An odd and winsome pleasure: a novel of friendship, collaboration, and environmental guerrilla art.
A quiet, peculiar, and utterly charming novel about...crop circles.
Myers' new book—brief though it is—contains a buzzing, busy multitude. It's part Künstlerroman, part rural idyll, part environmental alarm, part picaresque about two outcasts, part philosophical novel. The setting is summer 1989, in southern England, and two men are embarking again on—trying to perfect—the work they began the summer before. Amid strict secrecy, and in accordance with an elaborate set of rules they've developed to keep themselves safe and anonymous, they steal off at sunset in a battered camper van, park along a verge, walk at least one mile to a field they have identified and scouted, and spend the long summer dark meticulously creating ever larger, ever more elaborate designs (all without breaking the stalks of wheat or rapeseed, so as to be committing acts of art and not vandalism, addition and not subtraction). The two men are Calvert, an anxious ex-soldier who wears dark glasses even at night to protect his eyes and his scars, and his friend Redbone, imaginative, unpredictable, and cheerful. The book consists of a brief chronicle of each of their summer exploits in the field, one by one, with quick news breaks between to record their rising fame as their work garners attention from tabloids, UFO enthusiasts, landowners, and others taken by this mysterious, gigantic-scale environmental art. They are moving always toward what they know will be their end-of-summer culmination, the Honeycomb Double Helix. Myers' newest is a lyrical novel, leisurely of pace and rich in nuance, that rewards the reader who slows to its rhythms.
An odd and winsome pleasure: a novel of friendship, collaboration, and environmental guerrilla art.Pub Date: April 5, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-61219-958-0
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Melville House
Review Posted Online: Jan. 25, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2022
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles...
Sisters in and out of love.
Meghann Dontess is a high-powered matrimonial lawyer in Seattle who prefers sex with strangers to emotional intimacy: a strategy bound to backfire sooner or later, warns her tough-talking shrink. It’s advice Meghann decides to ignore, along with the memories of her difficult childhood, neglectful mother, and younger sister. Though she managed to reunite Claire with Sam Cavenaugh (her father but not Meghann’s) when her mother abandoned both girls long ago, Meghann still feels guilty that her sister’s life doesn’t measure up, at least on her terms. Never married, Claire ekes out a living running a country campground with her dad and is raising her six-year-old daughter on her own. When she falls in love for the first time with an up-and-coming country musician, Meghann is appalled: Bobby Austin is a three-time loser at marriage—how on earth can Claire be so blind? Bobby’s blunt explanation doesn’t exactly satisfy the concerned big sister, who busies herself planning Claire’s dream wedding anyway. And, to relieve the stress, she beds various guys she picks up in bars, including Dr. Joe Wyatt, a neurosurgeon turned homeless drifter after the demise of his beloved wife Diane (whom he euthanized). When Claire’s awful headache turns out to be a kind of brain tumor known among neurologists as a “terminator,” Joe rallies. Turns out that Claire had befriended his wife on her deathbed, and now in turn he must try to save her. Is it too late? Will Meghann find true love at last?
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles (Distant Shores, 2002, etc.). Kudos for skipping the snifflefest this time around.Pub Date: May 1, 2003
ISBN: 0-345-45073-6
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2003
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
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