An emphasis on form over feeling lends this novel the air of a writing exercise.
In remote Ontario, a trio under quarantine reflect on their lives.
It’s the summer of 2020 and Husha, a young woman who recently lost her mother, has hunkered down with her grandfather, Arthur, at his remote cabin. Quarantining with them is Husha’s ex-but-apparently-now-on-again lover, Nellie. While the outdoors teem with cicadas, indoors, Husha, Arthur, and Nellie seem to lose themselves in quiet domesticity: Their days are dominated by cooking, bathing, grocery shopping. But Husha happens to have an eccentric little book of stories that her mother evidently wrote before she died, and the trio soon starts reading the stories together every evening. In one, a haunted house consumes a little girl. In another, a woman repeatedly miscarries. As the trio progress through the book, the boundaries between the stories and their own reality seem to fade. As one story asks, “What does it mean to be a haunted place, or to be a haunted person?[Loc 1465]…Is it to fail at holding your story in by its borders, if there are such things as borders?” [Loc 1473] McKeen writes with a competent and lyrical voice, holding the various levels of storytelling as one coherent whole. There is a loveliness to the silvery prose that propels the reader forward. But there is also something limited—and limiting—about her approach, which emphasizes experiments in narrative form over character development and basic emotion. The stories that make up Husha’s mother’s book read almost like responses to writing prompts, with all the attendant variations in perspective, tense, and rhetoric. One longs for something a little more, well, human. What happened between Husha and her mother? What is happening between Husha and Nellie?
An emphasis on form over feeling lends this novel the air of a writing exercise.Pub Date: June 18, 2024
ISBN: 9781324073819
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Norton
Review Posted Online: Aug. 17, 2024
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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