Sharp, unsentimental tales from a writer haunted by her past.
Reflections on an enigmatic childhood.
In seven deftly crafted stories that she calls “autoscopic” rather than autobiographical, two-time Man Booker Prize winner Mantel takes a “distant, elevated perspective” on her life growing up in the English Midlands region. Organized chronologically, most of the stories are narrated by a woman evolving an increasingly astute perception of her own reality and the truths obscured by family myths and lies. “All the tales arose out of questions I asked myself about my early years,” Mantel writes in her preface. “I cannot say that by sliding my life into a fictional form I was solving puzzles—but at least I was pushing the pieces about.” They read, then, as lightly fictionalized memoir. In fact, the last story, “Giving Up the Ghost,” acknowledges the author's memoir of the same title, published in 2003. Mantel’s family situation was peculiar: When she was about 7, her mother moved her lover into the house that she shared with her husband. For the next four years, Mantel lived with two fathers, aware of gossip about her mother’s scandalous behavior. Finally, her father left. In “Curved Is the Line of Beauty,” the lover is called Jack, with “sunburned skin and muscles beneath his shirt. He was your definition of a man, if a man was what caused alarm and shattered the peace.” Growing up was hardly peaceful: In “Learning To Talk” (“true save one or two real-life details”), the 13-year-old narrator is sent for elocution lessons, her provincial accent seen as a liability: “People were not supposed to worry about their accents, but they did worry, and tried to adapt their voices—otherwise they found themselves treated with a conscious cheeriness, as if they were bereaved or slightly deformed.” Mantel’s narrators are melancholy or resentful, misunderstood or ignored, vulnerable and cynical. “Mercy,” one observes, “was a theory that I had not seen in operation.”
Sharp, unsentimental tales from a writer haunted by her past.Pub Date: June 21, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-250-86536-6
Page Count: 176
Publisher: Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: March 24, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2022
IN THE NEWS
PERSPECTIVES
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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