The author’s empathy for his troubled characters illuminates their predicaments and mistakes with a solemn, steady light.
In a dozen stories, men and boys of Texas cope with loss and anxiety, and cross paths with a menagerie of wildlife.
The “unexpected animals” are literal in almost all the stories in Johnston’s second story collection, following the novel We Burn Daylight (2024): snakes, horses, ferrets, dogs, a caiman lizard; cameos by deer and brown pelican, albatross, elephants, and more. Among the exceptions are the title story—in that one, the wild thing is a teenage girl. Johnston gives his regular-guy male protagonists a lot to handle; some do better than others. Anxious fathers often fall short, younger protagonists learn the hard way that tragedy, loss, and the inscrutability of other people are here to stay. Little kids can be abducted or suffer terrible injury; parents can run off or die. The seriousness of these themes is lightened somewhat by quirky elements and snappy dialogue. In “Paradeability,” a widowed dad takes his son, aka Po’ Boy the Hoboy, to a clown convention. In “Dixon,” violent confrontations and a missing daughter share space with an embezzled shipment of Dairy Queen kids’ meal toys. In “Miss McElroy,” a young man whose parents have died visits the home of an older woman he was obsessed with in his younger years; her always scary son, now a former Marine, is living at home post-Afghanistan, amusing himself by copying porn images in charcoal. “If failing to buy your crazy son a stack of Hustlers is on the ballot, I’ve got Mother of the Year stitched up,” she notes. “Time of the Preacher,” a pandemic rendezvous which also appears in The Best American Short Stories 2025, is the closest the collection comes to a lighter mood. The last story, “Half of What Atlee Rouse Knows About Horses,” contains the book’s most unforgettable scene, in which the aging, diminished protagonist watches a wild stallion save a drowning colt. Maybe there is hope?
The author’s empathy for his troubled characters illuminates their predicaments and mistakes with a solemn, steady light.Pub Date: Feb. 24, 2026
ISBN: 9780399590153
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: Oct. 25, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2025
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 dark and twisty look at just how far one woman is willing to go to find inspiration.
A struggling writer finds an unexpected muse when a mysterious man shows up at her cabin.
Petra Rose used to pump out a bestselling book every six months, but then the adaptation happened—that is, the disastrous film adaptation of her most famous book. The movie changed the book’s storyline so egregiously that fans couldn’t forgive her, and the ensuing harassment sent Petra into hiding and gave her a serious case of writer’s block. Petra’s one hope is her solo writing retreat at a remote cabin, where she can escape the distractions of real life and focus on her next book, a story about a woman having an affair with a cop. When officer Nathaniel Saint shows up at her cabin door, inspiration comes flooding back. Much like the character from Petra’s book, Saint is married, and he’s willing to be Petra’s muse, helping her get into her characters’ heads. Petra’s book is practically writing itself, but is the game she’s playing a little too dangerous? Does she know when to stop—and, more importantly, is Saint willing to stop? Hoover is no stranger to controversial movie adaptations and internet backlash, but she clarifies in a note to readers that she’s “just a writer writing about a writer” and that no further connections to her own life are contained in these pages—which is a good thing, because the book takes some horrifying twists and turns. Petra finds herself inexplicably attracted to Saint, even as she describes him as “such an asshole,” and her feelings for him veer between love and hate. The novel serves as a meta commentary on the dark romance genre—as Petra puts it, “Even though, as readers, we wouldn’t want to live out some of the fantasies we read about, it doesn’t mean we don’t enjoy reading those things.”
A dark and twisty look at just how far one woman is willing to go to find inspiration.Pub Date: Jan. 13, 2026
ISBN: 9781662539374
Page Count: -
Publisher: Montlake
Review Posted Online: Sept. 27, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2025
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