A collection with so many important stories that some of the less successful ones could have been left out.
Cultural loss, romantic disappointment, sexism, sexual violence, and the cost of racism are examined in close to five dozen stories told through the eyes of Black and Puerto Rican characters.
The biracial children in the stories in the first section, "Quarter Rican," are all pursuing their Puerto Rican heritage: by sneaking behind their mother’s back to learn Spanish, searching for Puerto Rican faces on TV reruns, or scouring the neighborhood for old men who might be their grandfathers. What they don’t know is how much their Black grandmother struggled after her Puerto Rican husband abandoned her, returning to the island and starting a new family. Told from a constellation of points of view, these stories, many of which are no longer than five or six pages, accumulate emotional force and capture the complexity of families and generational divides. Gautier is a master of the short-short story (often referred to as sudden fiction). Pieces like “My Mother Wins an Oxygen Tank at the Casino, or, My Mother Makes an Exception” and “Forgive Me” evoke the fierce love of daughters for their mothers in just two pages, and “Summer Says” swiftly captures summer’s pleasures in the Brownsville neighborhood of Brooklyn: “All summer we have the days to ourselves, the neighborhood to ourselves, and the streets are ours for the taking,” the children announce. “Each morning we are few, but by afternoon we are legion.” Sometimes, brevity does a disservice to Gautier’s subject matter, especially when she’s writing about women’s disillusionment with men. In “So Good To See You,” for example, a woman goes on a quasi-date with an old high school friend who spills gravy on his tie and thinks he’s a “good catch” just by virtue of not being in jail. This and a handful of other stories strike a single note and move on. Still, Gautier has a real gift for finding dignity and bravery in the lives of ordinary women. The collection’s final stories focus on Mrs. McAllister, an aging woman whose commitment to her family, especially her dead sister, may move you to tears.
A collection with so many important stories that some of the less successful ones could have been left out.Pub Date: Jan. 16, 2024
ISBN: 9781593767587
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Soft Skull Press
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2023
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
A debut novel with bright spots, but unbalanced and lacking in finesse.
A high school senior pursues an affair with her teacher.
Seventeen-year-old Waldo, the narrator of McCurdy’s fiction debut, lives in Anchorage, Alaska, with her mother, though she’s long been the parent in their relationship. She heats her own frozen meals and pays the bills on time while her mom chases man after man and makes well-meaning promises she never keeps. Waldo blows her Victoria’s Secret wages on online shopping sprees and binges on junk food, inevitably crashing after the fleeting highs of her indulgences. Mr. Korgy, her creative writing teacher, has “thinning hair and nose pores”; he’s 40 years old and married with a child. Nevertheless—or possibly as a result?—Waldo’s attraction to him is “instant. So sudden it’s alarming. So palpable it’s confusing.” Mr. Korgy professes to want to keep their friendship aboveboard, but after a sexual encounter at the school’s winter formal that she initiates, an affair begins. Will this reckless pursuit be the one that actually satisfies Waldo, and is she as mature as she thinks she is? Waldo is a keen observer of people and provides sharp commentary on the punishing work of female beauty. Readers of McCurdy’s bestselling memoir, I’m Glad My Mom Died (2022), will surely be curious about the tumultuous mother-daughter relationship, and it is one of the novel’s highlights, full of realistic pity and anger and need. (“I want to scream at her. I want her to hug me.”) Unfortunately, the prose is often unwieldy and sometimes downright cringeworthy: When Waldo tells Mr. Korgy she loves him, “The words hang in the air in that constipated way they do when you know that you shouldn’t have said them.” Waldo frequently lists emotions and adjectives in triplicate, and events that could be significant aren’t sufficiently explored or given enough space to breathe before the novel races on to the next thing.
A debut novel with bright spots, but unbalanced and lacking in finesse.Pub Date: Jan. 20, 2026
ISBN: 9780593723739
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: Nov. 22, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2026
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
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