A gentle, engaging, and heartfelt tale of family secrets and emotional closure.
In this debut novel, a man returns to his childhood home to unravel a vexing family mystery.
Australian journalist Chilton’s tale is a family-centric affair chronicling the life of Liam Murray, a city dweller from a small Aussie village who has lost his footing in the urban jungle. He attempts to fill the unhappy void with sleep, work, and, perhaps most dangerously and desperately, a torrid affair with Hannah, his married upstairs neighbor. Though tragic, the news of his mother’s sudden diagnosis of breast cancer spurs Liam to quit his dead-end job and move back to Elanora, his hometown. There, he feels most needed and wanted, though the memory of his father’s disappearance two decades prior still haunts him. He was just a boy when his father went fishing by himself and only the charred remains of his boat returned. Reuniting with childhood friends and caring for his mother (who’s started seriously dating again) fill his days at home, while memories of fishing and oyster hunting with his father permeate his mind. Stubbornly overwhelmed by open emotional wounds, Liam determinedly resolves to dig deeper into why his father disappeared. Was he depressed and suicidal when the family lost its second child, Annie, in the womb? What starts as a ransacking of his father’s old shed soon turns serious, and dark, personal secrets and a messy, hidden life are uncovered. If the story meanders a bit too leisurely for some readers, Chilton’s vibrant and smoothly lyrical prose more than makes up for a rather slack plot. Her consistent use of similes is also an appealing and effective touch: Female workers rushing through city streets on their ways to work have high heels sounding “like the start of rain,” and Liam’s childhood bedroom gives him an unsettling feeling, “as if it was he who had disappeared without a trace as a child, not his father.” Determined to live unencumbered by the past, Chilton’s characters yearn for love, understanding, and some semblance of a resolution. Combining lush details of the Australian landscape with players who draw readers in with humble hearts, this is a stirring first novel.
A gentle, engaging, and heartfelt tale of family secrets and emotional closure.Pub Date: Feb. 10, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-00-515025-9
Page Count: 418
Publisher: Self
Review Posted Online: Aug. 16, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2022
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
Though uneven, this is still a pleasurable, comforting read.
Infertility, family secrets, and alpacas all figure in Quindlen’s latest meditation on mothering and domesticity.
Polly’s life looks enviable. Happily married to the adoring Mark—a vet at the Bronx Zoo—she teaches English at a private Manhattan girls’ school and loves her work. She has a protective older brother and close girlfriends, who’ve formed a book club where no one is expected to read the book. But Polly desperately wants a child and, at 42, knows time is running out. She and Mark have gone through endless fertility treatments, to no avail. Meantime, Polly’s friends have given her a DNA kit as a jokey birthday gift, and something mysterious shows up in the test results. Then, out of nowhere, a young woman contacts her, suggesting they may be related. That’s not all: Polly feels estranged from her mother, a revered judge who’s insufficiently maternal in her daughter’s view. Her father has always cherished her, but he’s in a nursing home now with a rapidly failing mind. And something is amiss with her best pal, Sarah. Quindlen’s trademark empathy is evident throughout, and her wry humor leavens some of the serious goings-on. Early on, Mark and Polly visit a fertility clinic with photos of babies in the waiting room; for Polly, “it felt…like a Weight Watchers facility with hot fudge sundae pictures on the wall.” Then we meet these charming alpacas, humming and pronking, on a farm run by an earth mother, whose wisdom will help Polly get on with her life. The plot swerves around a bit, there may be one surplus narrative thread (e.g., Polly’s star student Josephine running aground after graduation), and at the end, the author ties things up too neatly, pushing the “circle of life” theme too hard.
Though uneven, this is still a pleasurable, comforting read.Pub Date: Feb. 24, 2026
ISBN: 9780593734605
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: Nov. 22, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2026
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