Doing what she does best, Johnson shows us why she's been compared to writers like Henry James, Jane Austen, and Voltaire.
A Californian facing her second divorce, this one in France, returns to the bosom of her family.
In her 18th book, Johnson, now 86, returns with undimmed joie de vivre to the delicious Francophile vein she mined so successfully in her National Book Award finalist Le Divorce (1997) and other novels. Everything one looks forward to in Johnson's books is delivered in abundance here: nimble plotting, witty narration, edifying juxtaposition of French and American cultures. Returning to her hometown of San Francisco just before the financial crisis of the aughts, art historian Lorna Mott "had remembered America differently, without people lying in the street, neighbors being tied up and robbed, junk food, obesity, cars everywhere." Yet after 20 mostly happy years in the sweet village of Pont-les-Puits, she has had it with her aging playboy husband's indiscretions and now hopes to be of use to her adult children. They have problems, almost all concerning finances. Divorced Peggy can't make ends meet selling crafts on the internet; money's run out for daughter Julie's college tuition. Tech wonder-boy Curt has disappeared to the Far East after awakening from a coma, leaving a wife and young twins. Old hippie Hams and his pierced and pregnant wife are living in a terrible neighborhood. Their father, Lorna's ex, has married a young gazillionaire but seems to have little interest in helping the children of his first marriage—until he faces a problem with their 15-year-old half sister that manages to pull almost all the plot elements and cast members into a single focus. Ta da! Johnson's social and moral insight are condensed into pithy one-liners that begin each chapter: "Hope springs eternal and is sometimes rewarded." "Pace Freud, does talking about a problem always make us feel better?" She also excels at evoking people's misconstruals of others' behavior and various delicate inner states: "Her French troubles with Armand and wifedom had faded to a bearable background hum, a kind of tinnitus."
Doing what she does best, Johnson shows us why she's been compared to writers like Henry James, Jane Austen, and Voltaire.Pub Date: June 29, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-525-52108-2
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Jan. 26, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2021
PROFILES
PERSPECTIVES
PERSPECTIVES
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
Great crime fiction.
An apparent suicide threatens to destroy an Irish farm town in the final volume of French’s Cal Hooper trilogy.
In the fictional western Ireland townland of Ardnakelty, “there’s a girl going after missing.” Soon young Rachel Holohan is found dead in the river. Shortly before, she had stopped at Lena Dunne’s home, and nothing had seemed amiss. The medical examiner determines she’d swallowed antifreeze, and he presumes she then fell from a bridge into the water. The medical examiner and the town agree she’d died by suicide. But there is far more to the plot: 16-year-old Trey Reddy thinks Tommy Moynihan murdered Rachel. Moynihan doles out favors and punishments to the local townsfolk, who know it’s best not to cross him. Now rumors spread that Moynihan wants land and has a secret plan to forcibly buy up parcels from the locals. A factory will be built, or a great big data center, or who knows what. If Tommy’s son, Eugene, can get elected to the local council, then compulsory purchase orders for land will follow, and the farms will disappear. Eugene, who’d been romantically involved with Rachel, is wonderfully described as “on the weedy edge of good-looking” and just fine as long as you “don’t have high expectations in the way of chins.” Lena is engaged to the American Cal Hooper, an ex-cop turned woodworker. They are “more or less raising” Trey, and these three core characters are drawn into the mystery of Rachel’s death and may have to face the looming clouds of civilizational change for Ardnakelty. Lena is chastised for “asking your wee questions all round the townland,” and Trey wants to quit school, against Cal’s advice. Finally, the story’s best line: “You can’t go killing people just because they deserve it.”
Great crime fiction.Pub Date: March 31, 2026
ISBN: 9780593493465
Page Count: 496
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: Dec. 26, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2026
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