A book that asks to be studied rather than read.
A queer Chicana comes of age and into her power in Texas.
The legacy of feminist author Anzaldúa (1942-2004) looms large. Her groundbreaking book Borderlands/La Frontera (1987) remains a touchstone for generations of scholars and activists. An editorial note explains that Anzaldúa had been developing her "Prieta stories" alongside nonfiction for her whole career. While a few came out during her lifetime, this book represents their first complete publication. Like her other work, it resists genre and other literary conventions. Anzaldúa mixes English and Spanish throughout (translations are provided at the end of each story) to tell the tale of a young girl’s awakening into a queer identity. Some stories are sexually explicit while others veer into the supernatural. In each, Prieta confronts family and community members who both love her and expect her to conform to traditional notions of gender and sexuality. But Prieta cannot betray herself so easily. Over time and facing many obstacles, including homophobic lovers and crooked bosses, she cultivates a sense of embodied power. Others may go along to get along, but she’s one with both the land she lives on and with the celestial—so much that she finds it nearly impossible to be anything but her authentic self. The stories document Prieta’s sensory experience in granular detail to the exclusion of character development and traditional elements of plot, though they do follow Prieta’s arc from childhood to adulthood. Over decades, Anzaldúa labored to offer this painstaking, relentless exploration of the queer experience in all its richness as part of quotidian life. Prieta's story is a foundational piece of the dam against erasure and marginalization Anzaldúa spent her life building.
A book that asks to be studied rather than read.Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2025
ISBN: 9798855804553
Page Count: 272
Publisher: State Univ. of New York Press
Review Posted Online: Aug. 22, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2025
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles...
Sisters in and out of love.
Meghann Dontess is a high-powered matrimonial lawyer in Seattle who prefers sex with strangers to emotional intimacy: a strategy bound to backfire sooner or later, warns her tough-talking shrink. It’s advice Meghann decides to ignore, along with the memories of her difficult childhood, neglectful mother, and younger sister. Though she managed to reunite Claire with Sam Cavenaugh (her father but not Meghann’s) when her mother abandoned both girls long ago, Meghann still feels guilty that her sister’s life doesn’t measure up, at least on her terms. Never married, Claire ekes out a living running a country campground with her dad and is raising her six-year-old daughter on her own. When she falls in love for the first time with an up-and-coming country musician, Meghann is appalled: Bobby Austin is a three-time loser at marriage—how on earth can Claire be so blind? Bobby’s blunt explanation doesn’t exactly satisfy the concerned big sister, who busies herself planning Claire’s dream wedding anyway. And, to relieve the stress, she beds various guys she picks up in bars, including Dr. Joe Wyatt, a neurosurgeon turned homeless drifter after the demise of his beloved wife Diane (whom he euthanized). When Claire’s awful headache turns out to be a kind of brain tumor known among neurologists as a “terminator,” Joe rallies. Turns out that Claire had befriended his wife on her deathbed, and now in turn he must try to save her. Is it too late? Will Meghann find true love at last?
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles (Distant Shores, 2002, etc.). Kudos for skipping the snifflefest this time around.Pub Date: May 1, 2003
ISBN: 0-345-45073-6
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2003
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
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