A memorable look into a delinquent mind, one with little hope for any future other than hell.
A pensive portrait of rural anomie.
Kurniawan, the first Indonesian writer to be longlisted for the International Booker Prize, is a deeply learned student of his nation’s troubled recent past, when the army, declaring martial law, executed as many as a million Communists. This morality tale is set years later, the government now busy battling Islamists. All this is of little interest to young Sato Reang, who, having reached school age, has just been circumcised in the expectation that he will now become a Muslim “pious child,” meaning he’ll have to pray five times daily, fast during Ramadan, and fear God. “Why couldn’t kids just laze around? Go running in dried-out ditches chasing lizards? In my heart, I vowed to disobey.” So resolves Sato Reang, and he does, defying a father, a strict observer, who goes so far as to take a machete to Sato Reang’s beloved soccer ball, seeing it as an unholy distraction. “We’re lucky that God didn’t ask humankind to pray a thousand times a day,” grumbles the kid, who grows into adolescence with his father visiting fresh punishments on him—burning a stuffed monkey he’d won for his sister at a forbidden fair, for one. His father dies “with worms and maggots keeping him company,” at which point, taking a lesson from that incineration, Sato Reang has been committing acts of arson, peeing on going-to-market produce, drinking beer, and watching porn. “I loved fire,” Sato Reang exults. “I’d even heard that in hell God had entrusted fire with the task of burning off sins.” He’s not quite Meursault, but Sato Reang is definitely a bad influence, which plays out when, disastrously, he lures a truly pious child astray. Kurniawan’s story, novella more than novel, seems sure to offend fundamentalist sensibilities, and has plenty of unsettling moments for the secular reader, too.
A memorable look into a delinquent mind, one with little hope for any future other than hell.Pub Date: March 24, 2026
ISBN: 9780811239769
Page Count: 128
Publisher: New Directions
Review Posted Online: Jan. 19, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2026
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
An existential crisis that steps on its own final moments.
With only a month left until the world ends due to a swiftly approaching black hole, Don and Rodney, a retired gay couple, road-trip from Maine to Washington to spend their final days with their son.
After reports that a planet-swallowing black hole is making its way toward Earth, Rodney and Don—who have been together for 40 years and survived everything from homophobia to the HIV crisis—decide to pack their belongings into an RV, say goodbye to their neighbors, and travel from Camden, Maine, to Washington to uphold a promise to spend their final days with their son. They can’t wait any longer, since there’s already chaos around the country: “Military vehicles in the streets of most cities and towns. Looting, rioting, the burning of cars and buildings and people, all of it had already happened.” As they make their way west across the country, they encounter fellow travelers ranging from close-knit families to free-spirited hippies, some of whom have come to terms with the impending end of the world and others who haven’t. While the story seems to be asking readers what they would do if they had 30 days left to live, and reflects on what different kinds of acceptance might look like in the face of unavoidable tragedy, it loses some of its poignancy in a series of thinly padded monologues about the meaning of life. Clearly intended to pack an emotional punch, it’s failed by an abrupt ending, and the way the journey’s mystery—which will be obvious to many readers—is revealed by an info dump in the last chapter.
An existential crisis that steps on its own final moments.Pub Date: April 28, 2026
ISBN: 9781250881236
Page Count: 176
Publisher: Tor
Review Posted Online: March 9, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2026
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