A Southern original adds to his gallery of Southern originals.
Legendary South Carolina absurdist Singleton weighs in with another rollicking collection—17 quick-paced, chatty, funny stories.
Singleton’s protagonists—often overeducated, tempest-tossed white guys working bizarre jobs that are “nonprofit” in one way or several—have often been called “eccentrics,” but one joy of inhabiting his satiric vision is the constantly reoccurring thought that despite their flaws (impulsiveness, a predilection for drink, a little larceny in the heart, a sense of justice that can get out of hand), the South might be better off if these guys were nearer the middle of it. In “Dispensers,” a man who collects and saws down and sells graffitied old wooden desktops stops off with his wife at a Georgia diner, where they meet and have their faith restored a little by the grizzled old men of VAGINA: Veterans Against Guns in North America. “Echoes” features doting but hapless grandfather Big Les Tolbert, who takes his way-too-worldly, cyber-dependent grandson on a quixotic, impromptu, and doomed expedition to see the ocean at Myrtle Beach. In “Protecting Witnesses and Witnessing Protection,” a husband—detoxing in spouse-forced exile in the boondocks—wakes to find a vintage tractor in his driveway...which turns out to provide a surprising path to a community of fellow sufferers. Again and again, Singleton focuses on the accidental burdens conferred on us by names—whether of people, businesses, do-gooding organizations, professions—and shows us characters doing a frantic dance around their sense that there’s a destiny in what you’re called. This turns out to be a great way of dramatizing, as Singleton wants to here, the effort well-meaning people expend to make peace with who and what and where they are. The stories don’t always have destinations, but one of the fundamental laws of Singleton’s invented world is that destinations are way overrated. Nobody complains that a carnival isn’t tautly plotted; you just plunk down your dime and wait for wonders.
A Southern original adds to his gallery of Southern originals.Pub Date: Aug. 15, 2023
ISBN: 9781950539864
Page Count: 247
Publisher: Dzanc
Review Posted Online: June 21, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 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
A welcome literary resurrection that deserves a place alongside Wright’s best-known work.
A falsely accused Black man goes into hiding in this masterful novella by Wright (1908-1960), finally published in full.
Written in 1941 and '42, between Wright’s classics Native Son and Black Boy, this short novel concerns Fred Daniels, a modest laborer who’s arrested by police officers and bullied into signing a false confession that he killed the residents of a house near where he was working. In a brief unsupervised moment, he escapes through a manhole and goes into hiding in a sewer. A series of allegorical, surrealistic set pieces ensues as Fred explores the nether reaches of a church, a real estate firm, and a jewelry store. Each stop is an opportunity for Wright to explore themes of hope, greed, and exploitation; the real estate firm, Wright notes, “collected hundreds of thousands of dollars in rent from poor colored folks.” But Fred’s deepening existential crisis and growing distance from society keep the scenes from feeling like potted commentaries. As he wallpapers his underground warren with cash, mocking and invalidating the currency, he registers a surrealistic but engrossing protest against divisive social norms. The novel, rejected by Wright’s publisher, has only appeared as a substantially truncated short story until now, without the opening setup and with a different ending. Wright's take on racial injustice seems to have unsettled his publisher: A note reveals that an editor found reading about Fred’s treatment by the police “unbearable.” That may explain why Wright, in an essay included here, says its focus on race is “rather muted,” emphasizing broader existential themes. Regardless, as an afterword by Wright’s grandson Malcolm attests, the story now serves as an allegory both of Wright (he moved to France, an “exile beyond the reach of Jim Crow and American bigotry”) and American life. Today, it resonates deeply as a story about race and the struggle to envision a different, better world.
A welcome literary resurrection that deserves a place alongside Wright’s best-known work.Pub Date: April 20, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-59853-676-8
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Library of America
Review Posted Online: March 16, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2021
BOOK TO SCREEN
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