An earnest novel of self-discovery and sexuality.
In Spang’s literary novel, a closeted man searches for identity in Vietnam War–era West Virginia.
The Vietnam War is raging, and Jason Follett isn’t sure what terrifies him more: the fact that he might get drafted, or the fact that he might be gay. The Chicago-raised, Vanderbilt Divinity School–educated young man needs time and space to figure himself out, and so he takes a job as the Head Start director in the small, rural town of Pearsall Flats, West Virginia. He rents an apartment from a local minister and his wife with a view of the Potomac River, part of a vacation property that the minister allows some friends to use for extramarital trysts. He befriends Carole Goldsmith, a preacher’s wife and fellow Head Start director who, like Jason, has no idea what she’s doing. The Goldsmiths provide Jason with a surrogate family as he struggles to get the churches of Pearsall Flats to accept a “Yankee” non-religious daycare open to both white and Black children. Though Jason is still in the closet—and dating women in order to keep it that way—he cannot help but come across men who, openly or not, share his attraction to other men. There’s the confirmed bachelor opera buff, the handsome tenant farmer, the glue-sniffing high school achiever, the interracial couple, and even Jason’s minister landlord. “I wouldn’t call it that,” the minister answers with a laugh when Jason asks him, directly, if he’s gay. “I just prefer men…Can we leave it at that?” Jason makes his way between and around these men with a mix of longing and revulsion until he meets Eric Kendrick, a painter and health counselor who lives in the open. Jason falls for Eric, but is he ready to commit to a marginalized identity, or should he take his chances with Debra, a volunteer and idealist with whom he might be able to lead a more conventional life?
Spang captures Jason’s inner turmoil in plainspoken prose, as here when he contemplates his path, Thoreau-like, while gazing over the nearby river, wondering, “I could forget if I were gay or straight, if I should rip up Eric’s card or call him up, if I should start dating someone else, if I should be as others wanted me to be, or if I should be myself. If, indeed, I knew what I was.” The setting is a rich one, and Spang does a fine job playing Jason’s artistic ambitions and Great Society idealism against the complex religiosity of both the people he meets and of Jason himself. The plot offers few real surprises, however, and for this reason its nearly 400-page length feels much too long. The text often reads like a memoir, lacking the immediacy or dynamism of fiction. Even when startling things happen—like a deadly fire that kills a child—they can land with a thud. The novel will likely appeal most to readers with their own memories of the time period, when it was much harder for people to openly be themselves.
An earnest novel of self-discovery and sexuality.Pub Date: Aug. 30, 2024
ISBN: 9798990774407
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Wisdom House Books
Review Posted Online: Nov. 25, 2024
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 welcome literary resurrection that deserves a place alongside Wright’s best-known work.
A falsely accused Black man goes into hiding in this masterful novella by Wright (1908-1960), finally published in full.
Written in 1941 and '42, between Wright’s classics Native Son and Black Boy, this short novel concerns Fred Daniels, a modest laborer who’s arrested by police officers and bullied into signing a false confession that he killed the residents of a house near where he was working. In a brief unsupervised moment, he escapes through a manhole and goes into hiding in a sewer. A series of allegorical, surrealistic set pieces ensues as Fred explores the nether reaches of a church, a real estate firm, and a jewelry store. Each stop is an opportunity for Wright to explore themes of hope, greed, and exploitation; the real estate firm, Wright notes, “collected hundreds of thousands of dollars in rent from poor colored folks.” But Fred’s deepening existential crisis and growing distance from society keep the scenes from feeling like potted commentaries. As he wallpapers his underground warren with cash, mocking and invalidating the currency, he registers a surrealistic but engrossing protest against divisive social norms. The novel, rejected by Wright’s publisher, has only appeared as a substantially truncated short story until now, without the opening setup and with a different ending. Wright's take on racial injustice seems to have unsettled his publisher: A note reveals that an editor found reading about Fred’s treatment by the police “unbearable.” That may explain why Wright, in an essay included here, says its focus on race is “rather muted,” emphasizing broader existential themes. Regardless, as an afterword by Wright’s grandson Malcolm attests, the story now serves as an allegory both of Wright (he moved to France, an “exile beyond the reach of Jim Crow and American bigotry”) and American life. Today, it resonates deeply as a story about race and the struggle to envision a different, better world.
A welcome literary resurrection that deserves a place alongside Wright’s best-known work.Pub Date: April 20, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-59853-676-8
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Library of America
Review Posted Online: March 16, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2021
BOOK TO SCREEN
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