A vibrant collection of confessional, polemical verses.
Xavier fashions and refashions his idea of himself in this newest collection of poems.
The author is used to seeing himself from the outside. In this collection, Xavier places the reader within the many perspectives through which he has been viewed over the years, from that of his white-passing mother (“Then there was me / indigenous child / unwanted / brown-skinned / with freckles / … / everyone wondering where I came from / Adopted?”) (“Feo”) to those of the long-lost siblings he attempted to reconnect with in adulthood (“My siblings never responded to my message / likely after finding out I was a childless, married // homosexual”) (“50%”). Along the way, the poet considers how he must have appeared to his abusive stepfather; to the men who bought his services while he labored as a teenage sex worker; and even to himself, in the mirror, after learning in middle-age that his birth father was not Puerto Rican but Ecuadorian: “I see Ecuador and no longer Puerto Rico // I see indigenous spirits moving across the backs of Amerindian’s — / Inca’s and Taino’s splattered with the red blood / of sacrificed chickens…” (“American Redux”). Xavier’s cadence varies from poem to poem—some verses read like prose broken (or not broken) into lines, while others feature staccato clauses dense with feeling. The rhythm is always musical, and the best pieces are rich with arresting images and barbed confessions: “There were times I felt like garbage on the side of the / dance floor, watching men fall in love under disco lights” (“Vial”). Some lines, burdened with strained metaphors, fall flat: “Lights from a galaxy / could take billions of years to reach me/us/them / racism from a stranger’s milky way / only takes seconds” (“Alienated”). Even at their least effective, however, these poems, in their evocation of the queer subculture of 1970s and 1980s New York City, capture the richness of a vanished time and place through the eyes of a poet perennially in flux.
A vibrant collection of confessional, polemical verses.Pub Date: Oct. 17, 2023
ISBN: 9781608642748
Page Count: 100
Publisher: Queer Mojo
Review Posted Online: Sept. 29, 2023
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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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