An affecting assemblage of tales that deftly dramatize the ghastly costs of violence.
Three narratives—two novellas and a short story—explore the struggles warriors face.
In the first of Bartley’s novellas, A Season Past, an infamous gunfighter, Coltrane, sells his prospecting land in Alaska and moves to Crystal, Utah, in search of peace and solitude. But that tranquility proves exasperatingly elusive—wherever he goes, his reputation precedes him, and he’s always met with a mixture of fear and hostility. Coltrane does his best to keep to himself, doggedly haunted by nightmares of past violence, but Sheriff Bryant holds a grudge against him for killing his uncle and remains committed to driving him out of town. Meanwhile, Coltrane develops feelings for Elisabeth, a woman engaged to one of the local deputies, a romantic opportunity as enticing as it seems doomed. In the second novella, The Cold Ardennes, an unnamed protagonist returns from fighting in World War II to a Texas town where he is now a stranger. He’s warned that “strangers in this town don’t stand a chance.” He struggles to find work, and is pulled into a bank heist by a girl named Sally, who sent him a Dear John letter while he was overseas. And in the short story “Those Apache Tears,” a young park ranger, Nikki-Boy, wrestles with the consequences of his military service in Vietnam. He’s a Native American and his own people refuse to celebrate his laudable efforts, resentful that he’s become a “pawn” of a government that has historically oppressed them. While each of the author’s artfully melancholic stories can be read independently of the others, the group is thematically united by an unsentimental appraisal of combat. As the protagonist of the second novella plainly but poignantly puts it: “Sir, there was nothing adventurous about killing. It was hard, slogging, ugly work that never got easier the more you did it. It involved a lot of mud and cold and noise during the artillery barrages. Men don’t die easily, they never do.”
Bartley’s writing is poetically threadbare and powerful—he eludes the common temptation to tell a romanticized tale about heroic triumph. Instead, he unflinchingly presents the grimness of fighting in all of its ugliness, and the ways in which it bedraggles the souls of its participants. For example, Coltrane never permits himself a moment of idealistic self-delusion: “But he knew he had never been a hero. He had tried to kill the men who were trying to kill him. That was all.” The short story is the weakest of the bunch, and the most laboriously didactic—it flirts dangerously with delivering a moralistic sermon while its companion tales show more than tell. But overall, the book is a candid look not only at the damage done to warriors, but also the harsh reception they often receive from those for whom they offered their sacrifices.
An affecting assemblage of tales that deftly dramatize the ghastly costs of violence.Pub Date: Oct. 7, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-78036-393-6
Page Count: 361
Publisher: Peach Publishing
Review Posted Online: May 21, 2020
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 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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