A philosophical jewel seeking revelation in interstices, absences, ruptures, and the passages between existence and memory.
Poetic and painterly, a meticulously observed contemplation of the world that was, the world that is, and the world that might have been and the boundaries that join and define them.
Following the death of her partner, known only as "M.," an unnamed narrator travels to Italy, where she briefly settles among the muted rhythms of a small town nestled in the hills surrounding Rome. Able to approach this loss only obliquely, her mourning takes the form of meditative walks, deep immersion in memories and dreams, and explorations of strangers' gravesites in cemeteries to which she has no connection, a habit instilled by her late father during their travels through Italy in her childhood. Her father was a German speaker whose bond to Italy was formed at the borderland of cultures, through his affinity for its language, art, and history. This he passed on to her as well, and she retraces these earlier journeys and embarks on new discoveries, her thoughts unfurling slowly across the landscape, rising and falling with the hills of Lazio. Light and shadow, color and shape, time and distance shift vertiginously according to her vantage point and the scope of her focus, which dilates from minutest detail to sweeping panorama, then narrows again; her sense of place within the landscape and the wider world alters, too, with each change in perspective, suggesting that how one sees is at least as important as what one sees. Ancient Etruscan necropolises and the untended graves of the long dead speak to the persistence of presence even through the absence of anyone left to remember, as symbols continue to signify where no one exists to decipher their meaning. As she wanders unhurried on the perpetual threshold of spring, the observed nesting upon the remembered upon the fictive realities of literature and film, the narrator bestows equal care and attention on rusted-out construction materials and blowing trash as on blooming mimosas and elegant herons in the marshland around Ferrara, where she contemplates the works of Giorgio Bassani and the great palimpsest that is Italy. Here at last she untangles the question central to her explorations of memory and place: whether she belongs to the side of the vii, the living, or of the morţi, the dead.
A philosophical jewel seeking revelation in interstices, absences, ruptures, and the passages between existence and memory.Pub Date: July 21, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-945492-38-9
Page Count: 287
Publisher: Transit Books
Review Posted Online: May 3, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2020
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 tender and moving portrait about the transcendent power of art and friendship.
An artwork’s value grows if you understand the stories of the people who inspired it.
Never in her wildest dreams would foster kid Louisa dream of meeting C. Jat, the famous painter of The One of the Sea, which depicts a group of young teens on a pier on a hot summer’s day. But in Backman’s latest, that’s just what happens—an unexpected (but not unbelievable) set of circumstances causes their paths to collide right before the dying 39-year-old artist’s departure from the world. One of his final acts is to bequeath that painting to Louisa, who has endured a string of violent foster homes since her mother abandoned her as a child. Selling the painting will change her life—but can she do it? Before deciding, she accompanies Ted, one of the artist’s close friends and one of the young teens captured in that celebrated painting, on a train journey to take the artist’s ashes to his hometown. She wants to know all about the painting, which launched Jat’s career at age 14, and the circle of beloved friends who inspired it. The bestselling author of A Man Called Ove (2014) and other novels, Backman gives us a heartwarming story about how these friends, set adrift by the violence and unhappiness of their homes, found each other and created a new definition of family. “You think you’re alone,” one character explains, “but there are others like you, people who stand in front of white walls and blank paper and only see magical things. One day one of them will recognize you and call out: ‘You’re one of us!’” As Ted tells stories about his friends—how Jat doubted his talents but found a champion in fiery Joar, who took on every bully to defend him; how Ali brought an excitement to their circle that was “like a blinding light, like a heart attack”—Louisa recognizes herself as a kindred soul and feels a calling to realize her own artistic gifts. What she decides to do with the painting is part of a caper worthy of the stories that Ted tells her. The novel is humorous, poignant, and always life-affirming, even when describing the bleakness of the teens’ early lives. “Art is a fragile magic, just like love,” as someone tells Louisa, “and that’s humanity’s only defense against death.”
A tender and moving portrait about the transcendent power of art and friendship.Pub Date: May 6, 2025
ISBN: 9781982112820
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Atria
Review Posted Online: July 4, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2025
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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