This may not be an entirely satisfactory first novel, but Johansson has strengths that make her a writer to watch.
A fiction debut that explores the intersection of desire and power.
The story’s unnamed protagonist, a woman who’s a writer, becomes infatuated with an artist called Helena after interviewing the older woman for an article. When Helena offers the narrator an invitation to spend the summer in Greece with her, the protagonist sees this as an opportunity for their relationship to deepen. At first, Helena’s teenage daughter, Olga, is an unwelcome distraction, but, eventually, the protagonist’s attention turns to the girl. First published in 2021, this novel earned lavish critical praise—including literary prizes—in Sweden. Johansson uses her chosen setting to good effect. Her characters are surrounded by sumptuous sensory experiences but also isolated, and that isolation enhances the sense of pending disaster that permeates the text. Whether or not readers appreciate this work, though, will depend largely on their reaction to the first-person narration and the slow pace at which the plot unfolds. The protagonist is an outsider; indeed, she seems to be a mere observer of her own life. At the same time, her desperate loneliness makes her solipsistic. Her obsessions are more about her need for an identity than any particular qualities of the people with whom she becomes obsessed. This trait makes psychological sense, but, as the only character given a point of view, she becomes rather tiresome company, and the pacing only exacerbates the issue. While no one should expect this story to read like a thriller, fiction doesn’t have to feel like a chore to have literary merit. The author does, ultimately, provide us with an intriguing thought experiment: How would we react if the protagonist had been a man?
This may not be an entirely satisfactory first novel, but Johansson has strengths that make her a writer to watch.Pub Date: Feb. 6, 2024
ISBN: 9781646221714
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Catapult
Review Posted Online: Oct. 21, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 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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