A jolting but thoughtful drama.
In Jackson’s novel, a struggling artist, upon learning her estranged sister is missing, returns to her childhood home and uncovers long-buried secrets.
In 2019, 35-year-old Cate Finley has a toughness that’s led her friend Levi Saaga to nickname her “Tiger Cate.” She needs a wild cat’s strength because her life presents significant challenges. She lives in a 1978 camper truck, which she calls “Max,” on the streets of Los Angeles. She paints murals on the sides of buildings; it’s sometimes dangerous work that results in skimpy paychecks. Cate still grieves her parents who died in a plane crash, and she left the Arizona horse ranch of her childhood on bad terms with her 50-year-old sister, Margaret. Cate’s son was taken away by his wealthy father, a physically abusive man. The one bright spot is her friend Levi, an apparently unhoused IT technician working to bring his mom to L.A. from Samoa. When Cate receives mysterious texts about her sister’s disappearance, she journeys back home to Arizona, where the ranch her sister ran is now controlled by Estelle Parker, a stranger claiming to be a cousin. The newcomer has a mysterious hold over the ranch’s employees and reveals a plan to sell the land to developers. Jackson keeps excitement levels high right from the start; in the opening pages, Cate dangles from scaffolding 100 feet above the ground before the story flashes back. The steady drip of revelations about Margaret, Cate’s parents, Estelle, Levi, and others makes for enough material to power an entire soap opera season. However, Jackson effectively keeps the story from being melodramatic with fast pacing and well-developed characters. The author strategically spaces out surprises throughout the book and balances them with quieter scenes of interiority, such as Cate painting. The characters are mostly flawed but likable, and even the worst villains are given context for their actions.
A jolting but thoughtful drama.Pub Date: Dec. 23, 2023
ISBN: 9798988298014
Page Count: 374
Publisher: Self
Review Posted Online: March 21, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2024
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
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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