An elegant dream in marvelous prose, fully accessible to general readers, but a perfect fit for fans of Gabriel Garcia...
A coming-of-age tale about an unusual boy and an extraordinary dog who share the tribulations of a Brazilian plantation’s indentured laborers.
This novel opens with the boy, Lano, telling Ca’d’Zan, the wild dog he named after the plantation, a story which kicks off a long tale of heroism. As Lano and the dog grow up, other characters are introduced: John One, the insane founder of the Ca’d’Zan plantation; John Two, his son; Angelina Bonita, a woman as mysterious and beautiful as an angel; and Lano’s father, Raimundo. Kersh describes the workers’ daily drudgery and the cruelty of their bosses but infuses the story with ephemeral mysticism. For example, Raimundo builds a shadow-play “magic lantern,” and Ca’d’Zan rescues a Native American princess whose presence is announced by butterflies; this earns the dog the title of “Much Dog” and makes Lano a member of the princess’s “people.” Eventually, the two Johns and other powerful interests want more land, leading to a confrontation with Native Americans and environmentalists and a battle between natives and loggers. Lano proves himself a warrior during these fights, despite his choice not to shoot enemies on either side. Later, after two tragic deaths, the plantation falls apart, and Lano finds his place with the native people and takes part in more pitched battles. Kersh’s beautifully rendered language sounds slightly foreign, slightly mystical: “ ‘Close your eyes and fly away, Lano,’ Mother whispered in the near dark, her arms bright beautiful wings to fly me. ‘Lose your body to glide on my words over the whole dark earth.’ ” His style is reminiscent of magical realism, but, here, the enchantment isn’t an integral part of the narrative; it simply glows at the edges.
An elegant dream in marvelous prose, fully accessible to general readers, but a perfect fit for fans of Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Isabel Allende and Franz Kafka.Pub Date: May 2, 2013
ISBN: 978-1482714494
Page Count: 306
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: July 11, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2013
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
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
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
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