A well-written novel with a frustratingly inept lead.
In La-Paz’s novel, an African American woman faces challenges in dating and friendship.
Chantel Reed is a successful human resources professional in Seattle who has a hard time with relationships. She has drifted from her friends Astrid and Serenity after the death of their friend Alison; her oldest sister, Daria, the family’s maternal figure, is prickly and controlling; and she finally breaks up with her slacker boyfriend, Cameron, after she finds him cooking dinner for another woman in her apartment. Astrid and Serenity have different ideas about how Chantel should move on after the breakup. Chantel, who has always dated black men, is initially hesitant when Brandon, a white guy, asks her out. She quickly falls for him, and they come close to marriage despite push back from her family and racism from his. But when Brandon and Daria ask an attractive black man to test Chantel’s loyalty, her trust in everyone is shattered. Chantel enters a self-destructive spiral that wreaks havoc on her professional and personal lives. La-Paz has a talent for metaphor (“My novel had been deterred, so to speak, due to the fact that I was too caught up inside of my own memoir, centered on my private, addictive, captivity of the mind”) that makes this an enjoyable read. La-Paz also does a good job of exploring the challenges of female friendships and interracial relationships, although Chantel’s tendencies to misjudge and make bad decisions make her an unsuitable vehicle for exploring those challenges since her relationships are dysfunctional. The reader may find the frequency of those bad decisions grating as Chantel becomes more and more incapable of acting in her best interests, but sections written from Astrid’s and Serenity’s points of view provide welcome relief. The novel shows some evidence of updates since its original publication that lead to minor inconsistencies (for instance, characters both page and text each other), but overall the story has a timeless quality and relevancy that keep it from feeling dated and make it appealing to contemporary readers.
A well-written novel with a frustratingly inept lead.Pub Date: July 4, 2020
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: 265
Publisher: HSP
Review Posted Online: April 10, 2020
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
An evocative and moving tribute to the death-defying, heart-opening, infinitely redemptive power of storytelling.
A chance meeting in a museum unlocks a long-closed door in a family’s past.
Of a piece with her last three novels—Commonwealth (2016), The Dutch House (2019), and Tom Lake (2023)—Patchett’s latest explores the evolution of families over time, romantic secrets, and step-relationships, again giving these topics the wry and tender treatment that is distinctively hers. As it begins, Daphne Fuller’s attentive husband, Jonathan, notices that a man has been following them through the Metropolitan Museum of Art. At first they chalk it up to the fact that “old guys love [Daphne],” as she told Jonathan decades ago, a notion he has held onto "like a souvenir postcard from another era." But it turns out that, though Daphne doesn’t recognize him, Eddie Triplett is her former stepfather. Like the author herself, as recalled in her 2020 essay “Three Fathers,” Daphne has had three dads. Her biological father, a deep-sea fisherman named Buddy Zabriskie, left the family early; her current stepfather, Lucas Ekker, lives with her mother in retirement in Massachusetts. Ekker is an unprepossessing sort Abby met working as the publicist for his self-help books, Positivity!, Positively Positive!, The Positivity Workbook!, Positive Every Day!, ad infinitum. The man in the museum, Eddie Triplett, was also someone her mother met through her job in publishing, and once Daphne realizes who he is, she remembers that “[their] hearts were forever stitched together.” This is because Daphne and Eddie were in a serious car accident when she was 9 years old, after which her mother immediately divorced him and evicted him from their lives. The details of that accident—among them lies the reason the novel is named after a horse called Whistler—are gradually wheedled out of Daphne by her younger sister, Leda, a clinical psychologist in New York and a reliable source of insight on the narrative’s key issues. “‘You make it sound like I’ve been keeping all this from you, but I’m not,’ [Daphne] said. ‘Who goes through life thinking about what happened when they were nine?’ ‘It’s all people think about,’ Leda said.”
An evocative and moving tribute to the death-defying, heart-opening, infinitely redemptive power of storytelling.Pub Date: June 2, 2026
ISBN: 9780063511637
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: April 6, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2026
PERSPECTIVES
PERSPECTIVES
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
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