An engrossing story about a clash of cultures and the extremities of faith.
A deeply religious and pious family of Latter-day Saints finds their world upended when a corrupt real estate company targets their land.
Duchovny is best known for his idiosyncratic roles in The X-Files and Californication, and he has a wildly unpredictable voice as a writer. Here he offers a dramatic parable involving trespasses against others and the dire consequences that follow. The patriarch of the family is Bronson Powers, who, two decades earlier, was an over-the-hill stuntman with a growing opioid addiction. His fortune changes when a relative dies, leaving him a huge but desolate property in the desert near Joshua Tree—with one caveat: Bronson must convert to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Now, in the present, Powers is deeply devout, with two wives, Mary and Yalulah, 10 children, and a few members of the clan already in the ground. The family is completely cut off from civilization, living primarily off the land. The triggering conflict comes when 27-year-old Maya Abbadessa, an ambitious executive with a deeply corrupt investment firm, stumbles across the property and realizes it’s worth millions. To nudge Bronson into selling, the firm recruits Child Protective Services to force the family to send the older children to public school. It’s a troublesome but interesting journey for Deuce, Hyrum, and Pearl. Deuce becomes an ace student, Pearl vacillates between drug-fueled rebellion and a burgeoning interest in theater, and Hyrum furiously fights everybody and anybody who messes with him or his siblings. It’s a lot to take in: Bronson not only feels invaded, but his struggle with his faith and his relationships with his wives and children are unsettling. Maya grapples with her conscience while the kids find themselves strangers in a strange land. It’s a heady mix of philosophy, faith, family drama, and violence, but Duchovny’s characteristically nimble prose not only connects the various narratives, but exposes the complicated humanity of his multifarious cast.
An engrossing story about a clash of cultures and the extremities of faith.Pub Date: Feb. 2, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-3742-7774-1
Page Count: 464
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: Oct. 26, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2020
BOOK TO SCREEN
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 debut novel with bright spots, but unbalanced and lacking in finesse.
A high school senior pursues an affair with her teacher.
Seventeen-year-old Waldo, the narrator of McCurdy’s fiction debut, lives in Anchorage, Alaska, with her mother, though she’s long been the parent in their relationship. She heats her own frozen meals and pays the bills on time while her mom chases man after man and makes well-meaning promises she never keeps. Waldo blows her Victoria’s Secret wages on online shopping sprees and binges on junk food, inevitably crashing after the fleeting highs of her indulgences. Mr. Korgy, her creative writing teacher, has “thinning hair and nose pores”; he’s 40 years old and married with a child. Nevertheless—or possibly as a result?—Waldo’s attraction to him is “instant. So sudden it’s alarming. So palpable it’s confusing.” Mr. Korgy professes to want to keep their friendship aboveboard, but after a sexual encounter at the school’s winter formal that she initiates, an affair begins. Will this reckless pursuit be the one that actually satisfies Waldo, and is she as mature as she thinks she is? Waldo is a keen observer of people and provides sharp commentary on the punishing work of female beauty. Readers of McCurdy’s bestselling memoir, I’m Glad My Mom Died (2022), will surely be curious about the tumultuous mother-daughter relationship, and it is one of the novel’s highlights, full of realistic pity and anger and need. (“I want to scream at her. I want her to hug me.”) Unfortunately, the prose is often unwieldy and sometimes downright cringeworthy: When Waldo tells Mr. Korgy she loves him, “The words hang in the air in that constipated way they do when you know that you shouldn’t have said them.” Waldo frequently lists emotions and adjectives in triplicate, and events that could be significant aren’t sufficiently explored or given enough space to breathe before the novel races on to the next thing.
A debut novel with bright spots, but unbalanced and lacking in finesse.Pub Date: Jan. 20, 2026
ISBN: 9780593723739
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: Nov. 22, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2026
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
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