A spare, unshakable account of the Holocaust.
This 1943 novella by the Austrian Jewish writer Torberg—published before the horrors of the Nazi death camps were widely known—describes a brutal showdown between a Jewish prisoner and the German SS officer who calmly tells him he is about to die.
Available in English for the first time, the novella, set in late 1940, has two nameless narrators. The first waits on a New Jersey pier for a ship to appear, carrying friends from Europe. He encounters a gaunt, haunted-looking fellow and invites him to spend time together while they wait. At a nearby bar, the stranger becomes the book’s second narrator, relating his grueling experience in the Heidenburg camp, a fictional precursor to the factory-like extermination camps where millions of Jews would die. There, he was among 80 Jewish men separated from other prisoners and crammed into an undersized “Jew Barracks” as part of the snide and sadistic commandant Wagenseil’s plan to get them to kill themselves. When an aged professor complains of too little space for so many men, Wagenseil has him beaten and tortured until he commits suicide by swallowing poison kept in his pocket. Another victim is led to shoot himself with the gun Wagenseil left in his cell for that purpose. During a violent session with the commandant that leaves him delirious, the narrator grabs Wagenseil's dropped revolver and is gripped with indecision over what to do with it, frozen by a devout prisoner's declaration that vengeance belongs to the Lord and the Lord alone. That pained moment of moral reckoning haunts the man as he waits at the pier for any fellow former prisoners to arrive on a trans-Atlantic ship, hoping some escaped the Nazis, as he did. The shocking conclusion to his story turns the novella on its head, giving it the unsettling power of books four times its length. It’s also a book that can, and should, be read more than once for full emotional effect.
A spare, unshakable account of the Holocaust.Pub Date: March 31, 2026
ISBN: 9781915812520
Page Count: 132
Publisher: Boiler House Press
Review Posted Online: Jan. 19, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2026
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
An existential crisis that steps on its own final moments.
With only a month left until the world ends due to a swiftly approaching black hole, Don and Rodney, a retired gay couple, road-trip from Maine to Washington to spend their final days with their son.
After reports that a planet-swallowing black hole is making its way toward Earth, Rodney and Don—who have been together for 40 years and survived everything from homophobia to the HIV crisis—decide to pack their belongings into an RV, say goodbye to their neighbors, and travel from Camden, Maine, to Washington to uphold a promise to spend their final days with their son. They can’t wait any longer, since there’s already chaos around the country: “Military vehicles in the streets of most cities and towns. Looting, rioting, the burning of cars and buildings and people, all of it had already happened.” As they make their way west across the country, they encounter fellow travelers ranging from close-knit families to free-spirited hippies, some of whom have come to terms with the impending end of the world and others who haven’t. While the story seems to be asking readers what they would do if they had 30 days left to live, and reflects on what different kinds of acceptance might look like in the face of unavoidable tragedy, it loses some of its poignancy in a series of thinly padded monologues about the meaning of life. Clearly intended to pack an emotional punch, it’s failed by an abrupt ending, and the way the journey’s mystery—which will be obvious to many readers—is revealed by an info dump in the last chapter.
An existential crisis that steps on its own final moments.Pub Date: April 28, 2026
ISBN: 9781250881236
Page Count: 176
Publisher: Tor
Review Posted Online: March 9, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2026
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