Poignant, frightening, packed with historical nuggets—a cautionary tale for contemporary times.
Sargent’s novel is based upon the life of Iordana (Dana) Borila Ceausescu, daughter-in-law of Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceausescu.
Written as a fictionalized memoir composed in the voice of Dana Ceausescu, this narrative is based upon Sargent’s interviews with the beleaguered ex-wife of Valentin Ceausescu, scion of the family that ruled Romania from the late 1960s through the 1980s. The interviews took place in Maine, where Dana and her son, Dani, lived in hiding after Ceausescu was overthrown and executed in the violent revolution of 1989. Born and raised in Bucharest, Dana is the daughter of devoted communists—her father is a high official in the Central Committee, and her mother is a respected newspaper journalist. As such, the teenager has enjoyed a life of privilege. Her parents’ fortunes begin a dramatic decline when Nicolae Ceausescu seizes control of the Central Committee in 1965. In that same year, Dana meets and begins dating Nicolae’s son, Valentin Ceausescu, much to the displeasure of both families. The couple marries in 1970, and Dana acquires a mother-in-law, Elena, who despises her (“Elena, through her network of Central Committee wives, began a disinformation campaign filled with rumor and innuendo about me that flashed all over the city”). Meanwhile, Nicolae becomes a media darling during the early years of his reign, turning to the West for loans to finance his plans for industrializing Romania (much of this money finds its way into the Ceausescu private coffers). Eventually, crippling debt plunges the country into chaos. Sargent’s novel is both a personal story of deep romantic love and a terrifying historical lesson about life in a police state helmed by a ruthless, cult-of-personality dictator. Always considered an outsider, Dana is nonetheless privy to the Ceausescu family’s extravagances and its unspeakable cruelty. Dozens of daily-life vignettes effectively capture Dana’s moments of joy and heartbreak, and the pervasive fear that extends as the scarcity of food, electricity, and heat grips the country. There’s even a breathless car chase across the border, with celebrity race car driver Catalin Tutunaru at the wheel.
Poignant, frightening, packed with historical nuggets—a cautionary tale for contemporary times.Pub Date: Feb. 14, 2023
ISBN: 978-1909954397
Page Count: 312
Publisher: Barbican Press
Review Posted Online: July 28, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 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
Though uneven, this is still a pleasurable, comforting read.
Infertility, family secrets, and alpacas all figure in Quindlen’s latest meditation on mothering and domesticity.
Polly’s life looks enviable. Happily married to the adoring Mark—a vet at the Bronx Zoo—she teaches English at a private Manhattan girls’ school and loves her work. She has a protective older brother and close girlfriends, who’ve formed a book club where no one is expected to read the book. But Polly desperately wants a child and, at 42, knows time is running out. She and Mark have gone through endless fertility treatments, to no avail. Meantime, Polly’s friends have given her a DNA kit as a jokey birthday gift, and something mysterious shows up in the test results. Then, out of nowhere, a young woman contacts her, suggesting they may be related. That’s not all: Polly feels estranged from her mother, a revered judge who’s insufficiently maternal in her daughter’s view. Her father has always cherished her, but he’s in a nursing home now with a rapidly failing mind. And something is amiss with her best pal, Sarah. Quindlen’s trademark empathy is evident throughout, and her wry humor leavens some of the serious goings-on. Early on, Mark and Polly visit a fertility clinic with photos of babies in the waiting room; for Polly, “it felt…like a Weight Watchers facility with hot fudge sundae pictures on the wall.” Then we meet these charming alpacas, humming and pronking, on a farm run by an earth mother, whose wisdom will help Polly get on with her life. The plot swerves around a bit, there may be one surplus narrative thread (e.g., Polly’s star student Josephine running aground after graduation), and at the end, the author ties things up too neatly, pushing the “circle of life” theme too hard.
Though uneven, this is still a pleasurable, comforting read.Pub Date: Feb. 24, 2026
ISBN: 9780593734605
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: Nov. 22, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2026
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