An unsatisfying family epic that bites off more than it can chew.
A multigenerational saga of an Italian family that immigrates to Germany in the mid-20th century.
German fashion designer Julia Becker always believed that her father, Vincenzo, died when she was a child—at least, that’s what her mother, Tanja, had always told her. But her life turns upside down when a mysterious elderly man approaches her after a Milan Fashion Week show for her upstart clothing label, claims to be her long-lost grandfather, and reveals that her father is still alive. Though Julia at first refuses to believe him, she soon uncovers a trove of family secrets that forces her to reevaluate everything. The novel unfolds as a series of reminisces that begin with Julia’s grandfather Vincent’s journey from Munich to Milan to work on the Isetta bubble car in the 1950s, where he met, fell in love with, and impregnated Giulietta Marconi, a Sicilian woman who was engaged to her cousin Enzo. Though Vincent and Giulietta separate, Giulietta and Enzo later immigrate to Munich, and the old romance is rekindled. Speck effectively depicts the struggles of Italian “guest workers” facing discrimination in postwar Germany, but despite this noble enterprise, his novel lacks dramatic power. The book feels both too long and not long enough: At 520 pages, it's a hefty tome, but Speck tells the stories of so many members of Julia’s extended family that the book feels rushed; frustratingly, he often summarizes his characters’ feelings and motivations instead of letting them live and breathe on the page in fully realized dramatic scenes. The novel also suffers from an inconsistent framing device: Though it's written as a series of stories being told to Julia or as entries in Giulietta’s diary, those stories often include information that the narrators could never have known, which is disorienting to the reader.
An unsatisfying family epic that bites off more than it can chew.Pub Date: Aug. 11, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-5420-9012-4
Page Count: 477
Publisher: Amazon Crossing
Review Posted Online: June 2, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2020
Fans of Stockett’s bestselling debut will love this engaging follow-up.
Stockett heads to Mississippi for another historical novel about feisty women.
This time, perhaps recalling criticisms of cultural appropriation in The Help (2009), she sticks to feisty white women, with one exception. The setting is Oxford in 1933. For two miserable years, 11-year-old Meg has lived in “the Orphan,” a county asylum for parentless girls. Chairlady Garnett—a villain so one-note she’d twirl a mustache if she had one—makes it her mission to ostracize the older girls she deems unadoptable, stigmatizing them as offspring of the “feebleminded” mothers who abandoned them. She particularly has it in for smart, sassy Meg, who refuses to believe her mother’s mysterious disappearance was deliberate. Elsewhere in Oxford, Birdie Calhoun comes to visit her sister Frances, who married a wealthy banker, to ask for money on behalf of their mother and grandmother back in Footely. Frances isn’t thrilled by this reminder of her impoverished small-town origins. But she’s trying to climb up in Oxford society by volunteering at the Orphan, the asylum’s books need to be done before the state inspector shows up in a few weeks, and Birdie is a bookkeeper. Having neatly arranged to keep Birdie in town and draw these two storylines together, Stockett goes on to spin a compulsively readable yarn with enough plot for a half-dozen novels. Birdie and Meg become friends, Meg is adopted despite Garnett’s best efforts, Meg’s mother turns up at the Orphan demanding to know where her child is—and that’s less than a quarter of the way through a long, winding narrative that keeps piling on more dramatic developments until all loose ends are neatly, if hastily, wrapped up in the final pages. Stockett might be making a point about Southern women facing facts and standing up for themselves, but mostly this is just a satisfyingly twisty tale that should make a great miniseries.
Fans of Stockett’s bestselling debut will love this engaging follow-up.Pub Date: May 5, 2026
ISBN: 9781954118812
Page Count: 656
Publisher: Spiegel & Grau
Review Posted Online: Feb. 2, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2026
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
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