Insightful and fun, but based on a premise only a millionaire could love.
A once-celebrated Chief Investment Officer has a crisis of faith about his life’s work.
After The Green and the Black (2016), nonfiction about the shale gas industry, Sernovitz returns to territory covered in his novel The Contrarians (2002)—a finance man in crisis. The setting is an unnamed university, where its unnamed, middle-aged CIO has doubled the endowment from $3 billion to $6 billion. Unfortunately, he’s floundering now, after “a very bad year,” and fears he’ll be fired anytime. At endless meetings with staff, trustees, and managers pitching investment schemes, the CIO’s trademark repartee starts landing flat. Anyone could blow the whistle about his failure at any moment, including his sharpest staff member, Emily, who believes she “can do well by doing good” with lots of wealth. Meanwhile, everyone’s urging him to seek advice from an enigmatic billionaire alum named Michael Hermann. The CIO used to pride himself on being politically liberal, full of Jewish guilt, and hyper-informed. But his self-awareness is voracious. Sernovitz’s prose and focus then shifts to map the CIO’s fears about the meaningless of life, how universities leverage greed, and the inanity of modern investing. Until, to the shock of his staff, he is literally asking strangers during meetings, “Why do you do this?” The novel doesn’t pretend the one percent care about anything but money, but Sernovitz seems to also want the CIO to be relatable. On the one hand, the CIO laments “the financialization of our economy, our society, and the ambitions of too many young people,” and he feels genuine pain and exhaustion as he looks for leftovers in his fridge. But, on the other hand, because he’s told us, we also know it’s a $12,000 fridge.
Insightful and fun, but based on a premise only a millionaire could love.Pub Date: Nov. 14, 2023
ISBN: 9781608012534
Page Count: 228
Publisher: Univ. of New Orleans Press
Review Posted Online: Sept. 21, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2023
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
© Copyright 2026 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
