A whirlwind adventure that manages to be farcical but also thoughtful.
In Murray’s series-starting near-future dystopian novel, a middle-aged Jewish Manhattanite seeks love and finds danger.
It’s 2025, and 44-year-old David Stein is searching for a suitable mate on the online dating site JDate after breaking up with his girlfriend of three years. However, due to “the new political climate,” he must get approval from the city’s Department of Health, because of laws put in place to ostensibly make dating “safer.” New York City has passed draconian measures that make it nearly impossible to practice Judaism or Christianity out in the open. During the Second Civil War of 2024, extremists burned down the White House, and a rise in antisemitic violence has made life dangerous for Jewish people nationwide. Nonetheless, David arranges a date in Central Park with a woman named Sue, and they both bring their dogs along. Things start off well enough, but then Sue reveals that she was fired from her job as an educator for teaching banned books. David and Sue hit it off, but they run into a major problem when Sue’s doorman tips her off that the Thought Police are waiting outside her apartment door; they’ve come to arrest her under a brand-new criminal code. The pair manage to flee to Long Island where a woman named Hilda runs a hotel. The Thought Police don’t have jurisdiction in Nassau County, but that doesn’t stop them from trying to infiltrate the area. David and Sue considering fleeing further to Vermont, or teaming up with others who want to stop the ongoing assault on personal liberties in New York City.
Murray’s brief, straightforward drama wastes little time getting into the story. The descriptions are kept to a minimum throughout: Hilda is described only as “about sixty” with “salt-and-pepper hair”; David’s dog is just “a little white Havanese” that weighs 10 pounds. The political dynamics are kept simple, as well: The villains hate religion, and they’re very clear on this point. Indeed, when Sue and David encounter thugs in Central Park, one announces the name of their group as “Americans Against Religious Worship”; at on other point, it’s mentioned that Christmas trees are routinely burned by anti-Christian extremists. The heroes don’t mince words; as Sue points out, when it seems that she and David are in imminent danger: “I just want this night to be over. It seems like it is lasting forever.” However, there are points when people unnecessarily point out the obvious, as when one man says of the Thought Police: “They are doing everything they can to make us live in fear.” The tone of the story leans toward the fantastical, and it’s a choice that effectively allows readers to consider the sheer chaos of the characters’ environment. The wildness of some plot developments, as when a member of Thought Police is stopped by Sue’s massive Old English Sheepdog-German Shepherd-Great Dane mix, only further serve to illustrate the absurdity of the dystopian world.
A whirlwind adventure that manages to be farcical but also thoughtful.Pub Date: April 8, 2022
ISBN: 9798449051448
Page Count: 114
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: Aug. 16, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2024
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
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