A brutal and gorgeous tale of manipulation, control, and desire.
The reappearance of a childhood bully throws the life of a New England man into turmoil.
When the book opens, Todd Nasca is spending time on the beach with his 6-year-old son, Anthony. They moved to New Granard four months ago, and soon Todd will start his position as a high school English teacher and Anthony will begin school for the first time. After having kept the boy out of kindergarten, Todd is anxious about his son entering the world; he feels like he's “pushing Anthony off a precipice.” Todd and his wife, Livia, divorced four years ago after a brief and tepid marriage, but Livia is back from her travels in Europe with renewed interest in knowing the son she left behind. Todd is alarmed when a stranger approaches Anthony at the beach—except he turns out to not be a stranger at all. Jack Gates transferred to Todd's high school when both boys were seniors, but they haven’t seen each other in years, and for good reason: Flashbacks detail how Jack viciously bullied Todd, calling him homophobic slurs, threatening him, and alienating Todd from their peers. Underlying the meanness was a tension that has followed both men to the present—a feeling it's possible they've been purposefully avoiding. When Todd presses, Jack is vague about the state of his marriage, how long he plans to stay, or if his sudden reappearance in Todd's life might be more than just coincidence. The longer Jack’s around, the more Todd’s discomfort grows, building to a shocking act of violence that inextricably links the characters and forces Todd down a path of alienation, lies, and madness. The tension is palpable on every page, and Habib skillfully illustrates the complexity of relationships and the pain of unmet desires, both queer and otherwise. His prose is as brutal as it is profound and beautiful: “Is everyone unhappy? Is everyone stuck? I think, Jack, I was happy sometimes; no, I was, I was before you, before you showed up; and you were happy when you got here, and Livia was happy before she met me, and Anthony was happy; and then, what? Everything is fine and then something shows up and you can’t be happy after that; what is that?”
A brutal and gorgeous tale of manipulation, control, and desire.Pub Date: July 5, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-393-54217-2
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Norton
Review Posted Online: April 12, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2022
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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