A timely, well-crafted tale, imbued with cultural and personal sorrow.
A family’s tangled past comes to light.
In her debut novel, Israeli Canadian memoirist and short story writer Tsabari gently unfolds two narratives: one about young Yaqub and Saida, who fall in love in an Israeli camp for Yemeni immigrants in 1950; the other about Zohara Haddad, a graduate student, newly divorced, who returns to Israel from New York in 1995 after her mother, Saida, dies. The teenage Yemeni lovers are ill-fated: Saida is married with a child, and when her husband discovers the relationship, Yaqub is forced to flee. A few months later, Saida suffers an even more devastating loss. Forced to place her tiny son in the camp’s nursery, she cannot find him one day when she goes to breastfeed. Although she’s told that the child became ill and died, Saida, for the rest of her life, nurses the hope of finding the baby, whom she’s certain was put up for adoption. Zohara discovers the complexities of her parents’ lives when she cleans out her mother’s house: Tapes of her mother singing unfamiliar love songs, a mysterious photograph, and stories written in someone else’s hand all reveal long-hidden secrets. Tsabari sets Zohara’s story in the context of the social and political unrest that has long vexed Israel and Palestine. The Oslo Accords have just been signed, inciting ferocious protests. Tensions flare between Ashkenazi Jews and Yemeni Jews, and stereotypes and superstitions abound. “Maybe,” Zohara thinks, “Israeli anger was also a manifestation of helplessness, of grief. This was a nation of migrants, exiles and survivors, people who fled from genocide and persecution only to arrive at this place where wars never end….” With Zohara as a central character, Tsabari examines the effect of loss on a woman struggling to define herself as a Jew, a scholar, and an Israeli.
A timely, well-crafted tale, imbued with cultural and personal sorrow.Pub Date: Sept. 10, 2024
ISBN: 9780812989007
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: July 4, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
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
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
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
