A thoughtful, engaging meditation on the intersection of artistic and spiritual integrity.
A successful but cynical and discontented artist gets a peculiar commission and a shot at moral redemption in this novel.
Martin Drake is a world-renowned artist, celebrated for his work as a sculptor of mostly abstract pieces. As a result of his fame, he leads a life of indulgent prodigality in New York City, one as luxurious as it is obscene and empty. But despite his acclaim, he’s disgusted with his own life and believes himself a fraud who abandoned his artistic principles for commercial accomplishments. At yet another winning exhibition, billionaire Harry Banks offers him a strange proposition. In exchange for a whopping $1 million, Martin must accept a commission to produce a sculpture of the face of God for Father Manoel da Silva Teixeira, a priest who is a “devoted crusader for the underclass” in Brazil. Father Manoel is horrified—he sees Martin’s art as profane trash, a soulless exercise in adolescent sacrilege. As offended as Martin is by Father Manoel’s assessment—one shared by Harry—the sculptor accepts the commission for the sake of the money. Brewer sensitively depicts the opportunity for moral and artistic reform this gives Martin as well as the daunting difficulty of the sculpture itself: “Trying to display all that God was, in one certain form, would be like trying to capture the sea in a teardrop, but infinitely more difficult. The most gifted visionary would fall far short. God was beyond comprehension.”
The author delicately limns Martin’s downward spiral into a life of ignoble dissipation, one marked by extraordinary self-debasement as well as the terrible loss of love. And Father Manoel is presented as much more than “a Bible-thumping Amazonian.” The priest astutely sees, under a surface of artistic debauchery, a deep reserve of genuine potential in Martin’s work: “They were grotesque, and clearly they were manifestations of an angry psyche straining for truth ever-further in the wrong direction. But there was something else to those bronzes: although they were ugly and malformed, they showed something more—a tremendous raw talent.” Still, Brewer’s story is far too condensed—under 250 pages—to have time to develop Martin’s reversal of character, a metamorphosis that is delivered too quickly and is therefore as implausible as his commission. Especially given the depths of Martin’s moral depravity—depths deftly, affectingly described by the author—readers are led to expect a tougher slog toward enlightenment. In addition, Brewer’s writing can mix florid overstatement with shopworn clichés. Consider this depiction of one of Martin’s sculptures: “Etched with the beauty and wisdom of the ages, glowing with a power beyond the realm of understanding, it was he himself that stared back.” Nevertheless, the author provides an intriguing critique of the contemporary art world—subsumed by money and careerism, it conflates the ostentatiously reprobate with edgy creativity. Furthermore, Brewer manages to pull off a difficult trick—he has composed a deeply religious novel that wears its spirituality lightly. While the book revolves around the redemptive powers promised by a submission to God, it avoids tendentious sermonizing.
A thoughtful, engaging meditation on the intersection of artistic and spiritual integrity.Pub Date: June 2, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-95-534788-4
Page Count: 252
Publisher: Goldtouch Press, LLC
Review Posted Online: Aug. 27, 2021
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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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