A vivid, engaging story of the death of a homecoming queen.
McDevitt presents a historical novel about growing up in America’s heartland and the perils of young womanhood in the late 1950s.
Nella Fortune, Midge Mahoney, and BJ Bonniface are three of the most popular girls at their small high school in smalltown Juniper, Wyoming. BJ is going steady with Rob Hitchcock, the football team’s star quarterback; she decides in a moment of passion to take her relationship with him to the next level, and she becomes pregnant after their very first sexual encounter. By the time she realizes it, she’s well past the window for a safe abortion. At first, Nella and Midge have no idea what’s going on with BJ; she suddenly seems cold and distant, and her mood isn’t even improved by becoming homecoming queen. Just as the two girls start comparing notes about their friend’s sudden aloofness, the school counselor calls them into her office, where the girls receive some life-changing news: BJ is dead. The story is that she went into anaphylactic shock from a wasp sting, died nearly instantly, and was cremated immediately, with no funeral. As the girls struggle to make sense of this tragic turn of events, they’re quickly suspicious when Nella remembers that she’s seen BJ get stung by a wasp before with no adverse reaction. Nella becomes determined to find out what really happened. Over the course of the novel, McDevitt sketches the era convincingly, highlighting a culture in which gender stereotypes abound. The story is told from Nella and Rob’s first-person perspectives, which gradually reveal the truth in often-lovely prose that effectively captures the pastoral Wyoming scenery and the culture that thrived in it, as when Nella briefly recalls her days at a ranch with BJ: “The sweet, heavy hay smell of the barn when we put our cheeks to the side of their dairy cow, Buttercup, listening to the underwater sloshes and gurgles from her unborn calf, BJ’s future 4-H project.” Fans of literary period pieces will enjoy this novel, which offers a smooth, controlled journey through a tragic tale.
A vivid, engaging story of the death of a homecoming queen.Pub Date: April 23, 2024
ISBN: 9781647048273
Page Count: 206
Publisher: Bublish, Incorporated
Review Posted Online: July 10, 2024
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
SEEN & HEARD
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
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