Intelligent and tough-minded, as Smiley’s work always is, but capped by an oddly disjunctive finale.
A stroll through recent American history with a modestly successful singer-songwriter.
More than three-quarters of Jodie Rattler’s account of her life is a straightforward realistic text, spiked with dry Midwestern humor, about growing up in St. Louis with a single mother supported by a close-knit extended family. Jodie has been lucky, she tells us, since age 6, when her uncle took her to the racetrack and gave her a share of his winnings. That $86 roll stays with her through a musical career that she never has to work at very hard, thanks to a novelty Christmas hit she wrote while still in college in 1969. The royalties bankroll her through the next half-century, including a long trip with a serious love affair in England and a bohemian residency in New York enlivened by 23 lovers (she kept a list). Jodie’s down-to-earth descriptions of writing songs, cutting a few albums, and singing with various bands is reminiscent of Smiley’s nuts-and-bolts dissection of fiction writing in 13 Ways of Looking at the Novel (2005), as is her blunt narrative voice. Her creator riffs on this similarity with running appearances by “the gawky girl” Jodie knew slightly in high school, unmistakably Smiley, though her name is never mentioned. St. Louis (Smiley’s real-life hometown) is the lovingly rendered setting for the most moving scenes after Jodie moves back to care for her aging grandparents and alcoholic mother. The rest of the locales are more generic, as are the current events dropped in to situate Jodie’s experiences chronologically. At its close, the novel takes an apocalyptic leap into the near future that matches Smiley’s darkest pages in A Thousand Acres (1991) and The Greenlanders (1988). This abrupt change of tone is presumably intended to spotlight the way extremes of every variety from climactic to political have become the norm, but it makes for a jarring conclusion to an otherwise low-key novel.
Intelligent and tough-minded, as Smiley’s work always is, but capped by an oddly disjunctive finale.Pub Date: April 23, 2024
ISBN: 9780593535011
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Jan. 20, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2024
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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