A memorable meditation on how the human struggle to survive in captivity is not so different than that of our animal kin.
A former marine biologist struggles to survive a global pandemic while reconciling with her difficult past.
In a future that bears an uncanny resemblance to the present, Neffy, a 27-year-old former marine biologist, registers for an experimental vaccine trial, perhaps the last chance to halt a devastating worldwide pandemic. While spending three weeks in a hospital in London, Neffy and four other volunteers—Rachel, Piper, Yahiko, and Leon—watch in horror as the outside world slides further into chaos and debate what they will and won’t do to try to make it out alive. Meanwhile, through experimental technology that enables people to revisit memories, which Leon was working on before the pandemic, Neffy is tempted to lose herself in the past, reliving a love affair, her childhood in England and Greece, and a brazen choice that led to the end of her career. Fuller, the author of the Costa Novel Award–winning Unsettled Ground (2021), among other books, excels in examining the everyday moments at the heart of a life: Rachel scrolling through the pictures on her phone, hoping that one day social media will come back; the group celebrating a birthday by drinking water and pretending that it’s vodka. In quotidian and thrilling moments alike, Fuller expertly grapples with the sickeningly real personal and ethical complexities of human survival. In the end, however, she seems to trade her attention to nuance for an ill-defined, ethereal optimism, especially in the hurried conclusion. The novel may end on a hopeful note, but in doing so, it compromises its potential to be a great post-apocalyptic novel and instead rises just above the recent spate of pandemic-inspired narratives.
A memorable meditation on how the human struggle to survive in captivity is not so different than that of our animal kin.Pub Date: June 6, 2023
ISBN: 9781953534873
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Tin House
Review Posted Online: March 13, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2023
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
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
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