A family saga light on personal interactions but filled with historical nuggets.
Wiens’ novel, the first of a two-volume series, offers a fictionalized history of his Mennonite family, from the 19th century in Russian Ukraine to their arrival in America in 1922.
In 1894, 7-year-old Gerhardt Wiens is on a ship with his parents and siblings heading back to Europe. Although happy with his American life in a Mennonite community in Kansas, Gerhardt is nonetheless excited about this new adventure, which will bring him to his homeland in southern Ukraine. His father, Heinrich, has grown disillusioned with what he sees as the chaos of American culture, where strikers can stop rail travel and the government changes every few years. “America is too politically unstable and will probably come to another revolution,” he tells his sons. “We’ll be better off back in Russia where it’s peaceful, stable, and safe.” Little does he anticipate the turmoil that will bring havoc to his family over the coming decades. The Wiens family are prosperous farmers, and Heinrich increases his holdings during the first decade of the 20th century. In 1910, Gerhardt decides it’s time to marry, have children, and become a landowner in his own right. Shortly after his wedding, he sets out for southern Siberia and purchases farming land in Kazakhstan. When World War I erupts, everything changes. Originally exempt from military service on religious grounds, Gerhardt is drafted into the ambulance corps—then comes the Russian Revolution. Gerhardt and his family are the center of the narrative, but the presentation of their individual sagas is more factual than emotional in tone. The drama in the story rests in the gritty details of the world war on the Eastern Front, with its massive losses of troops and military disorganization, both leading to dissension in the ranks, followed by years of violence in which competing factions of communist revolutionaries battle for control of the empire. More uplifting are the sections that portray the kaleidoscope of nationalities, ethnicities, and cultural traditions that co-existed—occasionally amicably, other times less so—in what was the Russian Empire.
A family saga light on personal interactions but filled with historical nuggets.Pub Date: April 11, 2023
ISBN: 9798987879627
Page Count: 268
Publisher: H.P. Waterhouse Publishing
Review Posted Online: Nov. 30, 2023
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
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
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