A shaggy, oddly engrossing Caribbean epic powered by a vivacious cast of frenetic islanders.
A tropical island hosts a plethora of colorful characters in this first installment of Rogers’ Caribbean Trilogy.
Set in the lush fictional Caribbean island of Canuba in the early 1980s, a time when “ethnic, appearance, and gender sensitivity had not even reached today’s low standard,” the novel introduces Chiara Trigona, an outspoken yet bookish semiretired journalist. Considered lovely by the local islanders (with her “pink epidermis and ‘good hair’”), Chiara is originally from Sicily and is an ex-New Yorker. She is taken with the island’s rich colonial history, the bronze statue of Sir Francis Drake in the center of town, and the spacious house and circular belvedere tower she rents. Infrequent writing jags whisk her away from the island, populated by Canubans who speak in a “springy, expressive” hybrid of Spanish, pidgin English, and French and are a polite if quirky community of artists, families, recurring tourists, and mavericks. The Canubans’ island is a sensual wonderland where “time is elastic” and the streets are filled with historical monuments and peopled by kooky locals. Complicating matters for Chiara is the turbulent love-hate dynamic she shares with Amado, a young, hunky, insatiably amorous man who, despite being married to Reina, keeps Chiara as his secondary lover. (The arrogant, womanizing Amado also unapologetically courts a coterie of girlfriends on the side.) Though Amado, Chiara, and Reina casually intermingle, Reina becomes furious when she finds out about his other affairs and violent fights ensue, attracting the attention of Amado’s brother-in-law, Sigfrido, who’s a cop. Chiara’s hyperactive friend, Lamia; her spiritual housekeeper, Luz Divina; local Voodoo priestess Diana; and Catulo, another of Chiara’s part-time, pansexual lovers also populate Rogers’ imaginative, overstuffed saga. Amado’s confession of a love affair outside of Chiara’s and Reina’s orbit escalates the novel’s climax into a frenzy of suspicion, disastrous melodrama, and sorcerous revenge.
The author confides that the inspiration for his novel was drawn from notebooks he’d received from a Sicilian journalist who was preparing to permanently withdraw and disappear into “an unnamed country in Asia” in 2016. The sparsely plotted story he concocted from this starting point derives its greatest appeal from the characters and their gritty dialect as well as the amount of intricate detail Rogers stuffs into these pages. The author excels at depictions of the lush, atmospheric island features, Chiara’s sexual conquests, and her daily dress-code decision-making process. Rogers is also masterful at building and elaborating upon a community of salty islanders, suspicious wives, lusty lovers, and recreational acquaintances all set in melodramatic motion or caught in moments of erotic impulsivity. The narrative benefits greatly from multiple narrators who offer vibrant perspectives on the misadventures and mishaps surrounding these tropical misfits—though at times, the flashy pageantry of Rogers’ vigorous and frequently rambling prose does become wearying. By the time the rollicking conclusion arrives, it’s evident there are many more tales to tell of this island; Canuba becomes a character in and of itself. Rogers employs satire, sex, and drama in wondrous ways. A shaggy, oddly engrossing Caribbean epic powered by a vivacious cast of frenetic islanders.Pub Date: Dec. 7, 2023
ISBN: 9781959556589
Page Count: 414
Publisher: Spuyten Duyvil Publishing
Review Posted Online: April 5, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2024
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Fans of Stockett’s bestselling debut will love this engaging follow-up.
Stockett heads to Mississippi for another historical novel about feisty women.
This time, perhaps recalling criticisms of cultural appropriation in The Help (2009), she sticks to feisty white women, with one exception. The setting is Oxford in 1933. For two miserable years, 11-year-old Meg has lived in “the Orphan,” a county asylum for parentless girls. Chairlady Garnett—a villain so one-note she’d twirl a mustache if she had one—makes it her mission to ostracize the older girls she deems unadoptable, stigmatizing them as offspring of the “feebleminded” mothers who abandoned them. She particularly has it in for smart, sassy Meg, who refuses to believe her mother’s mysterious disappearance was deliberate. Elsewhere in Oxford, Birdie Calhoun comes to visit her sister Frances, who married a wealthy banker, to ask for money on behalf of their mother and grandmother back in Footely. Frances isn’t thrilled by this reminder of her impoverished small-town origins. But she’s trying to climb up in Oxford society by volunteering at the Orphan, the asylum’s books need to be done before the state inspector shows up in a few weeks, and Birdie is a bookkeeper. Having neatly arranged to keep Birdie in town and draw these two storylines together, Stockett goes on to spin a compulsively readable yarn with enough plot for a half-dozen novels. Birdie and Meg become friends, Meg is adopted despite Garnett’s best efforts, Meg’s mother turns up at the Orphan demanding to know where her child is—and that’s less than a quarter of the way through a long, winding narrative that keeps piling on more dramatic developments until all loose ends are neatly, if hastily, wrapped up in the final pages. Stockett might be making a point about Southern women facing facts and standing up for themselves, but mostly this is just a satisfyingly twisty tale that should make a great miniseries.
Fans of Stockett’s bestselling debut will love this engaging follow-up.Pub Date: May 5, 2026
ISBN: 9781954118812
Page Count: 656
Publisher: Spiegel & Grau
Review Posted Online: Feb. 2, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2026
BOOK REVIEW
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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