A high-spirited party of a book. BYOB: Bring your own borscht.
Secrets and scandals come to light as the last family-owned Catskills resort teeters on the brink of extinction.
"Your grandfather was invited to the Oscars by Tony Bennett! So what if the Sullivan County health department gave our kitchen a C last year? We were once in the Guinness Book of World Records for smoking the largest sturgeon in history!" The Golden Hotel, founded in 1960 by Brooklyn College buddies Benny Goldman and Amos Weingold, with its sprawling campus, kidney-shaped pool, loaded dessert cart and name-brand entertainment, was a go-to vacation spot for Jewish families for decades. But the "three A's that sunk the Catskills"—air conditioning, air travel, and assimilation—have taken their toll. All its sibling hotels—Kutshers, the Concord, Grossinger's, the Raleigh, and more—have been demolished or turned into casinos or wellness resorts, and now there's an offer on the table for the Golden, too. Brian Weingold, the current manager of the Golden, calls an emergency meeting of the families to discuss whether or not to sell. By the time the three generations of each family arrive, other dramas are unfolding as well—a doctor husband running a pill mill, a gay son who hasn't come out to his parents, an engagement endangered by snobbery. Both the romantic sparks and competitive snarkery that have always flared when the two families meet are kindled anew. Friedland, who won a following with her cruise-ship novel, The Floating Feldmans (2019), pulls off a similar entertainment coup here. From the perfectly put-together diva grandmother Louise to the Instagram influencer and avocado-toast photographer @free2bephoebe, the ensemble cast is full of comfortably familiar characters, almost every one of them with something they're not tellin'...yet. The vanished history of the Catskills is evoked with love and plenty of schmaltz.
A high-spirited party of a book. BYOB: Bring your own borscht.Pub Date: May 18, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-593-19972-5
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Berkley
Review Posted Online: April 13, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2021
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A pleasant if not entirely convincing tribute to the power of art.
A French art historian’s English-language fiction debut combines the story of a loving relationship between a grandfather and granddaughter with an enlightening discussion of art.
One day, when 10-year-old Mona removes the necklace given to her by her now-dead grandmother, she experiences a frightening, hour-long bout of blindness. Her parents take her to the doctor, who gives her a variety of tests and also advises that she see a psychiatrist. Her grandfather Henry tells her parents that he will take care of that assignment, but instead, he takes Mona on weekly visits to either the Louvre, the Musée d’Orsay, or the Centre Pompidou, where each week they study a single work of art, gazing at it deeply and then discussing its impact and history and the biography of its maker. For the reader’s benefit, Schlesser also describes each of the works in scrupulous detail. As the year goes on, Mona faces the usual challenges of elementary school life and the experiences of being an only child, and slowly begins to understand the causes of her temporary blindness. Primarily an amble through a few dozen of Schlesser’s favorite works of art—some well known and others less so, from Botticelli and da Vinci through Basquiat and Bourgeois—the novel would probably benefit from being read at a leisurely pace. While the dialogue between Henry and the preternaturally patient and precocious Mona sometimes strains credulity, readers who don’t have easy access to the museums of Paris may enjoy this vicarious trip in the company of a guide who focuses equally on that which can be seen and the context that can’t be. Come for the novel, stay for the introductory art history course.
A pleasant if not entirely convincing tribute to the power of art.Pub Date: Aug. 26, 2025
ISBN: 9798889661115
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Europa Editions
Review Posted Online: June 7, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2025
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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
SEEN & HEARD
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