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
A welcome literary resurrection that deserves a place alongside Wright’s best-known work.
A falsely accused Black man goes into hiding in this masterful novella by Wright (1908-1960), finally published in full.
Written in 1941 and '42, between Wright’s classics Native Son and Black Boy, this short novel concerns Fred Daniels, a modest laborer who’s arrested by police officers and bullied into signing a false confession that he killed the residents of a house near where he was working. In a brief unsupervised moment, he escapes through a manhole and goes into hiding in a sewer. A series of allegorical, surrealistic set pieces ensues as Fred explores the nether reaches of a church, a real estate firm, and a jewelry store. Each stop is an opportunity for Wright to explore themes of hope, greed, and exploitation; the real estate firm, Wright notes, “collected hundreds of thousands of dollars in rent from poor colored folks.” But Fred’s deepening existential crisis and growing distance from society keep the scenes from feeling like potted commentaries. As he wallpapers his underground warren with cash, mocking and invalidating the currency, he registers a surrealistic but engrossing protest against divisive social norms. The novel, rejected by Wright’s publisher, has only appeared as a substantially truncated short story until now, without the opening setup and with a different ending. Wright's take on racial injustice seems to have unsettled his publisher: A note reveals that an editor found reading about Fred’s treatment by the police “unbearable.” That may explain why Wright, in an essay included here, says its focus on race is “rather muted,” emphasizing broader existential themes. Regardless, as an afterword by Wright’s grandson Malcolm attests, the story now serves as an allegory both of Wright (he moved to France, an “exile beyond the reach of Jim Crow and American bigotry”) and American life. Today, it resonates deeply as a story about race and the struggle to envision a different, better world.
A welcome literary resurrection that deserves a place alongside Wright’s best-known work.Pub Date: April 20, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-59853-676-8
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Library of America
Review Posted Online: March 16, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2021
BOOK TO SCREEN
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