A funny and thoroughly satisfying farce involving cinema and an escaped monkey.
A frustrated filmmaker tries to help his actor father save a monkey in this comic novel.
New Jersey, 1999. Would-be auteur Kevin Stacey is directing what he hopes will be his breakout independent feature, but things are going poorly. His crew is cranky; his actors are difficult; his budget is gone; and he’s starting to think he should have gone to law school. Things only get worse when his semiestranged father, Edward Stacey (stage name: Brian Edwards), shows up in a raincoat with a thick roll of cash, a handgun, and a capuchin monkey named Henry. Edward is a perennial extra with over 600 Hollywood films on his resume. “Name a film and my father was probably in it,” Kevin explains, “though only for a second, his face and body somewhere in the background, in the crowd, in the forgotten patches of the screen where the audience never looks.” It turns out Henry was recently freed from a research lab and the FBI is anxious to find him—and whomever liberated him. His heart softened by tales of animal cruelty, Kevin agrees to help his father find a safe home for Henry, though the task will encompass a cross-country road trip and suck in the director’s best friend and occasional lover, Veronica Merrin; his lawyer brother, Mike; and a movie-loving priest named Father Blank. Augello’s prose is sharp and funny, and he has a knack for imbuing ridiculous situations involving Kevin with psychological veracity: “My father sings in the shower, that strange song ‘MacArthur Park’ with its oddball lyrics about cake left in the rain. It’s a long song—he’s been in the shower for nearly ten minutes—yet Henry is enthralled. He sits outside the cracked bathroom door listening to my father croon.” The novel leaps around in time and point of view, which will help keep readers on their toes despite the fairly predictable plot. The story is a love letter to the movies—a very ’90s one at that—as well as a ’90s commentary on the treatment of lab animals. But at its best, the book is a sweet rumination on the relationships between difficult fathers and their sons.
A funny and thoroughly satisfying farce involving cinema and an escaped monkey.Pub Date: Nov. 24, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-68433-826-9
Page Count: 213
Publisher: Black Rose Writing
Review Posted Online: Feb. 23, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2022
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
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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