After just two collections, Brinkley may already be a grand master of the short story.
Short stories that in their depth of feeling, perception, and sense of place affirm their author’s bright promise.
As in his debut collection, A Lucky Man (2018), Brinkley sets these stories in New York City ethnic neighborhoods on the edge of transformation, vividly and, at times, hauntingly showing how the people in those enclaves struggle to withstand, even transcend the changes around them. “The Happiest House on Union Street,” for instance, focuses on a young girl named Beverly, old enough to be “past the phase of making words up,” who spends the days and nights leading up to Halloween trying to mediate tensions between her father and her uncle (both named Ray) as a developer is showing interest in the Brooklyn home that’s been in their family for generations. Then there’s “Bartow Station,” in which a delivery-truck driver’s encounter with an abandoned subway tunnel triggers unwanted memories of a personal tragedy. In this story, as in others, characters’ presumptions are upended, secrets revealed, and wounds, both physical and psychological, are exposed. These factors come together most strikingly in the title story, in which a young woman named Bernice embarks on a romance with a club DJ to the consternation of her truculent, disapproving brother, and the petty disputes among the three of them obscure the fact that something is terribly wrong with Bernice’s health. In some ways, the plots of these stories, however engrossing, are less significant than their vivid physical details, graceful language, and acute observation of even the most bewildering of human behavior. Brinkley’s stories carry a rich veneer worthy of such exemplars of the form as Chekhov, Eudora Welty, Alice Munro, and James Alan McPherson. At their best, these stories provide inspiration to all of us, no matter who we are or where we live, on how best to deal with those moments in life when, as one of Brinkley’s characters puts it, “all we can manage…is halting small talk, and the awkwardness of it resounds in our ears.”
After just two collections, Brinkley may already be a grand master of the short story.Pub Date: Aug. 1, 2023
ISBN: 9780374607036
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: May 24, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2023
BOOK REVIEW
PERSPECTIVES
PERSPECTIVES
The series’ snarky noir vibe might be dwindling, but there’s something of substance in its place.
This is wizard Harry Dresden’s yearlong mourning period for Karrin Murphy, the woman he loved.
If you keep upping your protagonist’s powers throughout a series, then you must balance the scales by increasing the number and strength of their enemies—as well as seriously messing with their personal life. Over the course of the Dresden Files, Harry Dresden, Chicago PI and now one of the most powerful wizards in the world, thought his first love was dead (she wasn’t), sacrificed his half-vampire girlfriend on an altar to save their child, lost another girlfriend when they learned she’d been mind-controlled into their relationship, bound himself into servitude as the Fae Queen Mab’s Winter Knight, and, for the length of an entire book, thought he himself was dead (he wasn’t). But nothing has hit quite as hard as the death of Karrin Murphy, the former police lieutenant who was his quasi-partner, friend, and, after a slow burn across many books, lover. Chicago is in a terrible state following a battle with Ethniu the Titan and her Fomor army, and Harry is doing his best to confront the monsters, dark magic, and anti-supernatural prejudice running wild amid the slowly rebuilding city. He’s also trying to save his half brother Thomas from two different death sentences, train a new apprentice, and juggle a relationship with Thomas’ half sister Lara, the dangerously seductive vampire Queen Mab is forcing him to marry. But he’s doing all this while nearly crushed by grief that threatens his judgment and disturbs his control over his magical powers. Butcher really makes you feel the dark, depressive state Harry exists in as well as the effect it’s having on his friends. Despite all that happens in it, this book is a pause as well as a setup for the series’ planned conclusion, an epic conflict with the eldritch creatures known as “the Outsiders.” It’s a tough, redemptive pause that could be a real drag, but thankfully, it’s not, because Butcher shows balance, too: Even as the crises pile up, so do the help and goodwill from unexpected sources.
The series’ snarky noir vibe might be dwindling, but there’s something of substance in its place.Pub Date: Jan. 20, 2026
ISBN: 9780593199336
Page Count: 480
Publisher: Ace/Berkley
Review Posted Online: Feb. 2, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2026
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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