An allusive, atmospheric exploration of the secrets behind every family’s door.
A Brazilian woman navigates her way through the liminal space between life and death, countries, genders, friends, and people.
Cecília Matzenbacher is 9 years old when we meet her, bouncing along a dusty road in the backcountry of Rio Grande do Sul on the hunt for partridges. With her are her father, two brothers, and a shotgun that will soon play a significant part in Brazilian novelist Bensimon’s layered narrative. Young Ciça isn’t much for killing—of the birds shot from the sky she thinks, “They deserved better”—but she is fascinated by the natural world. In adulthood she becomes a master taxidermist, migrating to the U.S. to spend her days stitching animal skins into recognizable simulacra to populate the dioramas of Bensimon’s meaningful title. She brings secrets with her: Her father, a doctor turned politician, is charged with shooting a colleague and friend, João Carlos Satti, to death. Though she’s well regarded, Cecília’s life is a mess: She’s bounces from town to town, is in a marriage that seems unsalvageable, has a casual but life-changing affair with a young woman (“I make no mention of skinning carcasses, fleshing hides, stitching”), and keeps her distance from her Brazilian kin. But her travails are minor compared with the Satti murder inquiry, which unearths sexual secrets that shock the conservative town of Porto Alegre and threaten to destroy the Matzenbachers. “Don’t look at them,” her father says of the gawkers at the trial, quietly echoing Ciça’s offhand, earlier mention of why one should never look a bear in the eyes: “A bear that meets a human’s gaze always has to obliterate what he sees there.” It works with humans, too, which lends Bensimon’s final sentence in this existential mystery all the more power.
An allusive, atmospheric exploration of the secrets behind every family’s door.Pub Date: March 3, 2026
ISBN: 9780374616038
Page Count: 272
Publisher: MCD/Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: today
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2026
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles...
Sisters in and out of love.
Meghann Dontess is a high-powered matrimonial lawyer in Seattle who prefers sex with strangers to emotional intimacy: a strategy bound to backfire sooner or later, warns her tough-talking shrink. It’s advice Meghann decides to ignore, along with the memories of her difficult childhood, neglectful mother, and younger sister. Though she managed to reunite Claire with Sam Cavenaugh (her father but not Meghann’s) when her mother abandoned both girls long ago, Meghann still feels guilty that her sister’s life doesn’t measure up, at least on her terms. Never married, Claire ekes out a living running a country campground with her dad and is raising her six-year-old daughter on her own. When she falls in love for the first time with an up-and-coming country musician, Meghann is appalled: Bobby Austin is a three-time loser at marriage—how on earth can Claire be so blind? Bobby’s blunt explanation doesn’t exactly satisfy the concerned big sister, who busies herself planning Claire’s dream wedding anyway. And, to relieve the stress, she beds various guys she picks up in bars, including Dr. Joe Wyatt, a neurosurgeon turned homeless drifter after the demise of his beloved wife Diane (whom he euthanized). When Claire’s awful headache turns out to be a kind of brain tumor known among neurologists as a “terminator,” Joe rallies. Turns out that Claire had befriended his wife on her deathbed, and now in turn he must try to save her. Is it too late? Will Meghann find true love at last?
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles (Distant Shores, 2002, etc.). Kudos for skipping the snifflefest this time around.Pub Date: May 1, 2003
ISBN: 0-345-45073-6
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2003
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
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