A story with sumptuous description and a gradually intensifying plot that makes for compulsive reading.
An American scholar visits Cuba and becomes embroiled in the politics of everyday life in this poetic novel by Putnam, author of Full Moon at Noontide (2009).
Professor Laura Gallagher is traveling to Havana to read a paper she has written on Ernest Hemingway to fellow American and Cuban scholars. It’s the 1990s, and such opportunities to visit the country had previously been quite rare. Gallagher is excited and a bit afraid, although her motivation to travel goes beyond mere academic interest; she’s also desperate to use the trip as a way to outrun painful memories. Ever since the death of her mother when she was 12, Gallagher has struggled to face her darkest moments, including the loss of a baby following an emergency C-section, an unrewarding love life, and a traumatic hysterectomy. Almost as soon as she arrives in Cuba, she falls ill with a gastrointestinal illness. Her caregiver is the mysterious Maria, who was once a doctor but is now a hotel cleaner. Maria introduces Gallagher to her daughter, Pilar, who, as a child, believed Hemingway was a spirit watching over her. After Gallagher recovers, she feels an immediate bond with this Cuban family. However, she’s soon accosted by a man on the street who tells her to “mind [her] own business” and “stay away.” In an environment where neighbors spy on neighbors, Gallagher must tread very carefully in order to comprehend and fight against the dangers that are facing her newfound friends and rediscover a lost sense of purpose and peace within herself.
As the novel goes on, Putnam skillfully intertwines history and fiction by carefully pondering the impact of political events from the perspective of the Cuban people: “On those dark October days years ago, what was it like from here, with the lighthouse dark and missiles aimed every which way?...No cannons at nine to announce that all is well.” Overall, she offers readers a multifaceted, elegantly described portrait of Cuban life—from the sensual enticement of a famed highball cocktail (“I want the chink of ice cubes, the splash of water, the sweet immersion….Rum, lime, mint, a spritz of seltzer and ice. Mojito”) to the haunting yet enthralling local atmosphere that’s informed by the religion Santeria. However, despite the novel’s breathtakingly evocative descriptive focus on the country and culture, the author never neglects the intricacies of her complex plot. She shows herself to be expert at poetically exploring and pinpointing her protagonist’s psychological state: “I’m an outsider to my own story. I’m still the little girl with the unopened chest buried under her bed.” The novel’s portrayal of Gallagher’s story of altruism and catharsis makes for a satisfying and rewarding read—and one that also confronts a range of relatable anxieties. In addition, there are sufficient Hemingway references here to satisfy fans of that author. Overall, this impressively expansive novel will appeal to academics, Cubanophiles, and general readers alike.
A story with sumptuous description and a gradually intensifying plot that makes for compulsive reading.Pub Date: June 2, 2022
ISBN: 979-8-42647-677-6
Page Count: 347
Publisher: Self
Review Posted Online: Aug. 8, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2022
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Fans of Stockett’s bestselling debut will love this engaging follow-up.
Stockett heads to Mississippi for another historical novel about feisty women.
This time, perhaps recalling criticisms of cultural appropriation in The Help (2009), she sticks to feisty white women, with one exception. The setting is Oxford in 1933. For two miserable years, 11-year-old Meg has lived in “the Orphan,” a county asylum for parentless girls. Chairlady Garnett—a villain so one-note she’d twirl a mustache if she had one—makes it her mission to ostracize the older girls she deems unadoptable, stigmatizing them as offspring of the “feebleminded” mothers who abandoned them. She particularly has it in for smart, sassy Meg, who refuses to believe her mother’s mysterious disappearance was deliberate. Elsewhere in Oxford, Birdie Calhoun comes to visit her sister Frances, who married a wealthy banker, to ask for money on behalf of their mother and grandmother back in Footely. Frances isn’t thrilled by this reminder of her impoverished small-town origins. But she’s trying to climb up in Oxford society by volunteering at the Orphan, the asylum’s books need to be done before the state inspector shows up in a few weeks, and Birdie is a bookkeeper. Having neatly arranged to keep Birdie in town and draw these two storylines together, Stockett goes on to spin a compulsively readable yarn with enough plot for a half-dozen novels. Birdie and Meg become friends, Meg is adopted despite Garnett’s best efforts, Meg’s mother turns up at the Orphan demanding to know where her child is—and that’s less than a quarter of the way through a long, winding narrative that keeps piling on more dramatic developments until all loose ends are neatly, if hastily, wrapped up in the final pages. Stockett might be making a point about Southern women facing facts and standing up for themselves, but mostly this is just a satisfyingly twisty tale that should make a great miniseries.
Fans of Stockett’s bestselling debut will love this engaging follow-up.Pub Date: May 5, 2026
ISBN: 9781954118812
Page Count: 656
Publisher: Spiegel & Grau
Review Posted Online: Feb. 2, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2026
BOOK REVIEW
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
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