A powerful, involving drama despite its lackluster conclusion.
A terrible secret transforms a young couple’s life.
Peyton was born in a small coal-mining town in West Virginia and grew up in squalor. His mother, Abigail, was only a teenager when he was born and meanders from one man to another searching for someone to save her. Early on, Peyton pines to improve their lot, his “heart aching under the weight of a responsibility he wasn’t sure it could bear.” He loses all faith and hope, a predicament poignantly depicted by Yearwood: “Peyton’s belief in God was one long string of empty lights. When he was young, the bulbs had emanated a strong glow, illuminating his path forward. Then the bulbs had exploded under the weight of his life, and his anger and fury, and patches of darkness appeared, the string gradually growing dimmer. Until one day, without him even noticing, it went dark.” He finally finds an opportunity when he wins a football scholarship to a swanky prep school in Cambridge and befriends its privileged attendees. He falls in love with Isabelle Woods—an artsy student from the world he aspires to join. However, a childish prank threatens all of his goals. Before graduation, Peyton and his friends, including Isabelle, light some fireworks and inadvertently set an apartment building aflame, killing four and injuring others. Peyton and Isabelle disagree about their obligations. She wants to confess to the crime, and he anxiously worries about the impact on his promising future. With great intelligence and sensitivity, the author limns the contest between them and the manner in which it discloses their different characters and backgrounds. The plot dawdles, however, challenging the reader’s attention, and the conclusion—an unfortunate finale that belies the book’s restraint as a whole—seems contrived. Still, overall, this is a thoughtful, affecting tale.
A powerful, involving drama despite its lackluster conclusion.Pub Date: July 4, 2022
ISBN: 979-8839283169
Page Count: 294
Publisher: Self
Review Posted Online: Sept. 1, 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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