Stories that will delight readers crushed under the weight of the contemporary world.
Brazil-born Lima explores questions of identity, politics, and creativity through a surrealist lens in these short stories.
The Devil is a recurring figure in Lima’s collection, sometimes appearing as a figure of intrigue, other times as a source of inspiration. In the opening story, "Rapture," the main character is not a writer when she first meets the Devil, “at least not openly so.” And yet, “the Devil had known...the space she had inside her to carry her stories. He had known her hunger.” As if a telepathic confidant, the Devil intuits who the writer is before she herself knows and helps instruct her on how to fulfill her creative vocation. Lima sometimes features characters in the very process of writing, as in “Ghost Story,” in which the narrator “type[s] ‘Ghost Story’ at the top of the page and wonder[s] where to start.” While her characters may not know what should come next, Lima adroitly comments on everything from MFA workshops to Brazilian politics with cheeky aplomb. Though this is not an overtly political book, the specter of neoliberalism in both Brazil and the U.S. hovers on the periphery of many stories. Often, the hellscape of global politics occurs on the television in another room, an ongoing commentary that is ever present, though muted like white noise. The personal becomes political within literary spaces where “sometimes, when the immigrant writer wrote, there was no migration in the story, and she wondered if there should be. Sometimes the immigrant writer wrote immigrant stories and wondered if she shouldn’t. These were the kind of questions she talked about with the Devil.” Who gets to tell certain stories and why? The book’s title evokes both guile and labor, cunning and skill. The dream for Lima’s characters, plagued by global pandemics and wealth disparities, is not health or fame, but writing. Art may not save us from the Devil or hell on earth, but it can come close.
Stories that will delight readers crushed under the weight of the contemporary world.Pub Date: June 18, 2024
ISBN: 9781250292971
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Tor
Review Posted Online: May 17, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2024
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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