A masterful, acute, and very British novel, revealing the tensions of a time beset by winds of change.
Neighboring couples in the rural West Country weather the famously frigid British winter of 1962.
Miller's 10th novel opens in an asylum near Bristol, England, where one patient awakens in the night to find that another—a boy of 19—has died by suicide. Though we will later learn how these characters connect to the main plot, the focus then shifts to a pair of marriages. One couple, Bill and Rita Simmons, lives on a dairy farm. Bill is new to farming and Rita not long ago worked as a dancer in a club; now she’s pregnant, reading paperbacks and half-heartedly attempting to cook. It is she who will one day, out of boredom, cross the field that separates the Simmonses from their wealthier neighbors, the Parrys: the local physician, Dr. Eric Parry (he prescribed the pills the dead boy took) and his wife, Irene. Though her background is much fancier than Rita’s, Irene is also newly pregnant and the two easily form a friendship. One of the high points of the book, showing off Miller’s dazzling prose and very dry wit, is the drinks party Irene throws on Boxing Day. This party is complicated for Eric by the attendance of his mistress, along with her husband and son, but they will avoid trouble, at least for now. Very much in the air of the novel are World War II and the Holocaust, which the characters lived through in different ways not so long ago. Eric’s medical partner, Gabby Miklos, barely escaped the camps, and tries to share his story with Bill Simmons at the drinks party. “When Gabby began again—Häftling, Sonderkommando, Judenlager—Bill, staring at an abandoned cheese stick on the tablecloth, began to withdraw his heart.” In the same room, to the delight of the other guests, Rita is demonstrating a dance called the mashed potato. Miller is an expert juggler of dark and light, of big and small, of seen and unseen.
A masterful, acute, and very British novel, revealing the tensions of a time beset by winds of change.Pub Date: Nov. 4, 2025
ISBN: 9798889661566
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Europa Editions
Review Posted Online: Aug. 29, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2025
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 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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