A set of captivating tales of strangers in a very strange land.
Russian immigrants in America ponder the meaning of life, navigate supernatural experiences, and search for lost treasure in Budman’s story cycle.
This collection centers on a man known only as “the interpreter of dreams and afflictions”—a semiretired, Russian-born Jewish engineer now living in Boston, where he works as an online medical interpreter for Russian-speaking patients. He and his unnamed wife, in their spare time, help care for their two young granddaughters. In these meandering stories, the interpreter recalls his family’s history in the Soviet Union, where they weathered persecution and exile; conveys gentle life lessons to his grandchildren; observes the medical melodramas of the patients; stages whimsical funerals for a goldfish and a tick; and, in the fraught title story, confronts a mass shooter at an immigrant community center. Some of his adventures are wondrous: He tries out a variety of eternal-youth potions but gets cold feet when he recalls how callow and selfish young people are; receives dream visitations from biblical patriarch Joseph, who dispenses terse advice; and hones his talent for floating up to the ceiling. Intertwined with his narrative is a subplot about Piotr Osipovich Voronin, a penniless Russian immigrant in Brighton Beach, Brooklyn, who hopes to recover priceless pearls hidden in ornate pillows that his aunt mailed to America, and Penelopa Belkina, a strapping young woman from Odessa, Ukraine, who uses her computer- hacking skills to help Piotr locate the pillows—in return for a hefty cut of the loot. Their quests introduce them to oddball Americans, including someone with a fair-sized arsenal who also collects teddy-bear figurines and an unemployed woman enduring the purgatory of job-search seminars. Eventually, the quest leads to the interpreter’s doorstep—after he buys one of the fateful pillows.
Budman crafts a story collection that reads more like a novella, exploring coherent, resonant themes, such as the exhilaration that immigrants feel regarding America’s opportunities and their bafflement at its alienating culture; the deep changes in perspective wrought by aging; and the uncertainties of attempting to communicate with and understand other people. His fictional world has a Dostoevskian feel to it; its characters are steeped in metaphysical rumination and spiritual yearnings, which lead to material calculations and occasional eruptions of shocking violence. Full of mordant wit, colorful characters, and disorienting swerves, Budman’s text brims with evocative detail when relating squalid realism—“He spent his fiftieth birthday the night before cursing his fate in heavily accented English, drinking stale Diet Coke mixed with a few drops of leftover vodka, munching on his last Triscuit,”—and bizarrely matter-of-fact magical realism: “The Green Man stands alone on the sidewalk of a new housing development where every house is at least half a million in Earth money….His eyes are undiluted anthracite with speckles of white. His skin is poison-green, the color that makes you think of an industrial spill.” The result is a dazzling read with true philosophical depth amid wild flights of fancy.
A set of captivating tales of strangers in a very strange land.Pub Date: Oct. 20, 2022
ISBN: 9781604893342
Page Count: 138
Publisher: Livingston Press
Review Posted Online: Nov. 14, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2023
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
PERSPECTIVES
PERSPECTIVES
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 dark and twisty look at just how far one woman is willing to go to find inspiration.
A struggling writer finds an unexpected muse when a mysterious man shows up at her cabin.
Petra Rose used to pump out a bestselling book every six months, but then the adaptation happened—that is, the disastrous film adaptation of her most famous book. The movie changed the book’s storyline so egregiously that fans couldn’t forgive her, and the ensuing harassment sent Petra into hiding and gave her a serious case of writer’s block. Petra’s one hope is her solo writing retreat at a remote cabin, where she can escape the distractions of real life and focus on her next book, a story about a woman having an affair with a cop. When officer Nathaniel Saint shows up at her cabin door, inspiration comes flooding back. Much like the character from Petra’s book, Saint is married, and he’s willing to be Petra’s muse, helping her get into her characters’ heads. Petra’s book is practically writing itself, but is the game she’s playing a little too dangerous? Does she know when to stop—and, more importantly, is Saint willing to stop? Hoover is no stranger to controversial movie adaptations and internet backlash, but she clarifies in a note to readers that she’s “just a writer writing about a writer” and that no further connections to her own life are contained in these pages—which is a good thing, because the book takes some horrifying twists and turns. Petra finds herself inexplicably attracted to Saint, even as she describes him as “such an asshole,” and her feelings for him veer between love and hate. The novel serves as a meta commentary on the dark romance genre—as Petra puts it, “Even though, as readers, we wouldn’t want to live out some of the fantasies we read about, it doesn’t mean we don’t enjoy reading those things.”
A dark and twisty look at just how far one woman is willing to go to find inspiration.Pub Date: Jan. 13, 2026
ISBN: 9781662539374
Page Count: -
Publisher: Montlake
Review Posted Online: Sept. 27, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2025
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