An intelligently conceived, sporadically luminous collection that sometimes misses the mark.
This volume of short stories explores New York City’s immigrant communities.
“Survival comes in all shades, from all angles, all the time, and is worthy of reflection,” observes Shaw in the preface to his latest collection. Many of the 23 tales assembled here focus on the resilience of immigrants, particularly New Yorkers of Italian or African American descent. Each is tied to a particular location and time—for instance, the opening story is entitled “Sunday Gravy With Uncle Del (Todt Hill, Staten Island), September 12, 1982” and sumptuously describes the Neapolitan weekend ritual of families gathering to eat pasta before recounting Del’s mob-related yarns. Concentrating predominantly on 20th-century New York, the volume includes tales like “Out of the Sky,” which provides a ground-level account of the aftermath of a 1960 midair collision from the point of view of the Park Slope, Brooklyn, community where one of the planes crashed. “Miles Live!” captures the jazz musician Miles Davis appearing on The Dick Cavett Show in 1986. Shaw also turns his attention to personal struggles. “Last Dance” deals with a woman coming to terms with the death of her aging husband, and “It’s the End”examines an alcoholic writer, inhabiting a room in a flophouse, whose will to create is overtaken by his need to drink. Meanwhile, the author addresses contemporary unrest in “What Happened to the News?” which depicts the “Peoples’ Justice Collective” storming Grand Central Terminal.
This is an ambitious, varied collection with a number of standout stories. “The Shadow in the Valley: A Twisted Tale,” about a man who repeatedly encounters a female passenger on the subway who he suspects may be a spirit, makes for eerily compelling reading. When the man seeks the advice of a Jewish friend, confessing that he does not believe in ghosts, the retort is deliciously blunt: “You’re a Christian. You worship a spirit.” Shaw shows flashes of brilliance and is able to move readers. For instance, he elegantly captures the nuances of grief: “She had accepted that he was dying. She had reconciled her soul to what was coming, in the hope of a dignified departing that had been earned by them both.” But his narrative often deteriorates into mechanical reportage: “We were…looking out from the twenty-fifth floor after an entire morning of serial lovemaking….We returned to that bed and made more love.” The author’s use of dialogue is occasionally contrived and uncomfortably unrealistic: “Which do you want more, this meal or me? I have the key to a hotel room. Can you turn your hunger into food and be with me?” This meticulous volume is a courageous attempt to reflect the multifaceted nature of New York life, and the final offering, which portrays the empty metropolis as “drained of its blood,” is both timely and chilling. Yet Shaw’s execution is inconsistent, resulting in a disappointingly uneven collection. Avid lovers of New York will still enjoy this book, but others will struggle with its frequently flat narrative approach.
An intelligently conceived, sporadically luminous collection that sometimes misses the mark.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: -
Publisher: Manuscript
Review Posted Online: May 18, 2021
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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