A darkly humorous, lively, but unwieldy LA story anchored by marriage and melodrama.
Modern Los Angeles life plays out through the interwoven journeys of a closely knit family.
Dorrough’s dizzying debut novel chronicles a year in the lives of 21st-century American archetypes Bill and Yvonne Smede. With their two children, the core couple navigate the slings and arrows of contemporary life while dodging numerous foibles and social conflicts and battling their nagging inner demons. Bill is a software developer and Yvonne is a hospital IT worker; both are busy but seem to be missing the spark of a sunny marriage. A large flock of friends and family branches outward from their universe. The couple’s son, Patrick, has lofty aspirations to start his own “freelance” company, but as time goes on, he finds living at home more comfortable. Daughter Alice, 16, is a moody, pensive, quiet high schooler who yearns for the freedom of adulthood. The book’s focus becomes a bit uneven as the cast of characters begins to stack up, including neighbors Gary Williams and Scott Portcullis, a gay couple with good jobs, a classic car, and a love for hosting dinner parties; and Yvonne’s Asian American co-worker Amy Lee, a married mother of two and the resident outspoken firecracker. Amy is also the captain of “The Evils,” a small group of middle-aged friends, Bill and Yvonne included, who frequently imbibe copious amounts of booze, indulge in high caloric food, and stay up late to stave off midlife crises. Despite the “formidable social jujitsu” of the group, the gatherings are well attended but aren’t depicted often enough to garner the taboo quality they deserve.
As these interrelationships weave their ways through the narrative, Bill and Yvonne openly grouse about the minor inconveniences of city living: electronic devices, the LA climate, garbage truck schedules, and the electric scooters clogging the gridlocked roadways. Most compelling are Yvonne’s yearning to distance herself from Bill as their marriage begs for rejuvenation; Amy’s pursuit to uncover her familial lineage; and Yvonne’s best friend Juice Hughes-Newton’s relentlessly vengeful plot to even the score with a high school enemy. Adding to this mélange is Francisco Danilo Rosario, a distant friend of Yvonne’s, who openly regales her and Bill with his “eclectic sexual appetite” and his desire to network socially and expand his carnal horizons. Dorrough’s character juggling act is impressive. But the rotation of so many personalities bloats the book with extraneous details and stray narrative threads that go unresolved. Because the author created such an expansive cast, there’s also a disappointing paucity of depth and backstories. Dorrough’s take on family dynamics is an integral part of this book’s allure and, aside from the heavily dialogue-propelled prose, becomes the driving force of its readability. His writing style is casual, evenly paced, and convincingly conversational. The author does a terrific job setting up all of his players with their distinct personalities, yet once established, they tend to spin in place throughout a novel that has great potential. While Dorrough has obviously put in a great amount of time and effort constructing his characters, a lack of cohesion causes narrative sluggishness. Still, readers, particularly Southern Californians, will find the tale fun, alive with wry cultural criticism, and reflective of the contemporary worries facing urban families.
A darkly humorous, lively, but unwieldy LA story anchored by marriage and melodrama.Pub Date: March 17, 2022
ISBN: 979-8985776300
Page Count: 579
Publisher: Self
Review Posted Online: June 7, 2022
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 dark and twisty look at just how far one woman is willing to go to find inspiration.
A struggling writer finds an unexpected muse when a mysterious man shows up at her cabin.
Petra Rose used to pump out a bestselling book every six months, but then the adaptation happened—that is, the disastrous film adaptation of her most famous book. The movie changed the book’s storyline so egregiously that fans couldn’t forgive her, and the ensuing harassment sent Petra into hiding and gave her a serious case of writer’s block. Petra’s one hope is her solo writing retreat at a remote cabin, where she can escape the distractions of real life and focus on her next book, a story about a woman having an affair with a cop. When officer Nathaniel Saint shows up at her cabin door, inspiration comes flooding back. Much like the character from Petra’s book, Saint is married, and he’s willing to be Petra’s muse, helping her get into her characters’ heads. Petra’s book is practically writing itself, but is the game she’s playing a little too dangerous? Does she know when to stop—and, more importantly, is Saint willing to stop? Hoover is no stranger to controversial movie adaptations and internet backlash, but she clarifies in a note to readers that she’s “just a writer writing about a writer” and that no further connections to her own life are contained in these pages—which is a good thing, because the book takes some horrifying twists and turns. Petra finds herself inexplicably attracted to Saint, even as she describes him as “such an asshole,” and her feelings for him veer between love and hate. The novel serves as a meta commentary on the dark romance genre—as Petra puts it, “Even though, as readers, we wouldn’t want to live out some of the fantasies we read about, it doesn’t mean we don’t enjoy reading those things.”
A dark and twisty look at just how far one woman is willing to go to find inspiration.Pub Date: Jan. 13, 2026
ISBN: 9781662539374
Page Count: -
Publisher: Montlake
Review Posted Online: Sept. 27, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2025
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