An absorbing and complex novel shines a light on chattel slavery in Puerto Rico.
An enslaved woman finds that human bonds sustain her even amid the cruelties of plantation life.
As a teenager in the early 19th century, Keera is kidnapped from her home in Yorubaland by slave traders. She is sold to the owner of Hacienda Paraiso, a plantation in Puerto Rico. He makes dual use of the women he enslaves: They work the sugar cane fields, and they are kept almost constantly pregnant, their babies taken away and sold right after birth. The novel opens with Keera, renamed Pola, making a desperate escape attempt after years of loss drive her close to madness. She ends up on Hacienda Las Mercedes, another sugar cane plantation but one with somewhat more humane owners—Pola is astonished to see enslaved children living there with their families. She’s been savagely beaten and gang-raped, but she recovers under the care of Rufina, a curandera, and two other older women who, although they are enslaved, have a degree of autonomy because of their talents for curing, cooking, and directing the plantation’s workshop that produces lucrative fine needlework and dresses. When she’s well, she becomes a protégé of all three, assisting Rufina in her healing arts, learning to cook in Pastora’s fine kitchen, and serving as a cutter and helper to Tia Josefa’s needleworkers. Llanos-Figueroa draws a detailed picture of social hierarchy on the plantation, not just that of owners and the enslaved, but the status system among the workers, based on the kind of work they do, which is in turn based on colorism—darker-skinned people are assigned to the grueling tasks like cutting cane, while the lighter-skinned (often mixed race) people work in the big house, serving tea and sewing ball gowns. Pola, who is dark, becomes an exception to the rule and the object of resentment. She also becomes the object of desire of a strong, stoic worker named Simon, but her hatred of men stands between them. Her heart does warm for Chachita, an orphan girl she finds living on her own in the woods. Chachita fills the empty spot in Pola’s heart left by her stolen babies, but helping the child puts them both at risk. Llanos-Figueroa’s prose is lively, her characters vivid. The last part of the book loses steam when it shifts into romance mode, but it’s a moving and engaging tale.
An absorbing and complex novel shines a light on chattel slavery in Puerto Rico.Pub Date: April 12, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-06-306222-1
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Amistad/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: March 1, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 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
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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