A searing account of the pain and rage motherhood can sometimes produce.
A homesick New Yorker suffering from postpartum depression completely loses it in London.
We meet Gigi in the middle of the second-worst day of her life, a Wednesday in August 2016, when she walks out on her husband and two children, all three screaming and crying, and checks into the Grand Euro Star Lodge Hotel, where she will drink wine, watch her beloved Real Housewives of New Jersey, and try to shove her body into what the English call a "half bathtub." The next section of the book revisits what was surely the actual worst day of her life, Sept. 11, 2001: Her only sibling was at an interview in one of the towers. The one redeeming factor of that day was that she met Harry, a kind and elegant Brit who became her future husband, on the Staten Island Ferry. Fate keeps them apart for quite a while, and by the time they meet again, Gigi is raising a child—her dead brother's dead girlfriend's son. This time, they seal the deal, and before long Staten Island Gigi is installed in a posh house in London where she is miserable beyond belief. The older boy, Johnny, goes to a fancy private school where Gigi feels completely out of place (her class consciousness and awareness of other women's clothing, accoutrements, and bodies is acute), and her new baby, Rocky, is the product of a Caesarian birth so traumatic that she is more or less destroyed, emotionally and physically. How much can one woman take? That is the question this novel asks, furiously, impatiently, and without too many niceties of plot. The author's bio, perfectly parallel to Gigi's at least in the outlines, suggests that Bannister's impulse is autobiographical; who could or would make this up? Gigi is sharp and funny and endearing enough that you will want to stick with her through the whole nightmare, as if she needed you to hold her hand.
A searing account of the pain and rage motherhood can sometimes produce.Pub Date: March 30, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-385-54617-1
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Nov. 26, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2020
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 delightfully nostalgic novel about how the things we loved in the past have the power to shape our future.
A boy band cruise is the site of one woman’s post-divorce healing.
Annie never meant to end up alone on a Boy Talk cruise, but that’s exactly what happens when her sister breaks a leg and has to bow out of their vacation. Now Annie is sharing a cabin with a stranger, stuck on the cruise ship American Fantasy with the 1990s band—and thousands of their biggest fans, known as Talkers. Annie doesn’t consider herself a Talker, even if she was a fan back in the day. But reeling from a recent divorce and dealing with complex feelings about turning 50, Annie throws herself into the distraction of the trip. What she doesn’t expect is to truly connect with the music, the band, the other fans, and herself. As Annie observes, “This was why people turned to religion or watched the Super Bowl at a sports bar instead of alone in their living room. It felt good to be a part of something where your passion was celebrated instead of mocked.” All the Talkers dream of having a special bond with “the guys,” but when Annie actually does meet Keith, a Boy Talk member who’s clearly going through a hard time, she wonders if their connection is real or if she’s just as delusional as the other (mostly) women on the ship. Straub depicts a wonderfully immersive world aboard the American Fantasy, one where each woman assigns herself a favorite guy and everyone is bedecked in Boy Talk merch. For five days, the Talkers live in a fantasy world where the only thing that matters is their connection with a band that meant everything to them so many years ago. As Annie puts it, “Inside her head, which is where she heard the music, it had touched some lever so deep that it couldn’t be reversed…the music was a direct vein to her own childhood, the least complicated part of her life.”
A delightfully nostalgic novel about how the things we loved in the past have the power to shape our future.Pub Date: April 7, 2026
ISBN: 9798217046850
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Riverhead
Review Posted Online: Jan. 19, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2026
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