An often thoughtful and affecting page-turner, some clumsy plotting aside.
After finding refuge from the Nazis in America, a young Jewish woman returns to her native Berlin in 1945, as the Allied occupation begins.
As we learn from flashbacks, Millie Mosbach and her younger brother, David, fled Germany as teenagers in 1938, sponsored by a generous American couple. Now Millie, a graduate of Bryn Mawr, and David, an American military officer and combat vet, have signed up for official duties in their homeland—Millie as part of a de-Nazification program, David to help with displaced persons. Millie is in turmoil, though, holding out hope that their missing parents and younger sister may still be alive—and hiding what she sees as a shameful secret about her escape. This book feels different from other historical novels about the Holocaust, partly because of its postwar Berlin setting. Author Feldman offers nuance, even irony here. While not giving any slack to the evildoers, she reminds us that some ordinary Germans also suffered under the Third Reich—Millie meets one woman whose son was murdered by the Nazis because they thought he was “mentally infirm.” The author also reminds us that antisemitism was rife in the U.S. when this story takes place. (Gentlemen’s Agreement, Laura Z. Hobson’s novel about discrimination against American Jews, was published in 1947.) Feldman’s writing is mostly workmanlike, though her description of the shattered Berlin—a “bombed out Wild West”—is striking. The last section of the book disappoints. It turns out that Maj. Harry Sutton—Millie’s boss and love interest—has been harboring a secret too much like Millie’s. Millie also falls and bloodies herself—literally—once too often, with Harry always rescuing her. In general, loose ends get tied up too neatly.
An often thoughtful and affecting page-turner, some clumsy plotting aside.Pub Date: Sept. 7, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-2507-8082-9
Page Count: 336
Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin
Review Posted Online: July 13, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2021
An engaging, imaginative narrative hampered by its lack of subtlety.
The Medusa myth, reimagined as an Afrocentric, feminist tale with the Gorgon recast as avenging hero.
In mythological Greece, where gods still have a hand in the lives of humans, 17-year-old Medusa lives on an island with her parents, old sea gods who were overthrown at the rise of the Olympians, and her sisters, Euryale and Stheno. The elder sisters dote on Medusa and bond over the care of her “locs...my dearest physical possession.” Their idyll is broken when Euryale is engaged to be married to a cruel demi-god. Medusa intervenes, and a chain of events leads her to a meeting with the goddess Athena, who sees in her intelligence, curiosity, and a useful bit of rage. Athena chooses Medusa for training in Athens to become a priestess at the Parthenon. She joins the other acolytes, a group of teenage girls who bond, bicker, and compete in various challenges for their place at the temple. As an outsider, Medusa is bullied (even in ancient Athens white girls rudely grab a Black girl’s hair) and finds a best friend in Apollonia. She also meets a nameless boy who always seems to be there whenever she is in need; this turns out to be Poseidon, who is grooming the inexplicably naïve Medusa. When he rapes her, Athena finds out and punishes Medusa and her sisters by transforming their locs into snakes. The sisters become Gorgons, and when colonizing men try to claim their island, the killing begins. Telling a story of Black female power through the lens of ancient myth is conceptually appealing, but this novel published as adult fiction reads as though intended for a younger audience.
An engaging, imaginative narrative hampered by its lack of subtlety.Pub Date: Nov. 18, 2025
ISBN: 9780593733769
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: Aug. 16, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2025
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
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