This raw tale about a harrowing journey leaves a mark.
A young man struggles with the realities of a life-altering disease in this debut novel.
The Hero—a 24-year-old Canadian music store manager with a number of face piercings—is sick: “His head hurt and his world was spinning. He awoke in his basement feeling lethargic and slow. The stairs to the main floor were narrow, old and daunting. He ascended them as deftly as he could, avoiding steps that were notoriously weak.” He decides to go to the doctor, who tells him he has the flu. He returns home and goes to sleep. When he wakes up again, he’s in a hospital bed—where he discovers he’s been in a coma for weeks. His parents tell him that he’s suffering from encephalitis—inflammation of the brain—and that he’s now legally a quadriplegic. From there, he begins a long, arduous journey back to normal life—or as normal a life as is still available to him. The road is full of surprises, most of them bad, and the Hero rarely feels hopeful about his chances. Interspersed with this man’s odyssey are self-contained vignettes about others dealing with extreme scenarios: A woman is trapped in an endless simulated space mission; a man in a wheelchair is drawn into a terrorist plot; a kidnapped man waits to be murdered by his captors. Garden’s prose is muscular and biting, capturing the numbing anguish that is the Hero’s general state of being: “He had fallen prey to what is called ‘hospitalization.’ The idea was that time had lost its meaning due to being months in four walls where he was dictated what to do and when. He had also lost all respect for death he had once had. He watched people give up all hope.” The book is a brutal read. To highlight his dehumanizing experience, the Hero does not have a name, and there are few characters in his story. As it goes on, readers will begin to feel the same creeping horror experienced by the Hero. The vignettes make up the weaker half of the equation: They read a bit like undercooked Chuck Palahniuk premises. While the novel does not fully coalesce, it manages to elicit strong feelings, requiring that readers consider human suffering and the uncertainty that it brings.
This raw tale about a harrowing journey leaves a mark.Pub Date: July 5, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-4602-9084-2
Page Count: 204
Publisher: FriesenPress
Review Posted Online: May 1, 2020
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
A debut novel with bright spots, but unbalanced and lacking in finesse.
A high school senior pursues an affair with her teacher.
Seventeen-year-old Waldo, the narrator of McCurdy’s fiction debut, lives in Anchorage, Alaska, with her mother, though she’s long been the parent in their relationship. She heats her own frozen meals and pays the bills on time while her mom chases man after man and makes well-meaning promises she never keeps. Waldo blows her Victoria’s Secret wages on online shopping sprees and binges on junk food, inevitably crashing after the fleeting highs of her indulgences. Mr. Korgy, her creative writing teacher, has “thinning hair and nose pores”; he’s 40 years old and married with a child. Nevertheless—or possibly as a result?—Waldo’s attraction to him is “instant. So sudden it’s alarming. So palpable it’s confusing.” Mr. Korgy professes to want to keep their friendship aboveboard, but after a sexual encounter at the school’s winter formal that she initiates, an affair begins. Will this reckless pursuit be the one that actually satisfies Waldo, and is she as mature as she thinks she is? Waldo is a keen observer of people and provides sharp commentary on the punishing work of female beauty. Readers of McCurdy’s bestselling memoir, I’m Glad My Mom Died (2022), will surely be curious about the tumultuous mother-daughter relationship, and it is one of the novel’s highlights, full of realistic pity and anger and need. (“I want to scream at her. I want her to hug me.”) Unfortunately, the prose is often unwieldy and sometimes downright cringeworthy: When Waldo tells Mr. Korgy she loves him, “The words hang in the air in that constipated way they do when you know that you shouldn’t have said them.” Waldo frequently lists emotions and adjectives in triplicate, and events that could be significant aren’t sufficiently explored or given enough space to breathe before the novel races on to the next thing.
A debut novel with bright spots, but unbalanced and lacking in finesse.Pub Date: Jan. 20, 2026
ISBN: 9780593723739
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: Nov. 22, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2026
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
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