If you're ready to abandon all political consciousness and get in the wayback machine, you'll exit smiling.
An archly comic love story with notes of farce and fable.
Meet Charlie Green, a very rich, White, Ivy League–bound 18-year-old with Holden Caulfield genes, about to fall in love with the most beautiful "light-eyed" female barmaid in Philadelphia. Set in 1987, Roberts' debut almost seems like it was written in 1987; from the title on out, the author is blithely unhampered by current ideas about privilege, sexism, ethnic stereotypes, and more. Charlie is the son of adorable Frenchman George Green, known as Jee-Jee, and Rose, his alcoholic wife, whose fairy-tale wealth comes from a barnful of old masters paintings. At first, the novel has YA overtones, as we meet Charlie working as the only skinny counselor at a camp for overweight middle schoolers. "It pain[s] [Charlie] that he [can’t] give himself…romantically" to the Very-Brown-Eyed-Counselor who has a crush on him; he is saving himself for his last night before college, during which he has elaborately planned to lose his virginity to his girlfriend. Despite following the advice of his successful older brother, John—"The shower you take before you lose your virginity is more important than the shower you take before your wedding....A new bar of Irish Spring. New razor. No cologne. Extra deodorant, but it has to be cheap. You should smell like a working man"—he'll end up sulking over pizza and headed for life-changing adventures. Every step of the way he consults John, who is, after all, a successful Wall Street "Haircut" with a Princeton degree and an amazing six-figure girlfriend named Shannon Chang. Informing Charlie that almost every pretty girl owns a futon, he explains, "They treat it like a flying carpet. They're obsessed. It's weird. They think it makes them seem more grounded, but also sexually aloft. Girls are really into their own paradoxes." Roberts' old-school, slightly surreal humor has a dash of Barthelme or Perelman.
If you're ready to abandon all political consciousness and get in the wayback machine, you'll exit smiling.Pub Date: Nov. 2, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-950994-27-4
Page Count: 312
Publisher: Arcade
Review Posted Online: Aug. 31, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2021
BOOK REVIEW
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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