Nabokov’s classic reinvented as a 1970s moral fable, with brilliantly developed characters and period detail.
An accident at the golf course cuts short one life and totally upends another.
“At fifteen, I couldn’t outdrive the very best men’s players at the club, but I still beat all of them most of the time. My short game was as precise as a drone strike, and I was excellent on the greens.” Mira Winston is an unusually confident and self-aware teenager, and her voice on the page is irresistible. (As we will later learn, the narrator of Bohjalian’s 25th novel is herself the author of 25 novels, so perhaps it’s no surprise her storytelling skills are as impressive as her golfing.) Mira’s fictional memoir revolves around the events of Aug. 3, 1978, at a country club in New York’s Westchester County. It was her senior summer; she was 18 and on her way to Yale in a matter of weeks when a ball she smashed into the practice net went through the mesh and out the other side, hitting and instantly killing a young caddie named Kenny Foster as he was waiting to be called to carry bags. The accident has dramatic results, both immediately and over the next few years: Mira doesn’t matriculate at Yale, she never plays golf again, and in an unexpected twist, it’s revealed to one and all that she’s been having an affair with a man named Theo Catton, who’s her father’s age, and with whom she’s been involved since she was 15. Mira is well aware of the resemblance between her story and Lolita’s—she will later get a line from the novel tattooed on her forearm—but she also now understands that the younger her was sorely misled about her own agency and motivations. As the small-town drama simmers, as Mira and her parents self-medicate with drugs and alcohol, as Mira eventually comes to trial—the story is spun by then as “privileged rich girl with too much attitude recklessly kills a poor student with so much promise”—a marvelous 11th-hour twist and a satisfying denouement lie ahead. It’s hard to think of any reason not to call this a perfect novel: a hole in one.
Nabokov’s classic reinvented as a 1970s moral fable, with brilliantly developed characters and period detail.Pub Date: Aug. 4, 2026
ISBN: 9780385551298
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: April 20, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2026
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
An existential crisis that steps on its own final moments.
With only a month left until the world ends due to a swiftly approaching black hole, Don and Rodney, a retired gay couple, road-trip from Maine to Washington to spend their final days with their son.
After reports that a planet-swallowing black hole is making its way toward Earth, Rodney and Don—who have been together for 40 years and survived everything from homophobia to the HIV crisis—decide to pack their belongings into an RV, say goodbye to their neighbors, and travel from Camden, Maine, to Washington to uphold a promise to spend their final days with their son. They can’t wait any longer, since there’s already chaos around the country: “Military vehicles in the streets of most cities and towns. Looting, rioting, the burning of cars and buildings and people, all of it had already happened.” As they make their way west across the country, they encounter fellow travelers ranging from close-knit families to free-spirited hippies, some of whom have come to terms with the impending end of the world and others who haven’t. While the story seems to be asking readers what they would do if they had 30 days left to live, and reflects on what different kinds of acceptance might look like in the face of unavoidable tragedy, it loses some of its poignancy in a series of thinly padded monologues about the meaning of life. Clearly intended to pack an emotional punch, it’s failed by an abrupt ending, and the way the journey’s mystery—which will be obvious to many readers—is revealed by an info dump in the last chapter.
An existential crisis that steps on its own final moments.Pub Date: April 28, 2026
ISBN: 9781250881236
Page Count: 176
Publisher: Tor
Review Posted Online: March 9, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2026
© Copyright 2026 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
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