A dense, dizzying exploration of desire and the mystery of the self.
A woman works through the tangle of her life in this impressionistic follow-up to Inverno (2024).
“I had begun writing a long letter, a letter to a man with whom I was in love…” begins Caroline, the narrator of Zarin’s second brief novel. She’s middle-aged, lives in New York, is estranged from her husband, Frank, and is the mother of three children—George, Louie, and Pom. She’s writing to Lorenzo, an Italian man with whom she’s having an extended affair, who is himself a paramour to two other women. Caroline’s letter is the work of several months and not something she ever intends to send; rather, it is a way to parse her own feelings and uncover how she became “the person who might write such a letter, and behave in such a way, behavior of which I deeply disapprove.” In the pages that follow, she explores not only the highs and lows of her current romance, but a previous one with a man named Alastair (the focus of Inverno), a friendship with a man named Daniel who struggled with bipolar disorder, and her preoccupation with the disappearance of Michael Rockefeller in New Guinea in 1961. As readers wade into Caroline’s stream of consciousness, they are treated to stunningly precise bits of prose (“I am thinking that one day I will learn to live without the sound that you make in the back of your throat, that difficult h. A small thing”), but it is often hard to find one’s footing. The novel is thick with allusions and quotations—William Shakespeare, Lewis Carroll, Leonard Cohen, Greek myth—some with more sign-posting than others. Readers with considerable familiarity with the Western canon may find this literary sleuthing rewarding, while others may find the bar to entry frustratingly high.
A dense, dizzying exploration of desire and the mystery of the self.Pub Date: Nov. 4, 2025
ISBN: 9780374610166
Page Count: 144
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: Sept. 13, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles...
Sisters in and out of love.
Meghann Dontess is a high-powered matrimonial lawyer in Seattle who prefers sex with strangers to emotional intimacy: a strategy bound to backfire sooner or later, warns her tough-talking shrink. It’s advice Meghann decides to ignore, along with the memories of her difficult childhood, neglectful mother, and younger sister. Though she managed to reunite Claire with Sam Cavenaugh (her father but not Meghann’s) when her mother abandoned both girls long ago, Meghann still feels guilty that her sister’s life doesn’t measure up, at least on her terms. Never married, Claire ekes out a living running a country campground with her dad and is raising her six-year-old daughter on her own. When she falls in love for the first time with an up-and-coming country musician, Meghann is appalled: Bobby Austin is a three-time loser at marriage—how on earth can Claire be so blind? Bobby’s blunt explanation doesn’t exactly satisfy the concerned big sister, who busies herself planning Claire’s dream wedding anyway. And, to relieve the stress, she beds various guys she picks up in bars, including Dr. Joe Wyatt, a neurosurgeon turned homeless drifter after the demise of his beloved wife Diane (whom he euthanized). When Claire’s awful headache turns out to be a kind of brain tumor known among neurologists as a “terminator,” Joe rallies. Turns out that Claire had befriended his wife on her deathbed, and now in turn he must try to save her. Is it too late? Will Meghann find true love at last?
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles (Distant Shores, 2002, etc.). Kudos for skipping the snifflefest this time around.Pub Date: May 1, 2003
ISBN: 0-345-45073-6
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2003
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
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