A moving, necessary tribute to a singular voice of queer literature.
Poems and stories that capture a queer Chicano writer’s reckonings with illness, family, and desire in the midst of the AIDS epidemic.
Composed in the years before the 34-year-old Cuadros’ death from AIDS in 1996, the works in this collection are embodied and energetic, charged with the urgency of a young writer racing to mine and document as much of his experience as possible. In “Hands,” the opening story, an AIDS patient prepares for his death, finalizing his will and getting rid of his belongings, grappling with unresolved childhood memories. Though the narrator’s body is deteriorating and he’s certain he’ll die soon, life keeps shattering through the gloom: While gardening, he receives “a warm charge…from the earth,” and he befriends an immigrant woman named Yoli whose warm, maternal character disrupts the resentment he harbors toward his abusive parents. This tension between degeneration and life, and between the divine and the profane, pervades the collection. An HIV-positive queer man finds himself pregnant in “Birth,” one of the last stories the author wrote. “Heroes,” which may have been the beginning of an unfinished novel, portrays moments of sexual intimacy as the narrator contends with the effects of illness and medical treatment on his body. Embodiment is vividly rendered throughout the pieces, especially in “Dis(coloration),” in which the narrator explores the cosmetics aisle of a drugstore and experiments with a new fading cream for his discolored skin. Spirituality is treated with equal importance, with speakers supplicating, grasping toward the divine in poems like “A Netless Heaven” and “It’s Friday Night and Jesus Is at the Laundromat.” Though there’s a brisk, unfinished quality to some of the stories (understandable, given the circumstances), this doesn’t overshadow their depth, detail, and poignancy. On the contrary, readers will easily recognize in these works a writer approaching the height of his powers. Brief essays by Justin Torres and Pablo Alvarez bookend the collection, contextualizing Cuadros’ life and writing.
A moving, necessary tribute to a singular voice of queer literature.Pub Date: June 4, 2024
ISBN: 9780872869097
Page Count: 220
Publisher: City Lights
Review Posted Online: May 31, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2024
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 dark and twisty look at just how far one woman is willing to go to find inspiration.
A struggling writer finds an unexpected muse when a mysterious man shows up at her cabin.
Petra Rose used to pump out a bestselling book every six months, but then the adaptation happened—that is, the disastrous film adaptation of her most famous book. The movie changed the book’s storyline so egregiously that fans couldn’t forgive her, and the ensuing harassment sent Petra into hiding and gave her a serious case of writer’s block. Petra’s one hope is her solo writing retreat at a remote cabin, where she can escape the distractions of real life and focus on her next book, a story about a woman having an affair with a cop. When officer Nathaniel Saint shows up at her cabin door, inspiration comes flooding back. Much like the character from Petra’s book, Saint is married, and he’s willing to be Petra’s muse, helping her get into her characters’ heads. Petra’s book is practically writing itself, but is the game she’s playing a little too dangerous? Does she know when to stop—and, more importantly, is Saint willing to stop? Hoover is no stranger to controversial movie adaptations and internet backlash, but she clarifies in a note to readers that she’s “just a writer writing about a writer” and that no further connections to her own life are contained in these pages—which is a good thing, because the book takes some horrifying twists and turns. Petra finds herself inexplicably attracted to Saint, even as she describes him as “such an asshole,” and her feelings for him veer between love and hate. The novel serves as a meta commentary on the dark romance genre—as Petra puts it, “Even though, as readers, we wouldn’t want to live out some of the fantasies we read about, it doesn’t mean we don’t enjoy reading those things.”
A dark and twisty look at just how far one woman is willing to go to find inspiration.Pub Date: Jan. 13, 2026
ISBN: 9781662539374
Page Count: -
Publisher: Montlake
Review Posted Online: Sept. 27, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2025
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