Davies subtly synthesizes complex issues into a low-key yet compelling web of affecting destinies.
A remote Indian hill town inescapably shaped by its colonial past becomes a refuge for a self-doubting Englishman seeking peace and finding unsuspected engagement.
Lightly yet deftly crafted, hovering in tone somewhere between comedy, tragedy, and fable, Welsh author Davies’ understated second novel considers isolated characters and their yearnings against the historical long view and looming political violence. Hilary Byrd has fled English suburbia to reach this former British hill station in India, seeking an escape from modern clamor. A sexual blank slate, inclined to depression, Byrd is happy to be offered temporary shelter in a missionary’s bungalow by the local Padre and settles into a gentle routine that includes the daily services of Jamshed, an auto rickshaw driver. The Padre’s household includes Priscilla, a young woman who had been abandoned as a child. Byrd fears he's being groomed to take Priscilla on, but then, over time, as he teaches her English, sewing, and baking, he finds his feelings for her developing. But Priscilla loves another, Jamshed’s nephew Ravi, a barber who wears a white Stetson and has ambitions to become a country and western singer. Davies’ accumulation of curious, private, overlapping characters is presented tenderly in an India that seems, despite mention of internet cafes, scarcely to belong to the modern era. But nostalgia is intended to contrast with the seismic rumblings referenced in the Padre’s mentions of “the beatings and the burnings, the lynchings and the riots.” Davies is not an overtly political writer, but there will be a further pointing up of the advancing shift from imperialist past to nationalist future. The savage storm of fanaticism will eventually arrive in this sheltered corner, shattering hearts and expectations, before Davies' cast of hopefuls and misfits is released into an uncertain future.
Davies subtly synthesizes complex issues into a low-key yet compelling web of affecting destinies.Pub Date: Feb. 16, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-982144-83-8
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Scribner
Review Posted Online: Dec. 14, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2021
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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