A depressed protagonist prevents the novel from achieving depth by keeping fellow characters and readers at a distance.
A brief novel cluttered with words about a small museum cluttered with objects.
The unnamed protagonist of Arbus’ debut novel has the charge of a house museum devoted to the possessions and legacy of Charles A. Morgan, a chemist, philosopher, collector, and the author of the influential Stuff, a book about—well, you can guess. Although this is her first novel, Arbus has written several nonfiction books, mostly about the work of her mother, the photographer Diane Arbus, whose estate she became responsible for after the photographer’s death when Doon was in her 20s. The story unfolds slowly, without much incident: The future caretaker reads a newspaper account of Morgan’s death and writes to the collector’s widow asking for a job. At her urging, the board of the Morgan Foundation interviews and reluctantly hires him to run the museum. In an incident the caretaker calls “the incident,” a visitor breaks a fragile object; gathering the pieces, he hurts his hand. Years pass, board members retire and are replaced, and the neighborhood gentrifies around the museum. The caretaker continues to lead tours. He rants at visitors, performs rituals, and steals objects for obscure, melancholy reasons. All of this unfurls in long sentences laden with unilluminating details and trailing unnecessary clauses. Possibly this is deliberate: Arbus may be making a point about the accretion of meaning through the accumulation of apparently meaningless fragments, and she may be drawing a parallel to the museum itself and its collections. But while it’s easy to imagine some other writer—Dickens, Melville, Isak Dinesen, Nicholson Baker—spinning this premise into thrilling fiction, Arbus’ caretaker and his museum never assemble the details into a moving story.
A depressed protagonist prevents the novel from achieving depth by keeping fellow characters and readers at a distance.Pub Date: Sept. 15, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-8112-2949-4
Page Count: 144
Publisher: New Directions
Review Posted Online: June 30, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2020
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 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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