A sprawling debut with an urgent message about the danger of climate change that unfortunately gets lost in the clutter.
A young woman journeys to a remote island camp hailed as the solution for climate disaster.
In addition to the global environmental problem, 22-year-old Willa Marks has many problems of her own: Her paranoid parents died by joint suicide when she was 17, after which she was sent to Boston to live with her self-obsessed cousins. Yearning for a place to belong, Willa splits her time among her menial cafe job, the pseudo-anarchist Freegans, and Harvard sociologist Sylvia Gill, the mysterious woman who becomes her companion, then lover. After a nasty fight about how Sylvia isn't as committed to progressive causes as she claims to be, Willa locks herself in Sylvia's office and finds a copy of Living the Solution, a guidebook describing a place called Camp Hope, “humanity’s best shot for changing course” from its current track of climatological and general doom. Sparked with new purpose, Willa travels to the Bahamian island of Eleutheria, where Camp Hope is located. She discovers that everyone there can also disappoint her, from the icy crew members to mythlike leader Roy Adams, but she tries to remain committed to the cause. Will they achieve their ambitious goal of launching Camp Hope and saving the dying planet, or is it truly too late? The nonlinear narrative wends its way from the events of Willa’s past to her time at Camp Hope and after; sporadic flashbacks to Eleutheria’s founding bog things down further. The buildup of Sylvia and Willa’s complex relationship is well written, sure to please readers who love a good queer May-December romance, but the novel is too long on detail in many places and frustratingly short in others; the fraught relationship between the locals on Eleutheria and the crew members is hinted at but never fully fleshed out. Much of the novel’s momentum stalls in Willa’s long-winded, retrospective narration.
A sprawling debut with an urgent message about the danger of climate change that unfortunately gets lost in the clutter.Pub Date: March 8, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-593-31524-8
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Vintage
Review Posted Online: Jan. 11, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2022
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
SEEN & HEARD
A pleasant if not entirely convincing tribute to the power of art.
A French art historian’s English-language fiction debut combines the story of a loving relationship between a grandfather and granddaughter with an enlightening discussion of art.
One day, when 10-year-old Mona removes the necklace given to her by her now-dead grandmother, she experiences a frightening, hour-long bout of blindness. Her parents take her to the doctor, who gives her a variety of tests and also advises that she see a psychiatrist. Her grandfather Henry tells her parents that he will take care of that assignment, but instead, he takes Mona on weekly visits to either the Louvre, the Musée d’Orsay, or the Centre Pompidou, where each week they study a single work of art, gazing at it deeply and then discussing its impact and history and the biography of its maker. For the reader’s benefit, Schlesser also describes each of the works in scrupulous detail. As the year goes on, Mona faces the usual challenges of elementary school life and the experiences of being an only child, and slowly begins to understand the causes of her temporary blindness. Primarily an amble through a few dozen of Schlesser’s favorite works of art—some well known and others less so, from Botticelli and da Vinci through Basquiat and Bourgeois—the novel would probably benefit from being read at a leisurely pace. While the dialogue between Henry and the preternaturally patient and precocious Mona sometimes strains credulity, readers who don’t have easy access to the museums of Paris may enjoy this vicarious trip in the company of a guide who focuses equally on that which can be seen and the context that can’t be. Come for the novel, stay for the introductory art history course.
A pleasant if not entirely convincing tribute to the power of art.Pub Date: Aug. 26, 2025
ISBN: 9798889661115
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Europa Editions
Review Posted Online: June 7, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2025
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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