Gapinski’s gift is in treating strange situations matter-of-factly, testing characters with temptation.
Miracles big and small (though always unexplainable) animate the satirical, whimsical tales in this collection.
Beginning with the title story, Gapinski delights in puzzling phenomena that alter the lives of their characters in ways both monumental and mundane. The narrator in that story has “a gold membership for the Museum of Future Mistakes,” which offers insight into any wrong decisions he’ll make, allowing him to live his life in a frictionless manner. When he spots a statue of his girlfriend, Devin, he begins to panic. The foreboding monument leaves him doubting the validity of both his relationship and the museum itself, creating a chicken-egg paradox in which he’s left to decipher whether the mistake is the relationship itself or what will happen when it ends. “Saw Act” features a magician, Magesto, and their assistant, Malvina, who perform a trick with a saw so unbelievable it launches them to great levels of fame. When Magesto—who receives almost all the credit for the trick despite it being Malvina’s routine—attempts to learn how it’s done, their career begins to fall apart. Greed leads many of these characters down impossible-to-navigate paths, like the couple in “Fruit Rot.” An unnamed narrator and their partner, Lacey, discover that a tree in their house cures all diseases. They exploit the inexplicable phenomenon and receive great wealth as a result, moving from near-poverty to building an entire compound in their neighborhood. Unexpected side effects of the cure are utilized for nefarious purposes, leaving Lacey and the narrator to reckon with the weapon they’ve unleashed. Each of these stories begins with an entirely outside-the-box premise. The characters are faced with moral quandaries meant to prod their ethics. More often than not, they fail to live up to the moment.
Gapinski’s gift is in treating strange situations matter-of-factly, testing characters with temptation.Pub Date: Oct. 7, 2025
ISBN: 9781960145864
Page Count: 162
Publisher: BOA Editions
Review Posted Online: Aug. 2, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2025
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
Great crime fiction.
An apparent suicide threatens to destroy an Irish farm town in the final volume of French’s Cal Hooper trilogy.
In the fictional western Ireland townland of Ardnakelty, “there’s a girl going after missing.” Soon young Rachel Holohan is found dead in the river. Shortly before, she had stopped at Lena Dunne’s home, and nothing had seemed amiss. The medical examiner determines she’d swallowed antifreeze, and he presumes she then fell from a bridge into the water. The medical examiner and the town agree she’d died by suicide. But there is far more to the plot: 16-year-old Trey Reddy thinks Tommy Moynihan murdered Rachel. Moynihan doles out favors and punishments to the local townsfolk, who know it’s best not to cross him. Now rumors spread that Moynihan wants land and has a secret plan to forcibly buy up parcels from the locals. A factory will be built, or a great big data center, or who knows what. If Tommy’s son, Eugene, can get elected to the local council, then compulsory purchase orders for land will follow, and the farms will disappear. Eugene, who’d been romantically involved with Rachel, is wonderfully described as “on the weedy edge of good-looking” and just fine as long as you “don’t have high expectations in the way of chins.” Lena is engaged to the American Cal Hooper, an ex-cop turned woodworker. They are “more or less raising” Trey, and these three core characters are drawn into the mystery of Rachel’s death and may have to face the looming clouds of civilizational change for Ardnakelty. Lena is chastised for “asking your wee questions all round the townland,” and Trey wants to quit school, against Cal’s advice. Finally, the story’s best line: “You can’t go killing people just because they deserve it.”
Great crime fiction.Pub Date: March 31, 2026
ISBN: 9780593493465
Page Count: 496
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: Dec. 26, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2026
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