Not a comfortable read, but an emotionally revealing one.
In Bagchi’s novel, a writer grapples with relationships with women—and his own past actions.
Memory, misjudgment, and midlife reckoning collide in this novel, which chronicles Arindam Chatterjee’s attempts to understand others and, belatedly, himself. The story follows the computer scientist-turned-writer as he excavates email archives and personal recollections from the late 1990s and early 2000s. At its core is Arindam’s intense, ultimately failed relationship with Supriya,a Jawaharlal Nehru University history scholar whose ideological passions and emotional silences remained opaque to him until it was too late. He also thinks about his interactions with Paroma, a poet friend who drifted out of his life; Lily Ann, an MFA student in the writing program who failed to match his intellectual expectations; and Monique, a Black American writer whom he underestimated, then re-evaluated. Bagchi threads these relationships into a novelistic exploration of male entitlement, the emotional labor of women, and the fallibility of memory. Arindam’s intellectual insecurity and self-importance are rendered with brutal honesty; his failures to listen to, understand, or perceive women as more than reflections of his own literary ambitions form a critical portrait of a man awakening to his own limitations through the act of writing. Bagchi’s work uses autofictional techniques, endless paragraphs, and a dark sensibility that calls to mind authors such as Karl Ove Knausgård. The prose is lucid, intelligent, sometimes self-indulgent, and peppered with references to Urdu poetry, campus Marxism, and literary ambition. The metafictional conceit of rewriting a failed first draft to “understand Supriya” can feel overly pat, but it gives the novel a recursive rhythm that reinforces its themes of misrecognition and revision. This is a novel of admission, rather than action—sometimes frustrating, often piercing, and with a view of male privilege that neither begs forgiveness nor evades blame.
Not a comfortable read, but an emotionally revealing one.Pub Date: Jan. 22, 2025
ISBN: 9789365694024
Page Count: 338
Publisher: HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: July 18, 2025
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
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
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