A cleareyed look at what history has hidden.
To the victor go the spoils (and the resulting spoilage).
It is July 4, 2019. As the descendants of the Mason family gather for their traditional meal of salmon and peas at the plantation home of their forebears (among the earliest settlers of the Chesapeake Bay environs), the time has come for a reckoning. The legacy of all that was wrought over the course of several generations—displacement of the Indigenous population and the use of enslaved people as laborers among the most troubling practices—weighs upon members of the group to various degrees. Relatives of the current owners are occupied as geologists, aspiring novelists, and real estate executives; all three professions provide support for holiday discussions of time, attachment to place, and responsibility for past actions. The guest list waxes and wanes but includes two French relatives who have been touring the U.S. and bring their perspectives on current U.S. culture and race relations to the table in a no-holds-barred way. The 2019 dinner will go down in the annals of Mason history as the one when the family confronted the past and grappled with how to proceed in the face of the haunted legacy of the familial estate. An elegiac air pervades this thoughtful narrative as several family members are now of an advanced age or dealing with serious illness. Tilghman has examined various lives within the family in three previous novels, beginning with Mason’s Retreat (1996), so some summarizing takes place, but the real star of the show here is the extended dinner conversation(s) occurring between and among the guests. While slyly giving credit to famous cinematic dinner table sequences, Tilghman sets in motion an engaging scene full of confrontation, humor, annoyance, and revelation (and the origins of the salmon and pea menu).
A cleareyed look at what history has hidden.Pub Date: April 16, 2024
ISBN: 9780374226060
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: Feb. 3, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
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
SEEN & HEARD
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