Warmly drawn but overly idealized characters populate a predictable plot.
A Black woman grapples with her personal and professional choices in 1960s Alabama.
Katia Daniels hasn’t followed the typical path for a Black woman in Troy, Alabama, in 1967. At 40, she’s devoted to her job as director of the Pike County Group Home for Negro Boys, where she oversees the care of neglected and abused children with a firm hand and warm heart. She’s a caretaker at home, too—since her father’s death, she’s been the support of her nurturing mother and younger twin brothers. But the closest Katia gets to having a love life is reading romance novels in a bubble bath. She’s long been self-conscious about her weight, and a recent emergency hysterectomy has left her feeling that no man will want her if she can’t bear children. She has a boring platonic relationship with an older man, Leon, but he’s more interested in watching TV with her mother. Then her routine gets blown up. Her brothers, Marcus and Aaron, both serving as Marines in Vietnam, are reported missing in action. At the boys’ home, Katia’s two newest charges bond with each other and with her: a sweet-natured 9-year-old called Pee Wee and Chad, who looks like a grown man but, at 14, is still a kid, and a badly damaged one. Then her high school crush, Seth Taylor, turns up on her doorstep, as handsome and charming as ever, despite having lost a leg in Vietnam—and much more interested in her than she ever dreamed possible. The novel winds its romance plot around the challenges Katia faces in helping the boys in her care and keeping them safe, as well as dealing with family issues as one brother returns deeply traumatized while the other remains missing. But as dramatic as those elements might seem, the novel rarely works up much suspense or intensity—almost every character is so well-intentioned, supportive, and loving that any moment of tension deflates as soon as it begins. The historical setting is gestured to but not evoked in detail, and the methods and atmosphere of the group home seem improbably contemporary for half a century ago.
Warmly drawn but overly idealized characters populate a predictable plot.Pub Date: Dec. 3, 2024
ISBN: 9781400241132
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Harper Muse
Review Posted Online: Nov. 23, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 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
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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