An adroit, dry-witted tale about a strong-willed woman trying to live her life.
A woman in 1948 New York City tests the waters of personal independence.
At the opening of Parrish’s novel, a young woman named Edith Sloan is working as a typist in New York, staying with her aunt Margaret, and keeping up a steady correspondence with her law student husband, Walter, who’s at Harvard Law School on the GI Bill. Edith is away from her husband but she’s hardly miserable: She has a job, complete independence, and loves living and bantering with her free-spirited aunt. Edith originally left Walter amicably enough, but the letters from him and his parents (and her own folks) urging her to return to Cambridge and the marriage have become increasingly imploring. Eventually, grudgingly, she decides to leave her life in New York and attempt to become Walter’s idea of a dutiful wife in Massachusetts as he finishes his studies and seeks to become a successful lawyer. This works about as well as readers might expect, and along the way, Edith must also deal with the worsening illness of her stern father and the not-so-subtle condescension of her new peers in Cambridge. Parrish employs a wonderfully light touch throughout these stories of Edith’s adventures, always drawing readers right up to the brink of a flat realization about some situation and then pulling back and letting them step into it themselves. Although Edith is a consistently well-realized and enjoyable character in her own right, another of the book’s strengths is the understated way the author makes Walter the stand-in for an entire generation that expressed offhand sexism. He cluelessly tells Edith, for instance, that he admires her compassion––it’s a beautiful trait in a woman and suggests “the loving mother she would eventually become,” casually adding, “Every woman wants to be a mother.” (He even tells Edith she should ignore book reviews, the clod.) Readers will be quietly cheering for Edith to conquer all.
An adroit, dry-witted tale about a strong-willed woman trying to live her life.Pub Date: Oct. 4, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-956692-34-1
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Unsolicited Press
Review Posted Online: May 5, 2022
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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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