A sometimes-engrossing but often self-indulgent tale about polyamory gone awry.
An author disappears in this psychological novel set in contemporary China.
Isham is missing. After publishing naked pictures of his girlfriend/translator on the internet and then beating her up in a Shanghai cafe, the writer has dropped out of view. That’s the story according to Marguerite, the mostly deaf Afghan American rug weaver with a glass bathtub and a prominent mustache. Marguerite attempts to reassemble the tale, for herself and a coterie of admirers. Years ago, author and English teacher Isham began a relationship with Luna, a Chinese woman fluent in English, who also happened to have a mustache. But sex was too painful for Luna for them to consummate the act, which led the pair to a dysfunctional, obsessive, on-again, off-again relationship. All the while, Isham was living with his main girlfriend, Bonnie. When Kitty, a third woman—who also had a mustache—entered the mix, the situation became truly volatile. Unable to share him, Luna and Kitty would eventually spiral into destructive behaviors that would end Isham’s life as he knew it. The erotic thriller has an ambitious, Faulkner-ian structure, at times alternating between the largely summarized adventures of the three lovers and Marguerite’s Scheherazade-like pausing the action to analyze them. The book investigates some intriguing territory, including polyamory and dating practices in China. But the protagonist is an unsalvageable misogynist and fetishist, and Cook’s prose replicates those tendencies. Luna is described as having “a primitively alluring face, a rudely attractive face, a compactly sexual face” while Isham and an American friend are portrayed thusly: “Both were atheists, down-to-earth in temperament, straight talkers, with a fondness for craft ales and voluptuous Asian bodies.” (In addition, the phrase benevolent rape appears at one point as a possible solution to Luna’s problem.) Cook’s past publications have flirted with these same transgressions, and it is possible that he is purposefully leaning into them here for the sake of making readers uncomfortable. But when all the exploitative material is stripped away, there simply isn’t much story left.
A sometimes-engrossing but often self-indulgent tale about polyamory gone awry.Pub Date: Oct. 19, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-73227-744-1
Page Count: 231
Publisher: Magic Theater Books
Review Posted Online: Dec. 20, 2020
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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