An admirably ambitious, if knotty, all-American saga.
Two families navigate a century of art, commerce, and estrangement.
Castleberry’s second novel opens with a would-be art heist: In 2024, Tobey Harlan, the ne’er-do-well son of a California real estate mogul, is planning to steal three paintings by Di Stiegl, an acclaimed artist who emerged in the 1980s downtown New York scene. Out of this plot spills a complex history involving the worlds of visual and fine art. Stiegl’s grandfather, Klaus von Stiegl, was a German-born film director who was in demand during the silent era; the talkies, plus a scandal or two, sidelined him until the ’60s, when he directed a TV crime drama, Brackett, starring Tobey’s grandfather. (A provocative final season, dark in the way that anticipated The Sopranos, made Klaus a critical darling and cult figure.) The novel luxuriates in epic sprawl in the mode of Jonathan Franzen, Nathan Hill, and Garth Risk Hallberg. And it’s rich in time-shifting, stylistic flourishes; interstitial sections mimic blog-speak, Hollywood trade papers, art world chatter, and more. While the varying fates of the Harlan and Stiegl clans gets convoluted, Castleberry’s message is straightforward: Wealth facilitates art but also undermines it (a studio kills Klaus’ magnum opus, Di loses years to a coke habit), and can be even more ruinous to families. Percy, Klaus’ son and Di’s father, exemplifies the wayward, money-grubbing personality that threatens to undermine the family. And Castleberry suggests that as a culture, we’re subsisting on an inheritance and nearing bankruptcy: “Did anyone actually create anything anymore? Weren’t we past all that to just pure consumption?” This novel, of course, is determined to serve as a counterweight to that idea, even if stuffed nearly to the breaking point.
An admirably ambitious, if knotty, all-American saga.Pub Date: March 11, 2025
ISBN: 9780063213333
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Mariner Books
Review Posted Online: Dec. 14, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2025
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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