The soothing tone and warm worldview of this grown-up bedtime story will be good for what ails you.
After sudden, life-changing loss—then what?
In his second novel, Joella returns to the narrative gambit of his debut, A Little Hope (2021), establishing parallel narratives for several small-town characters and then—poof!—revealing how they turn up in each other's lives. Here the town is Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, the time is deep winter, and the characters are Chuck, Kirsten, and Ella. Chuck is a recent widower in his early 70s whose grief after the death of his wife is immobilizing, and regret over one poorly resolved disagreement—he was wrong, so wrong, and now he can never fix it—becomes an obsessive concern. Kirsten is a 20-something whose beloved father was murdered during a gas station robbery; like Chuck, she is derailed by grief, abandoning plans to apply to veterinary school and moving numbly through her days working at an animal shelter. Ella is a young mother whose ex-husband picked their daughter up early from school one day several months ago and completely disappeared. As collateral damage, she also lost her house and is now working two menial jobs to pay rent. Joella develops these characters with enormous empathy and clarity in the sonorous narrative tone of a benevolent god who sees and knows all and who can be counted on to address the chaos he has wrought on their lives. The guiding image of the book is a cardinal: According to Chuck's late wife, Cat, "the most special birds because they kept us company in winter when the other birds leave." "Be someone's cardinal," she urged her middle school students, one of whom, it turns out, was Kirsten. The childlike pleasure of discovering connections like this is one of the most basic joys of reading and is key to Joella's storytelling.
The soothing tone and warm worldview of this grown-up bedtime story will be good for what ails you.Pub Date: Nov. 29, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-982190-97-2
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Scribner
Review Posted Online: Oct. 26, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2022
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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