Historical burlesque as lively in invention as it is ingenious in execution.
Imagine a post-millennial trickster spin on The Red Badge of Courage only with broader landscapes, complex racial dynamics, and corrosive humor.
Call him Anders. He’s a tall, pale teenage naif who gets so swept up in the maelstrom of the Civil War that by 1863, he’s been a regimental flag bearer for both the Union and Confederate armies before barely surviving the Yankees’ rout at Gettysburg and staggering into an all-Black Union regiment. With the craftiness he’s had to depend on since leaving behind his abusive mother, Anders blends in with his new platoon with stolen blue duds and a claim to being an octoroon (i.e. mixed race). The Black troopers skeptically indulge this white-boy straggler’s story and take him in as one of their own—and they are as motley a crew as can be imagined in anybody’s army. There’s Corporal Tobias Gleason, a playwright specializing in what he calls “speculative theater” about “The American Future.” Also notable among Anders’ new compatriots are Joaquin Geoffroy, a Haitian-born double agent embedded among African American soldiers “to inspire greater brutality against their white countrymen,” an “eternally frowning black giant” named Mole, and Thomas, a grouchy freed slave with ongoing, unresolved grievances against God (and just about everything else). There’s another teenager in the regiment, a bugler named Petey, who’s as “light” in skin color as Anders and is just as vague about his true origins. With a captured, duplicitous white arms dealer named Slade Jefferson in tow, Anders and his adopted brothers-in-arms embark on a perilous, sometimes-savage journey that takes them to a New York City whose streets are stained with Black blood from the draft riots. Then Gleason is emboldened to lead the wayward regiment to San Valentin, a Nevada settlement offering a prototype of a freer, more equitable America “unstained by cotton.” Grand dreams, inflated egos, and cruel twists of fate are often the stuff of great satires and this first novel by Dayle evokes such classic accounts of the human condition in conflict as Candide, Catch-22, and at least a couple of books by Evelyn Waugh.
Historical burlesque as lively in invention as it is ingenious in execution.Pub Date: June 17, 2025
ISBN: 9781250345677
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: May 3, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2025
A pleasant if not entirely convincing tribute to the power of art.
A French art historian’s English-language fiction debut combines the story of a loving relationship between a grandfather and granddaughter with an enlightening discussion of art.
One day, when 10-year-old Mona removes the necklace given to her by her now-dead grandmother, she experiences a frightening, hour-long bout of blindness. Her parents take her to the doctor, who gives her a variety of tests and also advises that she see a psychiatrist. Her grandfather Henry tells her parents that he will take care of that assignment, but instead, he takes Mona on weekly visits to either the Louvre, the Musée d’Orsay, or the Centre Pompidou, where each week they study a single work of art, gazing at it deeply and then discussing its impact and history and the biography of its maker. For the reader’s benefit, Schlesser also describes each of the works in scrupulous detail. As the year goes on, Mona faces the usual challenges of elementary school life and the experiences of being an only child, and slowly begins to understand the causes of her temporary blindness. Primarily an amble through a few dozen of Schlesser’s favorite works of art—some well known and others less so, from Botticelli and da Vinci through Basquiat and Bourgeois—the novel would probably benefit from being read at a leisurely pace. While the dialogue between Henry and the preternaturally patient and precocious Mona sometimes strains credulity, readers who don’t have easy access to the museums of Paris may enjoy this vicarious trip in the company of a guide who focuses equally on that which can be seen and the context that can’t be. Come for the novel, stay for the introductory art history course.
A pleasant if not entirely convincing tribute to the power of art.Pub Date: Aug. 26, 2025
ISBN: 9798889661115
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Europa Editions
Review Posted Online: June 7, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2025
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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
SEEN & HEARD
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