwomen during World War II.
In 1995, an elderly unnamed widow is moving into an Oregon nursing home on the urging of her controlling son, Julien, a surgeon. This trajectory is interrupted when she receives an invitation to return to France to attend a ceremony honoring passeurs: people who aided the escape of others during the war. Cut to spring, 1940: Viann has said goodbye to husband Antoine, who's off to hold the Maginot line against invading Germans. She returns to tending her small farm, Le Jardin, in the Loire Valley, teaching at the local school and coping with daughter Sophie’s adolescent rebellion. Soon, that world is upended: The Germans march into Paris and refugees flee south, overrunning Viann’s land. Her long-estranged younger sister, Isabelle, who has been kicked out of multiple convent schools, is sent to Le Jardin by Julien, their father in Paris, a drunken, decidedly unpaternal Great War veteran. As the depredations increase in the occupied zone—food rationing, systematic looting, and the billeting of a German officer, Capt. Beck, at Le Jardin—Isabelle’s outspokenness is a liability. She joins the Resistance, volunteering for dangerous duty: shepherding downed Allied airmen across the Pyrenees to Spain. Code-named the Nightingale, Isabelle will rescue many before she's captured. Meanwhile, Viann’s journey from passive to active resistance is less dramatic but no less wrenching. Hannah vividly demonstrates how the Nazis, through starvation, intimidation and barbarity both casual and calculated, demoralized the French, engineering a community collapse that enabled the deportations and deaths of more than 70,000 Jews. Hannah’s proven storytelling skills are ideally suited to depicting such cataclysmic events, but her tendency to sentimentalize undermines the gravitas of this tale.
Still, a respectful and absorbing page-turner.Pub Date: Feb. 3, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-312-57722-3
Page Count: 448
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Nov. 19, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2014
BOOK TO SCREEN
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
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