Starts off strong but collapses under the morally suspect musings of a dead man.
Kellis (The Word That You Heard, 2010, etc.) explores a tight-lipped family’s private pain and guilt in a novel that plays out among small-town gossip in the Upper Peninsula.
Fraternal twins Marcia and Mitch Harrison share the power of “thought transference.” As the last people to see Howard Barstow before he disappeared on homecoming night 35 years ago, they also share a dark secret. Marcia struggles with the memories of the rape inflicted by Howard on that horrible night. She’s also haunted by the child she gave up for adoption, a daughter she calls Daisy. Torn between wanting to know her child and fearing what scars the girl might reveal, Marcia leads a quiet life as a bookstore owner with her loving husband, Evan, and their boisterous boys, Owen and Simon. After Mitch dies in a car accident, Marcia discovers a notebook among his possessions. In random entries listed from October 1975 to August 1976, Mitch tells of his role in what Marcia calls “the tight circle of our secret.” As an added layer, Kellis introduces Daphne Hallorhan, a newly downsized architect looking to solve her own mystery as she searches for her birth parents, Marcia and Howard. Mitch’s allusions to the Rockford Files and the wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald in nearby Lake Superior bring the Watergate years to life, while the notebook chapters seem more concerned with filling in the gaps left by Marcia’s version of events than trying to expunge the guilt and fear Mitch claims to feel. His observations seem too self-aware, his phrasing too polished, and the specifics a little too convenient to be convincing. His reaction to his sister’s rape makes him less than sympathetic, particularly since the police are never called and charges are never mentioned. The only justice Mitch will accept is vigilantism, and his justification for that borders on psychopathology. The complete story of what happened that night reveals itself in the final pages, but by that point, most readers will find the author’s abrupt, anticlimactic conclusion unrewarding.
Starts off strong but collapses under the morally suspect musings of a dead man.Pub Date: Aug. 9, 2012
ISBN: 9781478210900
Page Count: 284
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Oct. 29, 2012
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
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
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