Missing a unifying narrative but nonetheless an intimate, intercontinental voyage through a series of disparate lives.
Sellen’s debut novel interweaves a series of vignettes from across the globe to create a broad diorama of modern-day culture clashes.
Lacking a centralized plot, the narrative globe-trots from one place to the next, switching among characters and places that rarely share more than a distant connection. Key personages include a Colombian cab driver who sinks into a life of crime in an attempt to lift his family out of poverty; a pair of 20-something missionaries on a mission to Delhi; a French economist who cannot relate to the Latin American populations her bank supposedly benefits; and a conservationist stationed in Ivory Coast facing the twin hurdles of crime and corruption in his attempt to preserve a UNESCO World Heritage Site. These stories in turn branch out to incorporate an impressively varied, realistic cast of characters. All walks of life are represented, but mostly, as hinted by the title, the tales develop from the desperation generated within impoverished lands. The author states in his opening acknowledgments that the novel is loosely based on people he knew while living in Asia, Africa and Latin America. Due to this personal familiarity, even the occasional far-fetched or surreal event carries a certain authenticity. At one point, the conservationist witnesses a bizarre rainstorm that deposits fish and snakes across his lawn. He explains to his startled housekeeper, “It’s something to do with tornados[sp] when they go over water. They pick up water and everything in it and drop them in another place.” The fish-out-of-water construct serves many of the characters who seem to be struggling to breathe in scenarios that are either unfamiliar or insupportable. Though skillfully narrated, their individual trials would perhaps function better as discrete and consecutively told short stories rather than placed in this haphazardly shuffled arrangement.
Missing a unifying narrative but nonetheless an intimate, intercontinental voyage through a series of disparate lives.Pub Date: Dec. 10, 2013
ISBN: 978-1491068335
Page Count: 266
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Jan. 24, 2014
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
A welcome literary resurrection that deserves a place alongside Wright’s best-known work.
A falsely accused Black man goes into hiding in this masterful novella by Wright (1908-1960), finally published in full.
Written in 1941 and '42, between Wright’s classics Native Son and Black Boy, this short novel concerns Fred Daniels, a modest laborer who’s arrested by police officers and bullied into signing a false confession that he killed the residents of a house near where he was working. In a brief unsupervised moment, he escapes through a manhole and goes into hiding in a sewer. A series of allegorical, surrealistic set pieces ensues as Fred explores the nether reaches of a church, a real estate firm, and a jewelry store. Each stop is an opportunity for Wright to explore themes of hope, greed, and exploitation; the real estate firm, Wright notes, “collected hundreds of thousands of dollars in rent from poor colored folks.” But Fred’s deepening existential crisis and growing distance from society keep the scenes from feeling like potted commentaries. As he wallpapers his underground warren with cash, mocking and invalidating the currency, he registers a surrealistic but engrossing protest against divisive social norms. The novel, rejected by Wright’s publisher, has only appeared as a substantially truncated short story until now, without the opening setup and with a different ending. Wright's take on racial injustice seems to have unsettled his publisher: A note reveals that an editor found reading about Fred’s treatment by the police “unbearable.” That may explain why Wright, in an essay included here, says its focus on race is “rather muted,” emphasizing broader existential themes. Regardless, as an afterword by Wright’s grandson Malcolm attests, the story now serves as an allegory both of Wright (he moved to France, an “exile beyond the reach of Jim Crow and American bigotry”) and American life. Today, it resonates deeply as a story about race and the struggle to envision a different, better world.
A welcome literary resurrection that deserves a place alongside Wright’s best-known work.Pub Date: April 20, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-59853-676-8
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Library of America
Review Posted Online: March 16, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2021
BOOK TO SCREEN
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