Heartfelt stories of the inhabitants of a small Connecticut city don’t add up to compelling drama.
Life, death, and love in contemporary New England.
Joella’s debut novel chronicles 10 months in the lives of a dozen characters in the small Connecticut city of Wharton, and there’s certainly plenty of suffering beneath the veneer of Yankee stoicism there. In the past, two of the families have suffered the deaths of children—one in a bicycle accident and another from leukemia—while in the course of the novel another will lose a son whose automobile accident ends his struggles with substance abuse. Greg Tyler, a successful businessman, married and with a 7-year-old daughter, is in the midst of a battle against multiple myeloma whose outcome is far from certain. For Greg’s boss, Alex Lionel, the consequences of a long-ago infidelity are revisited with the impending arrival of a grandchild to the young woman whose birth was the result of that adultery. There’s a wedding and the kindling of a new relationship between two of the guests who have struggled to find love themselves. The novel’s modest title hints at its low-key emotional register, and with a change in point of view with every new chapter, it exists somewhere in a limbo between a collection of linked stories and a more traditional narrative structure. Joella captures the rhythms of life in Wharton and is skilled at identifying both shifts in the weather and events that mark the passage of time in moments so subtle as to be almost undetectable. Readers who enjoy fiction that reflects the struggles and joys of their daily lives will find much that will resonate here, but perhaps because of its large ensemble cast, the novel never truly connects with the emotional hearts of any of their stories.
Heartfelt stories of the inhabitants of a small Connecticut city don’t add up to compelling drama.Pub Date: Nov. 2, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-982171-19-3
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Scribner
Review Posted Online: Aug. 17, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2021
BOOK REVIEW
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
SEEN & HEARD
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
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