A Promethean fable about reconstruction, reinvention, and the occasional human-sized snack.
A mother despondent over the death of her son employs a bloody dose of magical realism to bring him back to life.
In this wicked debut novel, Sámano Córdova combines queer themes touching on identity, kink, and consent with Latin American mysticism for an unusually visceral coming-of-age tale. In New York, an 11-year-old Mexican boy named Santiago dies, leaving his mother, Magos, and father, Joseph, in terrible grief. Magos defiantly carves a piece of her son’s lung from his body, returning with it to Mexico City. As in a folktale, Magos’ guardianship of her bloody talisman breathes new life into it, resulting in a hungry rat-thing that eventually grows into a doppelgänger for her son she names Monstrilio, or M, complete with fangs, claws, fur, and a mysterious vestigial limb. It’s a true grotesquerie on the surface, although the body horrors and violent trespasses to come are primarily springboards to explore the inner lives of these characters—Magos; her best friend, Lena; Joseph; and finally young and ravenous M himself—and their transformations in the face of love and loss. Magos, resolutely determined to keep her monster alive, is enabled by Lena, one of Mexico’s youngest surgeons, whose emotional blinders, medical ethics, and rationalizations blind her to M’s true nature. Back in New York two years after his divorce, Joseph has found love with Peter, a financial analyst who believes M is merely Joe’s son from an earlier marriage. As Joseph and Peter plan their wedding and Magos throws herself into a career as a celebrated performance artist, M is growing into a young man, complete with not only the turmoil and tension that coming-of-age brings, but a growing realization about his own ferocious, ravenous nature. As his sexual conquests and appetite evolve, self-realization turns to self-fulfillment. Deciding who to root for in this Kafkaesque myth may prove perplexing for readers, but there’s no doubt there’s nothing quite like it.
A Promethean fable about reconstruction, reinvention, and the occasional human-sized snack.Pub Date: March 7, 2023
ISBN: 978-1-63893-036-5
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Zando
Review Posted Online: Dec. 23, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2023
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
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
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