A varied set of tales from a skilled practitioner of the short form.
Morris plumbs the depths of fraught relationships in this debut short story collection.
Certain connections leave their marks, and in these 17 stories, the author explores the experiences of women who can’t completely sever old ties, whether they’re with lovers, crushes, friends, relatives, or even enemies. In “Inheritance,” a young woman works as a “sin-eater” following the death of the wealthy Mrs. Alma Cabot, ritualistically consuming a cake containing all the dead woman’s transgressions. She plans to use the money to escape her draining relationship with the Cabots, but her own family—who rely on her income to survive—will not let her go willingly. “Life After” follows Beth as she grieves her college-aged son following his death in a diving accident at a local quarry. The tragedy creates a distance between Beth and her husband, which she fills by pursuing a questionable new friendship with her son’s best friend, Ethan. In “Skipping Stones,” a bookish high school girl named Terri comes to the attention of two very different boys. Unnerved by her parents’ recent separation, she fumbles through a series of alarming events involving each of them. “Fear of Heights” tracks a school counselor named Allison Conti’s reaction to the death of her ex-husband, Tony. She and Lydia—whom Tony left Allison for—must drive to their old hometown to attend the funeral, sparking difficult memories.
Whether these stories’ characters are haunted by the disappearance of a neighbor girl or harassed by an employer at an apple orchard or confused by the mysterious death of a mother, they must all figure out ways to exist in a world that seems bent on taking things from them. “Some people are born to sin; others inherit it,” begins “Inheritance.” The question of when one becomes responsible for one’s own suffering recurs, and the answer isn’t so easy. Morris’ prose is full of vibrant detail, whether the tale is set decades in the past or in the present day: “I watched a father and son sit side by side on a bench, both staring at their phones. After a while, the son nudged the father, but he never looked at him. The father nudged the son back….They pushed at each other, not seeing the smile on the other’s face.” The author also excels at shorter stories; most collected here are fewer than 10 pages in length. Morris has an ability to wring a lot of emotion out of a few scant details, giving the feeling of a much longer work. Many share settings and characters, which contributes to a sense of interconnectivity and added meaning. There are a few tales that lead to predictable places—moments when the reader may wish that Morris had veered off the beaten path or committed more fully to the outcome she chooses—but overall, she demonstrates a shrewd understanding of what makes her characters tick. In the end, readers will leave the collection feeling as though they’ve lived pieces of several real lives.
A varied set of tales from a skilled practitioner of the short form.Pub Date: June 24, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-952816-01-7
Page Count: 140
Publisher: TouchPoint Press
Review Posted Online: Dec. 8, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2021
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
Fans of Stockett’s bestselling debut will love this engaging follow-up.
Stockett heads to Mississippi for another historical novel about feisty women.
This time, perhaps recalling criticisms of cultural appropriation in The Help (2009), she sticks to feisty white women, with one exception. The setting is Oxford in 1933. For two miserable years, 11-year-old Meg has lived in “the Orphan,” a county asylum for parentless girls. Chairlady Garnett—a villain so one-note she’d twirl a mustache if she had one—makes it her mission to ostracize the older girls she deems unadoptable, stigmatizing them as offspring of the “feebleminded” mothers who abandoned them. She particularly has it in for smart, sassy Meg, who refuses to believe her mother’s mysterious disappearance was deliberate. Elsewhere in Oxford, Birdie Calhoun comes to visit her sister Frances, who married a wealthy banker, to ask for money on behalf of their mother and grandmother back in Footely. Frances isn’t thrilled by this reminder of her impoverished small-town origins. But she’s trying to climb up in Oxford society by volunteering at the Orphan, the asylum’s books need to be done before the state inspector shows up in a few weeks, and Birdie is a bookkeeper. Having neatly arranged to keep Birdie in town and draw these two storylines together, Stockett goes on to spin a compulsively readable yarn with enough plot for a half-dozen novels. Birdie and Meg become friends, Meg is adopted despite Garnett’s best efforts, Meg’s mother turns up at the Orphan demanding to know where her child is—and that’s less than a quarter of the way through a long, winding narrative that keeps piling on more dramatic developments until all loose ends are neatly, if hastily, wrapped up in the final pages. Stockett might be making a point about Southern women facing facts and standing up for themselves, but mostly this is just a satisfyingly twisty tale that should make a great miniseries.
Fans of Stockett’s bestselling debut will love this engaging follow-up.Pub Date: May 5, 2026
ISBN: 9781954118812
Page Count: 656
Publisher: Spiegel & Grau
Review Posted Online: Feb. 2, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2026
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