A haunting, if rambling, family tale that connects history, faith, and mental health.
A young woman tries to find herself amid great psychological turmoil in this novel.
Pine Log, Texas, 1988. Cassandra Cleo Collard has been accused of starting a fire and publicly engaging in what appeared to be a bizarre magic ritual in the front yard of her ex-husband’s lover, but she has no memory of either. Cassandra is grappling with her failing mental health and this baffling loss of memory when a judge orders that she undergo mandatory psychiatric treatment. She starts therapy with Dr. Trish Telford. What happens next is the slow unraveling of the patient’s past as memories of her family, her troubling relationship with her mother, and the strange rituals her beloved great-grandmother Maw Sue shared with both Cassandra and her little sister, Meg, come to the fore as she tries to prove her innocence. As the months pass, Cassandra realizes that her fragile state of mind has deep roots in traumatic events in her childhood and that for her to be whole again, she must confront the parts of her that are broken and allow the flow of memories in. Some of these vivid memories encompass tales of her family, including the members of a community of women who speak a secret language and possess a mysterious power. Lanell’s ambitious psychological novel is less an exciting thriller and more a slow-moving, raw, in-depth portrayal of trauma, mental illness, and recovery with languid, eerily mystical tones. Along with its honest and clear depiction of the benefits of therapy, the story deftly examines the constraints of a small Texas town, the unhealthy expectations placed on girls and women, and a variety of generational traumas as its main character discovers a Christian spirituality that is more about faith than organized religion. But the meandering, overstuffed narrative also has a penchant for romanticizing a presumed link between mental health and creativity and genius.
A haunting, if rambling, family tale that connects history, faith, and mental health.Pub Date: Feb. 12, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-73560-811-2
Page Count: 386
Publisher: Self
Review Posted Online: March 17, 2021
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy.
Are we not men? We are—well, ask Bigfoot, as Brooks does in this delightful yarn, following on his bestseller World War Z(2006).
A zombie apocalypse is one thing. A volcanic eruption is quite another, for, as the journalist who does a framing voice-over narration for Brooks’ latest puts it, when Mount Rainier popped its cork, “it was the psychological aspect, the hyperbole-fueled hysteria that had ended up killing the most people.” Maybe, but the sasquatches whom the volcano displaced contributed to the statistics, too, if only out of self-defense. Brooks places the epicenter of the Bigfoot war in a high-tech hideaway populated by the kind of people you might find in a Jurassic Park franchise: the schmo who doesn’t know how to do much of anything but tries anyway, the well-intentioned bleeding heart, the know-it-all intellectual who turns out to know the wrong things, the immigrant with a tough backstory and an instinct for survival. Indeed, the novel does double duty as a survival manual, packed full of good advice—for instance, try not to get wounded, for “injury turns you from a giver to a taker. Taking up our resources, our time to care for you.” Brooks presents a case for making room for Bigfoot in the world while peppering his narrative with timely social criticism about bad behavior on the human side of the conflict: The explosion of Rainier might have been better forecast had the president not slashed the budget of the U.S. Geological Survey, leading to “immediate suspension of the National Volcano Early Warning System,” and there’s always someone around looking to monetize the natural disaster and the sasquatch-y onslaught that follows. Brooks is a pro at building suspense even if it plays out in some rather spectacularly yucky episodes, one involving a short spear that takes its name from “the sucking sound of pulling it out of the dead man’s heart and lungs.” Grossness aside, it puts you right there on the scene.
A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy.Pub Date: June 16, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-9848-2678-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Del Rey/Ballantine
Review Posted Online: Feb. 9, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK TO SCREEN
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
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