A beguiling, lyrical work of speculative fiction by a writer of international importance.
Lebanese-born French author Maalouf delivers an elegant portrait of a dying world.
Alec Zander, a pseudonymous genius who’s given up law and economics for cartooning, lives in self-imposed exile on a tiny island off the coast of France “called, curiously enough, Antioch.” He’s lived there alone for years, courtesy of a chance purchase his father made at the end of World War II, but now he has a neighbor, an archly mysterious woman named, meaningfully, Ève. As Maalouf’s novel opens, another mystery is at play: The electricity is out, the satellites are dead, the radio is silent. When it finally comes crackling back a few days later, it brings dire news of nuclear war—one that hasn’t gone to the worst-case scenario thanks to the intervention of a kind of parallel human species who have powers beyond those of ordinary mortals. All—like Agamemnon, a fellow Alec knows from a bar on a neighboring island—have Greek names. Talking to an old friend well placed in the U.S. government, Alec learns of one such emissary to Washington: “He says he’s called Demosthenes….He certainly doesn’t look much like any Greeks I know. He has copper-colored skin and speaks English like he’s spent his entire life in Massachusetts.” Hmmm. These other-humans seem to mean well, but for their troubles, “the uninvited,” ruled by a demigoddess and for all purposes immortal, come under attack by the very people they’re trying to save, and the world spirals into further madness. Maalouf’s near-future yarn is reminiscent of Arturo Pérez-Reverte in its matter-of-fact presentation of the improbable, but the overarching warning is quite of our world and time: As the ever-pensive Ève remarks, “Future historians will say our civilization was so worm-eaten that it took only a flick of the wrist for the whole edifice to collapse.”
A beguiling, lyrical work of speculative fiction by a writer of international importance.Pub Date: Dec. 5, 2023
ISBN: 9781642861341
Page Count: 288
Publisher: World Editions
Review Posted Online: Oct. 20, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2023
PERSPECTIVES
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
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
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