An absorbing, atmospheric tale of racial reckoning and a blues-infused coming-of-age.
A White high school football star questions his future after a Black father and daughter move to his Arkansas town in this novel.
Johnny Spink is in the Florida Keys, living with an uncle and completing his senior year of high school. Sporting a facial scar, Johnny “had to leave Spinkville last Thanksgiving” after finding “an old, gnawed boot” with “something slimy—bones, mangled, and stinking!” in his mailbox. Then Johnny reveals how he ended up in Florida, going back a few months to that “Ozark town named for my ancestors.” He is the Arkansas town’s high school football hero—with the requisite cheerleader girlfriend—and the son of the rich mayor. Even though it’s 2000 and he is “supposed to like rap, country, alt rock, or head-banging music,” Johnny is deeply drawn to the Delta blues. He is also becoming increasingly educated about his area’s “heart-breaking record of race relations,” with Spinkville having few Black inhabitants given the “hospitality” shown them in the past. Johnny is also feeling the pressures of preordained destiny, exemplified by his coach, indeed the whole town, hoping that he can make a record 1,000-yard gain at an upcoming game. Then Johnny is jolted by the arrival of a Black family: Charles Futrelle, the town’s new poultry plant manager, and his smart, striking daughter, Rae, who joins Johnny’s class. Charles becomes a fishing buddy and mentor and shares his memories of being on the University of Arkansas’ “scout team,” essentially “tackling dummies” and seeing “Black boys getting crippled so white coaches can win!” Johnny realizes that Rae is his first true love, but she is wary of him, more focused on her future at Princeton. As tensions build, Johnny takes a solo road trip to Clarksdale, Mississippi, to fully delve into his beloved blues. The experience is certainly life-changing, since it is there that Johnny receives that scar and then, upon returning home, makes remarks that anger his community, leading him to start anew in the Sunshine State.
The rather sweet, yearning nature of Gaspeny’s hero is a large part of the novel’s charm. Johnny visibly shakes when he finally gets to kiss elusive dream girl Rae. He also remains undaunted in his reverence for the blues by the tale’s end: “I knew from my music there would always be something lurking along the road out to grab and drag me down. But, with the blues as my rock of faith, I thought I could keep my balance and move on, even if I was only stumbling in flip-flops.” The engrossing story’s discussion of racial matters is naturally more complex. Charles’ recounting of his time as a scout is indeed powerful testimony of this particular Black experience in the South. Johnny is also characteristically sincere in describing his time in Clarksdale: “I had a small sense of what black people had to experience because down in the Delta my white skin made a black man hate me.” Yet the furor created by his remarks, with Johnny noting he was “attacked by the NAACP and defended by Black Muslims” and now often feels a “fugitive’s dread,” feels a bit extreme, although it’s sadly reflective of tragically pervasive racial divides.
An absorbing, atmospheric tale of racial reckoning and a blues-infused coming-of-age.Pub Date: Oct. 20, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-60489-332-8
Page Count: 228
Publisher: Livingston Press
Review Posted Online: Oct. 25, 2022
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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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