A wonder-filled novel about the power of words and stories to bring hope to the most difficult situations.
A novel of enslaved people reaching for love and freedom.
Asim's multifaceted oeuvre includes 12 books for children, a collection of poetry, acclaimed works of social criticism, and a short story collection. His majestic second novel is set in the mid-19th century on a plantation called Placid Hall, which is within a hundred miles of free soil. The slaves call themselves the Stolen, and White people, from plantation owners down to children, are referred to as Thieves. Despite living in a society determined to keep the Stolen uneducated and unaware of their surroundings, the enslaved people of Placid Hall hold on to as much of their humanity as possible. They dream of freedom, they fall in love despite knowing they could be separated from their partners or children at any moment, and they believe in the power of words and storytelling. “Our elders taught us that words were mighty enough to change our condition. They whispered seven words into the ears of every Stolen newborn before the child was given a name, seven words carefully chosen for that child alone.” The seven words serve as part prayer and part talisman, but they also give each of the Stolen an identity apart from slavery. Told in quick chapters, many just two or three pages long, that alternate narrators among the Stolen, the novel manages to convey the horrors and vicissitudes of slavery while never compromising each character’s humanity. William is strong and stubborn and hopelessly in love with Margaret. Cato is still grieving the death of his love but begins to see a new future with Pandora. These four, plus Little Zander—who’s always practicing flying away—have to decide if they’re ready to risk their lives for the dream of a better future. Asim demonstrates all a novel can be: soaring and grounded, personal and epic, thrilling and quiet.
A wonder-filled novel about the power of words and stories to bring hope to the most difficult situations.Pub Date: Jan. 11, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-982163-16-7
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Oct. 26, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2021
PERSPECTIVES
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
Still, a respectful and absorbing page-turner.
Hannah’s new novel is an homage to the extraordinary courage and endurance of Frenchwomen during World War II.
In 1995, an elderly unnamed widow is moving into an Oregon nursing home on the urging of her controlling son, Julien, a surgeon. This trajectory is interrupted when she receives an invitation to return to France to attend a ceremony honoring passeurs: people who aided the escape of others during the war. Cut to spring, 1940: Viann has said goodbye to husband Antoine, who's off to hold the Maginot line against invading Germans. She returns to tending her small farm, Le Jardin, in the Loire Valley, teaching at the local school and coping with daughter Sophie’s adolescent rebellion. Soon, that world is upended: The Germans march into Paris and refugees flee south, overrunning Viann’s land. Her long-estranged younger sister, Isabelle, who has been kicked out of multiple convent schools, is sent to Le Jardin by Julien, their father in Paris, a drunken, decidedly unpaternal Great War veteran. As the depredations increase in the occupied zone—food rationing, systematic looting, and the billeting of a German officer, Capt. Beck, at Le Jardin—Isabelle’s outspokenness is a liability. She joins the Resistance, volunteering for dangerous duty: shepherding downed Allied airmen across the Pyrenees to Spain. Code-named the Nightingale, Isabelle will rescue many before she's captured. Meanwhile, Viann’s journey from passive to active resistance is less dramatic but no less wrenching. Hannah vividly demonstrates how the Nazis, through starvation, intimidation and barbarity both casual and calculated, demoralized the French, engineering a community collapse that enabled the deportations and deaths of more than 70,000 Jews. Hannah’s proven storytelling skills are ideally suited to depicting such cataclysmic events, but her tendency to sentimentalize undermines the gravitas of this tale.
Still, a respectful and absorbing page-turner.Pub Date: Feb. 3, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-312-57722-3
Page Count: 448
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Nov. 19, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2014
BOOK TO SCREEN
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
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