A novel that brings its Puritan setting alive with two men who are wounded for falling in love.
Conley, who thought deeply about the intersection of queer sexuality and religious persecution in Boy Erased: A Memoir (2016), plumbs that topic again in a sensitive novel.
The premise that two men in Puritan America fall in love with one another—and one of them’s a preacher—might sound like the setup of a Thanksgiving Saturday Night Live sketch, but Conley has crafted a rich, deeply researched story whose characters are alive with contradictions. This book is one of a number of recent historical novels about characters with same-sex desires who would have suffered grave consequences for being out: In Memoriam by Alice Winn and The New Life by Tom Crewe, to name just two. In 1730, Nathaniel and Catherine Whitfield have an infant son, Ezekiel, and an older daughter, Sarah. When she married Nathaniel, Catherine didn’t know that he’d first felt same-sex desire in England, where he was raised. He becomes a star preacher in America, credited with the miracle of leading “five hundred souls to be saved in one meeting” during the Great Awakening sweeping the Colonies. He establishes a village of 200 people in Massachusetts called Cana, where the Lyman family is among his flock. Arthur, the village physician, is married to stylish Anne; they have a daughter named Martha. Conley’s interest isn’t so much in the suspenseful machinations of how the two men connect but in the revealing ways they react to their feelings for each other at a time when even articulating their desire is profoundly shocking. Arthur’s love is pure and insistent; Nathaniel is deeply tortured, though he acknowledges to himself the love he feels for Arthur. This novel defies the contemporary mantra “It gets better,” and the conclusion feels true to the setting.
A novel that brings its Puritan setting alive with two men who are wounded for falling in love.Pub Date: March 26, 2024
ISBN: 9780525537335
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Riverhead
Review Posted Online: Dec. 16, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2024
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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