A fun and often funny tale of intersecting lives.
Suburbanites can’t help getting entangled in one another’s troubles in Kaltman’s pet-centric novel.
Towne is a quiet suburb on the East Coast and the sort of place where nothing ever really seems to happen. “Towne is super cute and quaint,” as one character puts it. “Like, in a time warp. Everyone wants to know everyone else’s business, but they get the dirt and go back to their safe little houses like turtles into shells.” Nell Delano is a former math prodigy who, in her 20s, has become eccentric, riding her bike around town at night and occasionally stealing other peoples’ pets. Uninspired novelist Abe Kaufman has just moved to town with his wife, baby, and pit bull, hoping that stay-at-home fatherhood will provide some good material for his fiction. Car mechanic and “wobbly-geezer” Paddy has just lost his wife and must now learn to live again as a single man. There’s also David Leibowitz, who’s about to have a bar mitzvah but suspects that he might actually be a girl; David’s recently divorced mother, Lucinda, who’s looking to build her interior decorating business; and aging, self-centered actor Brady Cole, who’s just moved into the town’s historic mansion as part of a quest to turn his life around. Nearly everyone has a dog and a secret, and their lives connect in ways that readers will find difficult to predict. Kaltman’s prose style is chatty and observant, and she shows herself to be attuned to the emotions of both her human and canine players, as when Paddy tries to get his dog to move on after the death of Paddy’s spouse: “ ‘She’s not coming back,’ Paddy told the dog over and over again, but it did no good. Barney would stare at Paddy blankly, bark once, then curl in on himself and pretend to be asleep.” The plot moves along quickly, cycling through short sections that focus on individual characters. It isn’t long before the reader is caught up in the trysts and trials of these flawed suburban dwellers.
A fun and often funny tale of intersecting lives.Pub Date: June 1, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-73-346634-9
Page Count: 362
Publisher: Word West, LLC
Review Posted Online: May 6, 2021
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with...
Talk-show queen takes tumble as millions jeer.
Nora Bridges is a wildly popular radio spokesperson for family-first virtues, but her loyal listeners don't know that she walked out on her husband and teenaged daughters years ago and didn't look back. Now that a former lover has sold racy pix of naked Nora and horny himself to a national tabloid, her estranged daughter Ruby, an unsuccessful stand-up comic in Los Angeles, has been approached to pen a tell-all. Greedy for the fat fee she's been promised, Ruby agrees and heads for the San Juan Islands, eager to get reacquainted with the mom she plans to betray. Once in the family homestead, nasty Ruby alternately sulks and glares at her mother, who is temporarily wheelchair-bound as a result of a post-scandal car crash. Uncaring, Ruby begins writing her side of the story when she's not strolling on the beach with former sweetheart Dean Sloan, the son of wealthy socialites who basically ignored him and his gay brother Eric. Eric, now dying of cancer and also in a wheelchair, has returned to the island. This dismal threesome catch up on old times, recalling their childhood idylls on the island. After Ruby's perfect big sister Caroline shows up, there's another round of heartfelt talk. Nora gradually reveals the truth about her unloving husband and her late father's alcoholism, which led her to seek the approval of others at the cost of her own peace of mind. And so on. Ruby is aghast to discover that she doesn't know everything after all, but Dean offers her subdued comfort. Happy endings await almost everyone—except for readers of this nobly preachy snifflefest.
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with syrupy platitudes about life and love.Pub Date: March 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-609-60737-5
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2001
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