Stronger on empathy than engagement.
An intimate, fractured case study explores the relationships and inner perspective of Portia Elby, who has bipolar disorder.
“A garish heap of self-loathing in her head” is one glimpse of how Portia characterizes herself in Plunkett’s first novel, a nuanced portrait of one woman’s years of mental and social struggle. Married to lawyer Nathan, with a beloved 7-year-old son, Julian, Portia currently spends her time playing guitar in a small rock band called Poor Alice and visiting her aging psychiatrist, Dr. Shay. Her nervous anxiety became acute at age 13, and by 15 she was in Dr. Shay’s care, although this didn’t prevent her from dropping out of college and spending time in a mental hospital, where she cut herself. Now, as a wife and mother, she’s found stability through Dr. Shay’s pills but at the price of “a fine, elusive layer of her spirit,” so for the last six months she has quietly stopped taking them. She has also fallen in love with band member Theo, who seems to reciprocate her feelings. But matters come to a head when Nathan—often a chilly, manipulative, critical presence—discovers the pill accumulation and stages an intervention. Plunkett’s presentation of Portia, her history, choices, feelings, and stranger notions, is far from linear. Instead, the novel unrolls scenes, moods, and events out of sequence, requiring some patience and unpacking, not least regarding various men in Portia’s life. There are also manic episodes and delusions regarding long-dead musician Alby Porter, all this delivered in slices interleaved with the intervention and its aftermath. Simultaneously sensitive to Portia’s perception and muddy in its chronology, the novel succeeds in accumulating a faceted psychological profile, but its indulgent length (including excursions into Theo’s point of view), the absence of plot dynamism, and the limited appeal of the characters leave it partially stranded.
Stronger on empathy than engagement.Pub Date: Aug. 15, 2023
ISBN: 9781646220489
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Catapult
Review Posted Online: May 24, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2023
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
A debut novel with bright spots, but unbalanced and lacking in finesse.
A high school senior pursues an affair with her teacher.
Seventeen-year-old Waldo, the narrator of McCurdy’s fiction debut, lives in Anchorage, Alaska, with her mother, though she’s long been the parent in their relationship. She heats her own frozen meals and pays the bills on time while her mom chases man after man and makes well-meaning promises she never keeps. Waldo blows her Victoria’s Secret wages on online shopping sprees and binges on junk food, inevitably crashing after the fleeting highs of her indulgences. Mr. Korgy, her creative writing teacher, has “thinning hair and nose pores”; he’s 40 years old and married with a child. Nevertheless—or possibly as a result?—Waldo’s attraction to him is “instant. So sudden it’s alarming. So palpable it’s confusing.” Mr. Korgy professes to want to keep their friendship aboveboard, but after a sexual encounter at the school’s winter formal that she initiates, an affair begins. Will this reckless pursuit be the one that actually satisfies Waldo, and is she as mature as she thinks she is? Waldo is a keen observer of people and provides sharp commentary on the punishing work of female beauty. Readers of McCurdy’s bestselling memoir, I’m Glad My Mom Died (2022), will surely be curious about the tumultuous mother-daughter relationship, and it is one of the novel’s highlights, full of realistic pity and anger and need. (“I want to scream at her. I want her to hug me.”) Unfortunately, the prose is often unwieldy and sometimes downright cringeworthy: When Waldo tells Mr. Korgy she loves him, “The words hang in the air in that constipated way they do when you know that you shouldn’t have said them.” Waldo frequently lists emotions and adjectives in triplicate, and events that could be significant aren’t sufficiently explored or given enough space to breathe before the novel races on to the next thing.
A debut novel with bright spots, but unbalanced and lacking in finesse.Pub Date: Jan. 20, 2026
ISBN: 9780593723739
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: Nov. 22, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2026
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
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