Anderegg’s novel outlives its pages.
A girl outlasts a harrowing childhood and, though falteringly, enjoys control over her life.
This debut novel is told entirely in the second person, a bold move that injects the story with a special sort of hypersensitivity. As the reader grows still and silent—listening for a car in the driveway, clattering in the kitchen, any sign of parents (and thus, trouble)—alongside the narrator, known only as J, Anderegg places them into the role of a child in an abusive, neglectful home, constantly self-policing, seeking meager moments of peace, and hoping to eventually have the chance to shape their own lives. She lays out J’s good and bad days at home with her angry alcoholic father, her exhausted, spiteful mother, and her introverted older brother—her only ally and the recipient of all of their father’s beatings—in the same unflinching prose. Amid the chaos, J generally chooses numbness and painstakingly calculated obedience, even if she does not understand why she must behave a given way. “What is a rule?,” she asks, and how does she know whether it’s just? Initially, it doesn’t really matter to J. If she’s not being yelled at, she’s left alone to dream and plan for her far-off, glimmering future. She copies friends at school and people on TV; she gets a car, a credit card, a college degree. “You do not know this yet,” her wiser, future self narrates, “but you are raising you.” Tired of letting life happen to her, she molds herself into a woman through sheer will. Anderegg delicately considers the strange hollowness of having succeeded in getting out—of having the freedom and tools to find happiness, but nursing a shot nervous system and a crooked view of relationships. Yet, the book insists that nurture (or lack thereof) is not all there is. “This is your nature,” Anderegg writes. “This is who you are and who cannot be destroyed or told to shut up.” It is enlivening to witness J’s steely resolve and to follow her relationship with her brother, which offers a glance into the shocking strength of a shared childhood.
Anderegg’s novel outlives its pages.Pub Date: April 8, 2025
ISBN: 9798885740463
Page Count: 232
Publisher: Hub City Press
Review Posted Online: March 8, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 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
Though uneven, this is still a pleasurable, comforting read.
Infertility, family secrets, and alpacas all figure in Quindlen’s latest meditation on mothering and domesticity.
Polly’s life looks enviable. Happily married to the adoring Mark—a vet at the Bronx Zoo—she teaches English at a private Manhattan girls’ school and loves her work. She has a protective older brother and close girlfriends, who’ve formed a book club where no one is expected to read the book. But Polly desperately wants a child and, at 42, knows time is running out. She and Mark have gone through endless fertility treatments, to no avail. Meantime, Polly’s friends have given her a DNA kit as a jokey birthday gift, and something mysterious shows up in the test results. Then, out of nowhere, a young woman contacts her, suggesting they may be related. That’s not all: Polly feels estranged from her mother, a revered judge who’s insufficiently maternal in her daughter’s view. Her father has always cherished her, but he’s in a nursing home now with a rapidly failing mind. And something is amiss with her best pal, Sarah. Quindlen’s trademark empathy is evident throughout, and her wry humor leavens some of the serious goings-on. Early on, Mark and Polly visit a fertility clinic with photos of babies in the waiting room; for Polly, “it felt…like a Weight Watchers facility with hot fudge sundae pictures on the wall.” Then we meet these charming alpacas, humming and pronking, on a farm run by an earth mother, whose wisdom will help Polly get on with her life. The plot swerves around a bit, there may be one surplus narrative thread (e.g., Polly’s star student Josephine running aground after graduation), and at the end, the author ties things up too neatly, pushing the “circle of life” theme too hard.
Though uneven, this is still a pleasurable, comforting read.Pub Date: Feb. 24, 2026
ISBN: 9780593734605
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: Nov. 22, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2026
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