Eye-glazing esoterica notwithstanding, this dreamy, erotic “memoir” is a smart, sexy affair.
Tracy St. Cyr is a 40-something semifamous rock musician whose memoir focuses on two distinct periods, 1993 and 2019, excavating the trauma of relationships and transitions—first girlfriend to worst girlfriend, aspiring artist to legit indie star, passive adolescent to riotous trans girl.
Lead singer and guitarist of Static Saints, Tracy has divided her two personal epochs into Sides A and B, locating her firmly on a wry, lo-fi, then-and-now Gen X axis where reality can bite. Or as she says, “I felt like a hot aging punk dyke and realized that maybe I was a hot aging punk dyke.” Side A has an un-deadnamed Tracy chronicling first love and loss with Astrid while living in an unnamed city, alone until falling in with a dazzling coven of trans artists. In Side B she’s back in the same city, alone again and recovering from a devastating relationship with suicidal butch barkeep Johnny. And the transformations she once again finds here are restorative, generative, and very, very hot. As Tracy slips seamlessly into an eloquent and extremely explicit erogenous zone, Plante convincingly makes the case that there is in fact a difference between erotica and porn. The reader will also learn: how to eat an oyster, how to fist, how to muff. If only Plante had let Tracy keep exploring and explaining herself (on her “slutty” grad school years: “I drew the line at business and criminology students. I mean, we all need standards”). Instead, relentless inside-baseball musical references feel less like scene-setting and more like name-checking to establish music-geek bona fides. Mary Timony, Redd Kross, Langley Schools Music Project….Okaaay. Not least, it’s difficult to imagine many readers having enough particular knowledge or patience to stick with it. Similarly, Tracy’s protracted creative sessions can be pedantic at best, more likely just plain dull (“I put a capo on the second fret of my guitar and fumbled around with chords, finally locating a simple chord progression: Bm D A E”). And curiously, rather than just writing a first-person novel, Plante has inserted herself into the story as “co-author” of St. Cyr’s memoirs. She hits the conceit hard in a giddy foreword but abandons it entirely until a second foreword, this time from Tracy opening the 2019 section. The premise, which adds exactly nothing, is one darling that should have been killed.
Eye-glazing esoterica notwithstanding, this dreamy, erotic “memoir” is a smart, sexy affair.Pub Date: April 18, 2023
ISBN: 9781551529110
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Arsenal Pulp Press
Review Posted Online: March 27, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 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
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with...
Talk-show queen takes tumble as millions jeer.
Nora Bridges is a wildly popular radio spokesperson for family-first virtues, but her loyal listeners don't know that she walked out on her husband and teenaged daughters years ago and didn't look back. Now that a former lover has sold racy pix of naked Nora and horny himself to a national tabloid, her estranged daughter Ruby, an unsuccessful stand-up comic in Los Angeles, has been approached to pen a tell-all. Greedy for the fat fee she's been promised, Ruby agrees and heads for the San Juan Islands, eager to get reacquainted with the mom she plans to betray. Once in the family homestead, nasty Ruby alternately sulks and glares at her mother, who is temporarily wheelchair-bound as a result of a post-scandal car crash. Uncaring, Ruby begins writing her side of the story when she's not strolling on the beach with former sweetheart Dean Sloan, the son of wealthy socialites who basically ignored him and his gay brother Eric. Eric, now dying of cancer and also in a wheelchair, has returned to the island. This dismal threesome catch up on old times, recalling their childhood idylls on the island. After Ruby's perfect big sister Caroline shows up, there's another round of heartfelt talk. Nora gradually reveals the truth about her unloving husband and her late father's alcoholism, which led her to seek the approval of others at the cost of her own peace of mind. And so on. Ruby is aghast to discover that she doesn't know everything after all, but Dean offers her subdued comfort. Happy endings await almost everyone—except for readers of this nobly preachy snifflefest.
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with syrupy platitudes about life and love.Pub Date: March 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-609-60737-5
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2001
© Copyright 2026 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
