Inventive, layered, and deliciously weird.
A worker at a research center for haunted objects tells a series of ghost stories to her underling.
In Korean, the word to denote a senior colleague is “sunbae.” In Chung’s “novel in ghost stories,” the first-person narrator—an employee at “the Institute,” a place where researchers study supernatural items—relies on her sunbae not just for instructions on how to be a proper employee (turn off your phone at work; never look behind you) but for storytelling. The stories feature the employees and objects of the Institute, and images and dialogue loop and recur across the book. Often, an object appears in one story only to have its haunted origin revealed in a subsequent narrative. In “Cursed Sheep,” for example, a paranormal content creator thinks getting a job at the Institute will skyrocket him to a massive following; instead, he suffers a hallucinatory trip through the building, dodging sheep in the stairwells and bugs underfoot that are not quite what they seem. In “Silence of the Sheep,” the sunbae tells the story of the Institute’s deputy director, who once worked as a fortune teller with the help of a prognosticating sheep who also serves as an experimental research subject at a local veterinary college. The recurrences and doublings contribute to the atmosphere of genuine dread, as do the narratives’ structures, which are often stories within stories within stories. The labyrinthine construction mirrors the Institute itself, the shifting mystery at the center of the book. One of Chung’s great strengths has always been social critique, and these tales cleverly examine the ways that vulnerable people—queer people, divorced women, the disabled, people saddled with debt—are society’s “ghosts,” who, rather than haunt others after death, must fight for justice and survival in the here and now.
Inventive, layered, and deliciously weird.Pub Date: Sept. 30, 2025
ISBN: 9781643756639
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Algonquin
Review Posted Online: Aug. 2, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2025
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
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