A startling and rewarding story of pain and alienation.
In Ambrose’s novel, a Black gay man with bipolar disorder navigates a mental health system and financial troubles.
One day in 2010, in Norristown, Pennsylvania,Bowie Long, still dressed in his pajamas, went to visit his mother at work at the county administration building with the intention of asking her for his check from Social Security; then, for reasons he doesn’t fully understand, he tried to kill her. Now he’s in a state mental facility, where he’s never been before:“The state hospital was the place of last resort. The place for the true loons. Or those that didn’t have insurance to pay for anything else. There were no perks here.” The 32-year-old Bowie was diagnosed with bipolar disorder years ago and has long heard voices in his head. He’s soon let out of the hospital, but this just puts him back into his chaotic home life. He and his mother, Magdelene—who quickly forgives him for trying to murder her—are both gambling addicts, and often spending their scant money on the slots at the local casino. Bowie isn’t above doing sex work here and there to make a couple extra bucks, as well. At home, though, his mother berates him constantly and makes him uncomfortable by frequently being naked in his presence. The only bright spot in his life is his sometime-lover, Eden, a compassionate man who desperately tries to save Bowie from bad choices. As Bowie navigates the mental health and legal systems during one crisis after another, Eden attempts to help him deal with a childhood trauma that might be contributing to his problems—but, Bowie wonders, is he simply too far gone to ever lead a normal life?
Over the course of this novel, Ambrose shows himself to be a terrific writer on the sentence level, capturing Bowie’s claustrophobic, paranoid existence in a way that will keep readers on their toes, as when Bowie rages against his keepers at the state hospital: “After the tenth hour, he did what it seemed they had been waiting for. He leaped up, screaming, and threw a chair. They descended like night, pinioning him beneath their weight, ignoring his outbursts, his demands to go home.” Bowie is a memorable protagonist, and Ambrose elegantly brings this sympathetic and deeply troubled man to life. Magdalene is a brilliant villain, whom the author portrays as just as psychologically complex as her son. The novel is a bit too long at nearly 400 pages, as the ups and downs become a bit repetitive over the course of the work. However, it remains a breathless read, effectively capturing the messiness of mental health and the maddening bureaucracy of the system in place to treat mental illness. It also demonstrates how traumas and living conditions can exacerbate one another, keeping a person trapped in a cycle of ill health and poverty. Overall, it’s a story that truly fixes the reader in the chaos of another person’s mind.
A startling and rewarding story of pain and alienation.Pub Date: May 31, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-938841-97-2
Page Count: 380
Publisher: Jaded Ibis Press
Review Posted Online: June 15, 2022
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
Though uneven, this is still a pleasurable, comforting read.
Infertility, family secrets, and alpacas all figure in Quindlen’s latest meditation on mothering and domesticity.
Polly’s life looks enviable. Happily married to the adoring Mark—a vet at the Bronx Zoo—she teaches English at a private Manhattan girls’ school and loves her work. She has a protective older brother and close girlfriends, who’ve formed a book club where no one is expected to read the book. But Polly desperately wants a child and, at 42, knows time is running out. She and Mark have gone through endless fertility treatments, to no avail. Meantime, Polly’s friends have given her a DNA kit as a jokey birthday gift, and something mysterious shows up in the test results. Then, out of nowhere, a young woman contacts her, suggesting they may be related. That’s not all: Polly feels estranged from her mother, a revered judge who’s insufficiently maternal in her daughter’s view. Her father has always cherished her, but he’s in a nursing home now with a rapidly failing mind. And something is amiss with her best pal, Sarah. Quindlen’s trademark empathy is evident throughout, and her wry humor leavens some of the serious goings-on. Early on, Mark and Polly visit a fertility clinic with photos of babies in the waiting room; for Polly, “it felt…like a Weight Watchers facility with hot fudge sundae pictures on the wall.” Then we meet these charming alpacas, humming and pronking, on a farm run by an earth mother, whose wisdom will help Polly get on with her life. The plot swerves around a bit, there may be one surplus narrative thread (e.g., Polly’s star student Josephine running aground after graduation), and at the end, the author ties things up too neatly, pushing the “circle of life” theme too hard.
Though uneven, this is still a pleasurable, comforting read.Pub Date: Feb. 24, 2026
ISBN: 9780593734605
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: Nov. 22, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2026
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