An undisciplined but often captivating love story, filtering strained emotion through vaulting intellectualism.
Two lovers contemplate their relationship along with philosophy, subatomic physics, and other topics in Bernard’s romance.
The novel begins with a vaguely described and possibly violent rupture between a woman named Sasha Kamenev and her boyfriend, Pascal, who then repair to the titular bar to rehash and ruminate over their years-long, intermittent relationship. The story unfolds as a series of dialogues between the duo that are dominated by Pascal’s long soliloquies, with the more reticent Sasha interjecting comments that tend to puncture his grandiosity (He: “let’s live in a big, soft windblown bubble of enchantment, a fantasy of what life might have been if our gods had been kind and wise and not what they are: rocks and wind and exploding suns and galaxies driving across space like hurricanes.” She: “Will you please shut up?”). These exchanges reveal next to nothing about the material circumstances of their lives, dwelling instead on the emotional friction between Pascal, who vacillates between claiming to be ardently in love with Sasha and affecting a stance of alienation from love in general, and Sasha, who adopts a cooler, warier attitude toward the domineering Pascal. The conversations broaden out to explore Pascal’s worldview, touching on his misanthropy toward the “shabby, flawed, shameless…lazy or brutal or stupid” run of humanity; his Nietzschean sense that individual autonomy and happiness are the highest goals; his resentment over being rejected by women he is attracted to (Sasha being a rare exception); his horror at the Newtown, Connecticut school shooting; his trepidation about AI’s potential to become humanity’s master; and his impressions of the Higgs boson. In her responses, Sasha usually upholds countervailing values of love and connectedness, but occasionally gives way to her own pessimism, at one point declaring herself a new species because humankind is such a disgrace.
With no plot to speak of, Bernard’s novel is essentially a chamber piece about two people cautiously inching their way toward—and sometimes away from—commitment, through a thicket of digressive thinking and talking. The prose is dense and elliptical, with philosophical disquisitions suddenly erupting into cryptic prose poems (“Virtue won’t make you happy. Not vice, not money, not love. Happiness makes you happy, then it bores you and you decide to try misery just for a change. Though escaping misery is not the snap that escaping happiness is”). The author is often self-indulgent, but he’s also a gifted writer; when he hits, he’s capable of gorgeous lyricism. On a seashore, he conjures “[t]he endless distant roll and crash of waves along the beach, the lulling confusion of whiteness, a serene and tranquil drama raving and collapsing without a pause from horizon to horizon.” Bernard also delivers penetrating insights into love and its failures: “Did you ever realize how divorce destroys in a particularly cruel way even the happiest memories of a marriage? How every memory of some joy you may have had is poisoned by the knowledge of what followed?” Black-and-white photos—portraits of prim Edwardian children, anti-portraits of adults with their faces blurred, snowscapes with the outlines of trees and light poles barely visible—lend an arresting, ghostly visual aura to the story.
An undisciplined but often captivating love story, filtering strained emotion through vaulting intellectualism.Pub Date: Jan. 15, 2020
ISBN: 9781587905148
Page Count: 238
Publisher: Regent Press
Review Posted Online: Sept. 18, 2023
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
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
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