Overstuffed but entertaining, for readers pining for a tale in the vein of Peyton Place.
A young outcast confronts small-town legacies and a football obsession in this novel.
Set against the backdrop of Grunion Glade, Ohio—a community of just over 1,000 people—this lively tale opens in a cemetery outside of town. It is told through the eyes of Bob Skinner Jr., cousin to the diminutive William Feely. From the start, Jones establishes the small town as more of a myth than a real locale, with Grunion Glade’s football obsession leading its high school team to win the league championship every year. William, described as a “troublemaker from the get-go,” grows up under the shadow of his father’s goal of making him a football star. By his 6th birthday, William is still only as tall as a 3-year-old. As the story moves through the 1950s and the two young boys’ childhoods, Bob Jr. is expected to protect his cousin from bullying and small-town cruelty. Tragedy strikes with the death of William’s mother. Yet the boy’s grief “didn’t do anything to blunt his hatred of football. If anything, it made things worse. He’d taken to standing on street corners and giving speeches on why football was a senseless waste of time.” The narrative accelerates when Bob Jr. and William stumble upon a mystery: While researching a play for the town’s centennial, they discover missing pages from Martha Grunion’s diary chronicling a long-ago double wedding. Their search for these forgotten pieces of town history reveals scandals that implicate prominent families and ripple through generations. They must decide what they will do with the information and how it might affect their community. While the story remains consistent and engaging, it is sometimes tonally off-kilter. Comic moments punctuate an otherwise straight, often melodramatic narrative, which makes some backstory details, particularly the football obsession, feel overblown. There are regular black-and-white illustrations by Massuia that also fill in some aspects of the characters but seem an odd choice for a book pitched to adult readers. Still, the story remains engrossing from start to finish, even if parts of the convoluted town lore are less compelling than William’s and his cousin’s early childhoods.
Overstuffed but entertaining, for readers pining for a tale in the vein of Peyton Place.Pub Date: Nov. 25, 2025
ISBN: 9798998546907
Page Count: 306
Publisher: Lou-Jan Press
Review Posted Online: Dec. 11, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2026
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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