Well-paced and lush, this is a captivating historical novel that shows the power of love and human resilience.
In 1930s Hawaii, a tightknit community grows even closer in the weeks after the eruption of a nearby volcano threatens their town and brings up old secrets.
Tsukiyama delivers the reader to the lush landscape of Hawaii on the day in 1935 when a prodigal son’s return coincides with the eruption of Mauna Loa, a true event. Daniel Abe is a successful doctor in Chicago, but two years after his mother Mariko’s death, a secret drives him home to Hilo, Hawaii. As he arrives, the volcano erupts. In the weeks it takes for the lava to flow toward the town, Daniel’s childhood community comes together as they always have. With interludes of “ghost voices” and “island voices,” the book reveals characters and events from decades prior, deepening the richness of the community. Told in close third person from various perspectives, the narrative draws the reader into the family ties and abundant landscape of Hilo. Tsukiyama writes her characters into the fabric of a time and place where the sugar cane industry was king; people from all over the world are recruited as workers only to be exploited by the plantation owners, and attempts at unionization are violently extinguished. In Hilo, “a chorus of Portuguese, Chinese, Tagalog, and Japanese languages all melded into one indistinguishable song,” but people were kept “separated by ethnic groups, just as the owners planned.” Yet the mosaic of characters creates a family: “Not born to be, yeah…but chosen to be.” Through tragedy and joy, Tsukiyama crafts characters whose reliance on each other is their greatest strength, with many strong women leading the way. The dialogue flows easily, and the landscape is rendered with such vibrance that the reader will become fully immersed in the sensory details.
Well-paced and lush, this is a captivating historical novel that shows the power of love and human resilience.Pub Date: July 7, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-06-297619-2
Page Count: 304
Publisher: HarperVia
Review Posted Online: May 3, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
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
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