McBride is a consummate stylist whose individual sentences shine far more brightly than her novel as a whole.
Two lovers navigate the legacy of an event that threatens to define both their relationship and their identities.
Readers familiar with McBride’s novel The Lesser Bohemians (2016) will recognize this book’s main characters: Eily, a drama student who turns 20 midway through the novel’s timeline, and her 40-year-old lover, Stephen, an established actor in the London scene who is currently directing an autobiographical film about his traumatic past. Told in interwoven storylines—the Now in which the couple dances around a painful conversation, and scenes from the past which has led them here—the book is narrated through Eily’s skintight stream-of-consciousness voice, which leaves very little room for autonomous perspectives. At times, this may render Eily an untrustworthy narrator, but her acrobatic, muscular prose lends such depth and nuance to the world she inhabits that the reader may be startled to resurface from the spell of her voice only to realize they are indeed in the same Camden flat watching Stephen eat the same cheese sandwich which he has been picking at for the vast majority of the current-time storyline. As an exercise in language, the book sings, illustrating the logic behind the many comparisons of McBride to modernist innovators like Joyce. More problematic is the way McBride’s investment in the immensity of Eily’s interior world is put into service of the plot. The event that has come to sever Stephen and Eily’s intimacy is clearly broadcast throughout the book, yet, when it is revealed in all its gory horror in the final 50 pages, it has very little impact on a reader already emotionally exhausted by Eily’s relentless telling. The freshness of the Modernist project to overturn traditional modes of storytelling doesn’t work in a novel that presents its climactic moment in a more conventional manner, as an epiphany, but arrives there in such discursive fashion that Eily’s darkest secret feels like reiteration rather than revelation. Not even Eily’s frank, electric eroticism can enliven the novel’s overwhelming sense of stagnation as it explores a story that has already been told by characters who have already lived, and relived, its main events.
McBride is a consummate stylist whose individual sentences shine far more brightly than her novel as a whole.Pub Date: Aug. 26, 2025
ISBN: 9780571384211
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Faber & Faber
Review Posted Online: May 30, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
A dark and twisty look at just how far one woman is willing to go to find inspiration.
A struggling writer finds an unexpected muse when a mysterious man shows up at her cabin.
Petra Rose used to pump out a bestselling book every six months, but then the adaptation happened—that is, the disastrous film adaptation of her most famous book. The movie changed the book’s storyline so egregiously that fans couldn’t forgive her, and the ensuing harassment sent Petra into hiding and gave her a serious case of writer’s block. Petra’s one hope is her solo writing retreat at a remote cabin, where she can escape the distractions of real life and focus on her next book, a story about a woman having an affair with a cop. When officer Nathaniel Saint shows up at her cabin door, inspiration comes flooding back. Much like the character from Petra’s book, Saint is married, and he’s willing to be Petra’s muse, helping her get into her characters’ heads. Petra’s book is practically writing itself, but is the game she’s playing a little too dangerous? Does she know when to stop—and, more importantly, is Saint willing to stop? Hoover is no stranger to controversial movie adaptations and internet backlash, but she clarifies in a note to readers that she’s “just a writer writing about a writer” and that no further connections to her own life are contained in these pages—which is a good thing, because the book takes some horrifying twists and turns. Petra finds herself inexplicably attracted to Saint, even as she describes him as “such an asshole,” and her feelings for him veer between love and hate. The novel serves as a meta commentary on the dark romance genre—as Petra puts it, “Even though, as readers, we wouldn’t want to live out some of the fantasies we read about, it doesn’t mean we don’t enjoy reading those things.”
A dark and twisty look at just how far one woman is willing to go to find inspiration.Pub Date: Jan. 13, 2026
ISBN: 9781662539374
Page Count: -
Publisher: Montlake
Review Posted Online: Sept. 27, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2025
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