The literary thrust plays to Ifkovic’s strengths, but he leaves other central aspects underdeveloped and unresolved.
Ifkovic (Make Believe, 2012, etc.), author of a mystery series about Edna Ferber, turns his eye toward Emily Dickinson and a professor obsessed with her in this convoluted mystery-cum-drama about a family’s inevitable dissolution.
After getting lost in a snowstorm, Fordham professor Bartholomew Judd finds himself driving down an isolated Connecticut road, inexplicably drawn to an ancient-looking clapboard house. Soon enough, he packs up the Manhattan apartment where he and his wife, Rebecca, live and transplants them to the history-soaked saltbox on Tommy’s Path. Rebecca, who gives up a beloved teaching job for this leap of faith, initially supports the change; she stifles her misgivings with a wildflower garden and huckleberry tarts. Ifkovic gradually reveals why: Rebecca is hoping new scenery will snap Bart out of a slump that has lingered since his graduate school days, though it has sharpened since a tragic incident 15 years ago involving their elder son, Jack. But as bad omens materialize, it becomes clear that Tommy’s Path isn’t the refuge it seemed. A professional nemesis of Bart’s charges back into their lives, and creepy neighbors (who may or may not be apparitions) breed conflict and transfix both Bart and Rebecca. The anxiety sends Bart into a tailspin: Thinking he’s stumbled onto a treasure trove of Emily Dickinson–related materials, he turns hermetic, suspicious. He obsesses over gathering evidence for the scholarly tome he finally feels ready to write. But the house, with its hidden passages and harbingers of death, transforms into a foreboding backdrop. Interesting details of Emily Dickinson’s life and work—and Ifkovic’s obvious knowledge of both—make this a fascinating read for any admirer of her poetry, although the storyline involving the Judd family tragedy and its final unraveling is less compelling. Once readers learn what Jack did, the hubbub seems overdramatized, spun into something unrealistic. As for the story’s spookier elements, Ifkovic leaves too many threads hanging.
The literary thrust plays to Ifkovic’s strengths, but he leaves other central aspects underdeveloped and unresolved.Pub Date: May 11, 2013
ISBN: 978-1482337556
Page Count: 326
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: July 26, 2013
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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 welcome literary resurrection that deserves a place alongside Wright’s best-known work.
A falsely accused Black man goes into hiding in this masterful novella by Wright (1908-1960), finally published in full.
Written in 1941 and '42, between Wright’s classics Native Son and Black Boy, this short novel concerns Fred Daniels, a modest laborer who’s arrested by police officers and bullied into signing a false confession that he killed the residents of a house near where he was working. In a brief unsupervised moment, he escapes through a manhole and goes into hiding in a sewer. A series of allegorical, surrealistic set pieces ensues as Fred explores the nether reaches of a church, a real estate firm, and a jewelry store. Each stop is an opportunity for Wright to explore themes of hope, greed, and exploitation; the real estate firm, Wright notes, “collected hundreds of thousands of dollars in rent from poor colored folks.” But Fred’s deepening existential crisis and growing distance from society keep the scenes from feeling like potted commentaries. As he wallpapers his underground warren with cash, mocking and invalidating the currency, he registers a surrealistic but engrossing protest against divisive social norms. The novel, rejected by Wright’s publisher, has only appeared as a substantially truncated short story until now, without the opening setup and with a different ending. Wright's take on racial injustice seems to have unsettled his publisher: A note reveals that an editor found reading about Fred’s treatment by the police “unbearable.” That may explain why Wright, in an essay included here, says its focus on race is “rather muted,” emphasizing broader existential themes. Regardless, as an afterword by Wright’s grandson Malcolm attests, the story now serves as an allegory both of Wright (he moved to France, an “exile beyond the reach of Jim Crow and American bigotry”) and American life. Today, it resonates deeply as a story about race and the struggle to envision a different, better world.
A welcome literary resurrection that deserves a place alongside Wright’s best-known work.Pub Date: April 20, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-59853-676-8
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Library of America
Review Posted Online: March 16, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2021
BOOK TO SCREEN
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