A sinister message that may not be all that far-fetched.
A young woman navigates the treacherous terrain of Manhattan’s early 1950s literary scene.
If only Louise, Woods’ plucky heroine, had any idea of exactly how treacherous literati can be. A transplant from Ossining, Louise is writing a “romantic fantasy” called The Lunar Housewife, set in an indeterminate but far from post-Soviet future. Chapters from Lunar, the novel within this novel, are interspersed throughout, as Louise writes while trying to negotiate real life in 1953. Pulling off an interview with Ernest Hemingway, she hopes to gain credibility and a byline at Downtown, the new magazine her boyfriend, Joe, and his colleague Harry founded, mixing intellectual commentary with cheesecake, like Playboy or Esquire—although the author’s note reveals it’s actually based on the Paris Review. The parlance is convincingly of the ’50s, and Woods’ phrases are well turned. Increasingly, Lunar Housewife tracks Louise’s life: Both Louise and her protagonist, Katherine, encounter boyfriends and governments one can’t quite trust—Joe may be embroiled with the CIA, and Harry fears that his apartment is bugged. Katherine, an American defector to Soviet Russia, is sent to set up housekeeping on the moon with Sergey, a Soviet army deserter–turned-cosmonaut; as the two fall in love, they are monitored by a “visio-telespeaker.” Louise and her creation each become pregnant, which amps up the parallel dangers. Louise’s portrayal of Russians as human and Hemingway’s putative novel in progress praising Castro might be endangering both authors. (Woods’ “Papa” may be a cliché, but he’s a scene-stealer.) During this time of the House Un-American Activities Committee, with the Korean War winding down and the Cold War heating up, the Russians appear to be the obvious villains. The truth, as Woods suggests, none too subtly, is more complicated: The U.S. establishment is not just blacklisting artists, but, through violence and/or bribery, censoring any cultural reference that does not glorify American capitalism.
A sinister message that may not be all that far-fetched.Pub Date: June 7, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-385-54783-3
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: March 29, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2022
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
A debut novel with bright spots, but unbalanced and lacking in finesse.
A high school senior pursues an affair with her teacher.
Seventeen-year-old Waldo, the narrator of McCurdy’s fiction debut, lives in Anchorage, Alaska, with her mother, though she’s long been the parent in their relationship. She heats her own frozen meals and pays the bills on time while her mom chases man after man and makes well-meaning promises she never keeps. Waldo blows her Victoria’s Secret wages on online shopping sprees and binges on junk food, inevitably crashing after the fleeting highs of her indulgences. Mr. Korgy, her creative writing teacher, has “thinning hair and nose pores”; he’s 40 years old and married with a child. Nevertheless—or possibly as a result?—Waldo’s attraction to him is “instant. So sudden it’s alarming. So palpable it’s confusing.” Mr. Korgy professes to want to keep their friendship aboveboard, but after a sexual encounter at the school’s winter formal that she initiates, an affair begins. Will this reckless pursuit be the one that actually satisfies Waldo, and is she as mature as she thinks she is? Waldo is a keen observer of people and provides sharp commentary on the punishing work of female beauty. Readers of McCurdy’s bestselling memoir, I’m Glad My Mom Died (2022), will surely be curious about the tumultuous mother-daughter relationship, and it is one of the novel’s highlights, full of realistic pity and anger and need. (“I want to scream at her. I want her to hug me.”) Unfortunately, the prose is often unwieldy and sometimes downright cringeworthy: When Waldo tells Mr. Korgy she loves him, “The words hang in the air in that constipated way they do when you know that you shouldn’t have said them.” Waldo frequently lists emotions and adjectives in triplicate, and events that could be significant aren’t sufficiently explored or given enough space to breathe before the novel races on to the next thing.
A debut novel with bright spots, but unbalanced and lacking in finesse.Pub Date: Jan. 20, 2026
ISBN: 9780593723739
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: Nov. 22, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2026
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
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