A moving depiction of family life following great loss.
The members of a Hindu family torn apart during the chaos of Partition in India try to rebuild their lives and community in this deeply felt novel.
Nabakumar, a Bengali village doctor, and Bina, his quiltmaker wife, are looking forward to India’s independence from British rule and the possibilities they hope it will bring for their three daughters: Deepa, Jamini, and Priya, whether in terms of marriages or educational pursuits. Instead, despite his optimism for the future, Nabakumar is killed during a riot that follows a Muslim political party meeting outside of his medical clinic in Calcutta, a loss which upends the family and renders them even more dependent on their neighbors. In the aftermath, mother and daughters struggle to earn money and to ensure their own safety. Deepa must hide her relationship with a Muslim man and is disowned by her mother when it is discovered. Their secret cross-religion marriage becomes even more dangerous as her husband becomes politically powerful in the Muslim League, and the two must relocate to the newly created Pakistan. Priya is at a loss for how to follow in her father’s footsteps to become a doctor, especially after she is denied entry to a local college due to ongoing discrimination against women. When she is accepted into medical school in the United States after an offer to finance her education, the decision of whether to pursue her dreams strains her relationship with Amit, a longtime family friend and her fiance, whom Jamini is also in love with. As the threats mount, the sisters are forced to rely on each other once again in a culminating rush of events. The author’s latest novel is an engaging family saga that explores resilience against a backdrop of violent national upheaval. The story is well paced as it follows its cast of characters through a chaotic world while still capturing the rich interiority of each of the three daughters.
A moving depiction of family life following great loss.Pub Date: Jan. 17, 2023
ISBN: 978-0-06-314238-1
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Morrow/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Oct. 25, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2022
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
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