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 welcome literary resurrection that deserves a place alongside Wright’s best-known work.
A falsely accused Black man goes into hiding in this masterful novella by Wright (1908-1960), finally published in full.
Written in 1941 and '42, between Wright’s classics Native Son and Black Boy, this short novel concerns Fred Daniels, a modest laborer who’s arrested by police officers and bullied into signing a false confession that he killed the residents of a house near where he was working. In a brief unsupervised moment, he escapes through a manhole and goes into hiding in a sewer. A series of allegorical, surrealistic set pieces ensues as Fred explores the nether reaches of a church, a real estate firm, and a jewelry store. Each stop is an opportunity for Wright to explore themes of hope, greed, and exploitation; the real estate firm, Wright notes, “collected hundreds of thousands of dollars in rent from poor colored folks.” But Fred’s deepening existential crisis and growing distance from society keep the scenes from feeling like potted commentaries. As he wallpapers his underground warren with cash, mocking and invalidating the currency, he registers a surrealistic but engrossing protest against divisive social norms. The novel, rejected by Wright’s publisher, has only appeared as a substantially truncated short story until now, without the opening setup and with a different ending. Wright's take on racial injustice seems to have unsettled his publisher: A note reveals that an editor found reading about Fred’s treatment by the police “unbearable.” That may explain why Wright, in an essay included here, says its focus on race is “rather muted,” emphasizing broader existential themes. Regardless, as an afterword by Wright’s grandson Malcolm attests, the story now serves as an allegory both of Wright (he moved to France, an “exile beyond the reach of Jim Crow and American bigotry”) and American life. Today, it resonates deeply as a story about race and the struggle to envision a different, better world.
A welcome literary resurrection that deserves a place alongside Wright’s best-known work.Pub Date: April 20, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-59853-676-8
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Library of America
Review Posted Online: March 16, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2021
BOOK TO SCREEN
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