A poignant work with disturbing relevance to today’s battle for Ukrainian democracy.
A historically rich debut novel about early-20th-century Ukrainian immigration to Canada, inspired by the ordeals endured by Nykoluk’s grandparents.
In 1914, the area that would later be known as Ukraine is controlled by Russia in the East and the Austro-Hungarian Empire in the West. Myk and Lilia Jankiv, the parents of a 3-year-old son and a newborn daughter, live in Melnytsya Podilska, Galicia, close to the Russian border. Myk wants to immigrate to Canada, as a railroad company there has been recruiting men with promises of jobs and cheap land. With the help of a small bribe, Myk is able to acquire a seat on a train to Lviv, beginning his long journey through Europe before boarding a steamship to Canada. His expectation is that as soon as he earns enough money, he’ll have Lilia and their children join him. Back home, Lilia struggles to manage their small farm and care for the kids. After World War I breaks out, the Russians invade the western sector, pillaging, raping, and murdering. The Austrian army evacuates the village residents to a refugee camp in Austria, where Lilia and the children will remain until 1920. Nykoluk has Lilia and Myk alternatingly narrate their own stories, which has the effect of bringing readers up close to their day-to-day struggles to survive, both during and after the war. The number of minor vignettes becomes overwhelming at times. However, Nykoluk writes in graphic detail of the harshness and danger of Myk’s work for the railroad, as when a minor character is seriously injured on the job (“He was screaming, his trousers barely hiding the odd shape of his lower right leg”), and shows how difficulties were compounded by Canadian suspicion of the immigrant population. The novel also details the poverty and hunger in the refugee camps and the ever present loneliness of two fully drawn main characters. Along the way, the author skillfully weaves in vivid elements of Ukrainian customs and history.
A poignant work with disturbing relevance to today’s battle for Ukrainian democracy.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: 9781039148826
Page Count: 313
Publisher: FriesenPress
Review Posted Online: Jan. 17, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2023
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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 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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