A fascinating immersion into a little-known world, written with tenderness and humanity.
An aging faith healer recounts practicing her calling amid gender-based violence, loss, celebrity, and murder in Mexican author Lozano's second novel to appear in English.
In Feliciana's poor, hardworking family, the gift of healing is passed from fathers to sons, not daughters. It's her cousin Paloma who teaches her the art, shot through with Christian faith, and the herbs and mushrooms to use. Born male, Paloma is Muxe—a third gender accepted among the Zapotec people since pre-colonial times. Once she began to identify this way, changed her name, and began to sleep with men, she gave up being a curandero and began to train Feliciana, who goes on to achieve worldwide renown. Narrated from the alternating points of view of Feliciana and Zoe, a journalist who's interviewing her, the stories weave around both women's struggles to find their voices and make their own ways. Feliciana endures a hardscrabble childhood and an alcoholic husband, then other people's jealousy at her success. Zoe grieves her late father and deferred dreams. But the most vibrant character is Paloma, whose murder is reported in the first sentence. Earlier, having been beaten for being Muxe and left with a scar on her face, she wore a brooch to call attention to it: "We don’t hide our scars, we show them off." As in Loop (2021), Lozano eschews traditional narrative for the discursive pleasures of voice. "Paloma once said to me, she said, Feliciana, love, shaman, curandera, witch, those words are all too small for you because yours is the Language, you are the curandera of the Language, and yours too is the Book. And Paloma also said once, Feliciana, love, it’s not always necessary to cure mankind because men aren’t always ill, but men are always necessary and good for what ails the Muxe in me, dear." A sensitive, informative translator's note explains that Feliciana is loosely based on a Oaxacan curandera internationally famous in the 1950s and '60s.
A fascinating immersion into a little-known world, written with tenderness and humanity.Pub Date: Aug. 16, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-64622-068-7
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Catapult
Review Posted Online: July 7, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2022
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 tender and moving portrait about the transcendent power of art and friendship.
An artwork’s value grows if you understand the stories of the people who inspired it.
Never in her wildest dreams would foster kid Louisa dream of meeting C. Jat, the famous painter of The One of the Sea, which depicts a group of young teens on a pier on a hot summer’s day. But in Backman’s latest, that’s just what happens—an unexpected (but not unbelievable) set of circumstances causes their paths to collide right before the dying 39-year-old artist’s departure from the world. One of his final acts is to bequeath that painting to Louisa, who has endured a string of violent foster homes since her mother abandoned her as a child. Selling the painting will change her life—but can she do it? Before deciding, she accompanies Ted, one of the artist’s close friends and one of the young teens captured in that celebrated painting, on a train journey to take the artist’s ashes to his hometown. She wants to know all about the painting, which launched Jat’s career at age 14, and the circle of beloved friends who inspired it. The bestselling author of A Man Called Ove (2014) and other novels, Backman gives us a heartwarming story about how these friends, set adrift by the violence and unhappiness of their homes, found each other and created a new definition of family. “You think you’re alone,” one character explains, “but there are others like you, people who stand in front of white walls and blank paper and only see magical things. One day one of them will recognize you and call out: ‘You’re one of us!’” As Ted tells stories about his friends—how Jat doubted his talents but found a champion in fiery Joar, who took on every bully to defend him; how Ali brought an excitement to their circle that was “like a blinding light, like a heart attack”—Louisa recognizes herself as a kindred soul and feels a calling to realize her own artistic gifts. What she decides to do with the painting is part of a caper worthy of the stories that Ted tells her. The novel is humorous, poignant, and always life-affirming, even when describing the bleakness of the teens’ early lives. “Art is a fragile magic, just like love,” as someone tells Louisa, “and that’s humanity’s only defense against death.”
A tender and moving portrait about the transcendent power of art and friendship.Pub Date: May 6, 2025
ISBN: 9781982112820
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Atria
Review Posted Online: July 4, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2025
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
© Copyright 2026 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
