Funny, bold, capacious, and more than a little exhausting—this book mirrors modern life.
The second novel by young Australian writer Lau is a maximalist caper set in the most achingly existential of modern locales: a suburban shopping mall.
Twenty-four-year-old Leen is adrift in her life. She and her mother settled in Par Mars, a suburb of carefully anonymizing subdivisions, when Leen was a child because they were attracted to “the tiredness of it, the bored unattractiveness of it, the lonely, antisocial nature of it, that made [them] both look inward.” Both her parents have since moved on, and Leen is left crashing somewhat indefinitely in her friend Doms’ living room, taking courses in massage therapy, and watching analysis videos of movies on her phone. With seed money from her peripatetic father and instruction from her mother—who has recently started a “healing business” in Hong Kong—Leen opens an ear-cleaning and massage studio in the Topic Heights shopping center, which sits in the center of the Par Mars suburb and represents “the exact summation of every need and personality of the people residing in its hem.” Though both Par Mars and Topic Heights strive to create the impression of regulation, order, and predictably scaled progress, there are signs that things are starting to come loose at the seams. Vic, Doms’ Nigerian boyfriend, is beaten in the street in a possibly racially motivated attack, and the rising unrest among the low-wage workers in Topic Heights is an expression of the growing social divide between people like Peggy—the CEO of the shopping complex, who facilitates drug-fueled swinger parties at her hilltop house on the coastal side of the estates—and people like Jean Paul, a nihilist pharmacy assistant who hosts social resistance meetings at the East Par Mars Community Center. As her business founders, Leen becomes increasingly involved with Jean Paul’s Resistance Acts—which begin as essentially harmless pranks against Topic Heights management but quickly escalate into psychological torment and then real bodily harm—even as she starts to doubt the purity of his proletariat motives. Lau’s second novel treads similar ground as Pink Mountain on Locust Island (2020), her debut take on Gen Z alienation, but with a hyperconscious maximalism that occasionally overwhelms the reader with the equity of its attention. There is so much to see in this novel that the reader is sometimes at a loss for where to look.
Funny, bold, capacious, and more than a little exhausting—this book mirrors modern life.Pub Date: Dec. 13, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-662-60145-3
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Astra House
Review Posted Online: Oct. 11, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2022
BOOK REVIEW
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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