An engrossing if stifling plunge into the consciousness of a woman on the edge.
The amnesia that descends on a young woman following two epileptic seizures forces her to reassess her role as daughter, sister, partner, and mother.
Terror and desperation are the starting points for award-winning Icelandic author Jónsdóttir’s novel, which delivers Saga Bjarnadóttir’s first-person account of her struggle to resume control of a life she can’t remember. An epileptic from childhood, she’s been seizure-free for 10 years when she suddenly suffers two in quick succession, leaving her on the pavement of a busy street, in a fog but desperate to know the whereabouts of her 3-year-old son, Ivar. Hospitalized and suffering a third seizure, then restored to her apartment with Ivar found, Saga is nevertheless still in limbo, unable to recall what work she does or why she’s divorced from her partner and questioning how she can ever cope alone again, given the risks of another seizure. Slowly, she—and the reader—pieces together some of her circumstances, including the flaws in her relationship with Bergur, Ivar’s father, and the emotional tangle of her own family. Her mother has a tendency to disappear, her father has a history of violence, and there was a crisis about which Saga still experiences guilt. Part mystery, part family drama, part children-in-peril narrative, the novel offers a hectic, heart-thudding, sometimes claustrophobic portrait of panicked inner turmoil. Saga even refers to her epilepsy as a “him” who rules and invades her body. Jónsdóttir has constructed a tight scenario and a small world populated by a narrow cast of characters with whom Saga hashes and rehashes past events and connections. A measure of peace comes not with a happy ending but some acceptance.
An engrossing if stifling plunge into the consciousness of a woman on the edge.Pub Date: Feb. 8, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-948340-16-8
Page Count: 264
Publisher: Dottir Press
Review Posted Online: Nov. 16, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2021
PERSPECTIVES
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
A debut novel with bright spots, but unbalanced and lacking in finesse.
A high school senior pursues an affair with her teacher.
Seventeen-year-old Waldo, the narrator of McCurdy’s fiction debut, lives in Anchorage, Alaska, with her mother, though she’s long been the parent in their relationship. She heats her own frozen meals and pays the bills on time while her mom chases man after man and makes well-meaning promises she never keeps. Waldo blows her Victoria’s Secret wages on online shopping sprees and binges on junk food, inevitably crashing after the fleeting highs of her indulgences. Mr. Korgy, her creative writing teacher, has “thinning hair and nose pores”; he’s 40 years old and married with a child. Nevertheless—or possibly as a result?—Waldo’s attraction to him is “instant. So sudden it’s alarming. So palpable it’s confusing.” Mr. Korgy professes to want to keep their friendship aboveboard, but after a sexual encounter at the school’s winter formal that she initiates, an affair begins. Will this reckless pursuit be the one that actually satisfies Waldo, and is she as mature as she thinks she is? Waldo is a keen observer of people and provides sharp commentary on the punishing work of female beauty. Readers of McCurdy’s bestselling memoir, I’m Glad My Mom Died (2022), will surely be curious about the tumultuous mother-daughter relationship, and it is one of the novel’s highlights, full of realistic pity and anger and need. (“I want to scream at her. I want her to hug me.”) Unfortunately, the prose is often unwieldy and sometimes downright cringeworthy: When Waldo tells Mr. Korgy she loves him, “The words hang in the air in that constipated way they do when you know that you shouldn’t have said them.” Waldo frequently lists emotions and adjectives in triplicate, and events that could be significant aren’t sufficiently explored or given enough space to breathe before the novel races on to the next thing.
A debut novel with bright spots, but unbalanced and lacking in finesse.Pub Date: Jan. 20, 2026
ISBN: 9780593723739
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: Nov. 22, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2026
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
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