An engaging but slow-paced tale that explores art and relationships.
A group of intriguing people deals with relationships and art at a Scottish country house.
In this debut literary novel, Brunini blends the story of Violet Grey, an aging hippie in coastal Maine whose narration opens each chapter, with the tale of a group that gathers at Otyrburn, an estate in rural Scotland, in late December. The house belongs to George Lowell and Margot Reid, who is the half sister of Violet’s daughter, Ava. This is something Margot learns only when Ava arrives at her house during the party. Margot has reconnected with Owen Fowler, her boyfriend from her teen years who is now the gardener helping to renovate Otyrburn, and is thinking about leaving George to be with him. Meanwhile, George, a director at the Metropolitan Museum, is under suspicion for illicit activity. After setting the stage, the book jumps back several months to follow the characters’ actions that lead to the party, moving between Scotland, New York City, and Venice, where George’s brother, Will, is also part of the art world. They discuss art, meaning, creativity, and ethics as they make decisions about infidelity, relationships, and careers. Small decisions lead to surprising results as the book’s concluding chapters follow up with the group years and decades later. The novel often feels like the film Gosford Park populated by readers of the London Review of Books with its many intertwined storylines and frequent multidirectional conversations. The characters, who are distinct and well developed, have extremely strong and often melodramatic feelings about art (one painter’s brush strokes leave Will “rethinking atheism”). Brunini’s prose is often evocative (“The pair walked as the dogs leaped between them in the reach occupied by two lifetimes”), though the metaphors are sometimes over-the-top (“Your life reads like a sanctuary somebody spent twenty years cultivating into a lavender meadow filled with Chagall’s violins”). The high-flown rhetoric combined with the characters’ tendencies toward introspection over action (for instance, Margot and Owen’s emotional affair becomes physical at a glacial pace) will appeal to readers interested more in players and themes than in a fast-moving plot.
An engaging but slow-paced tale that explores art and relationships.Pub Date: Nov. 15, 2022
ISBN: 979-8-9861205-0-8
Page Count: 423
Publisher: Idle Ridge Press
Review Posted Online: Feb. 6, 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
SEEN & HEARD
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
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