A detailed work that effectively conveys the truths of an extraordinary life.
Kocienda provides a fictionalized account of a progressive Japanese poet who challenged the status quo with her poetry and her quest for personal fulfillment.
The author’s detailed and illuminating historical novel examines the life of famed poet Yosano Akiko (1878-1942), from her earliest, unhappy years with her repressive family in Sakai through her turbulent marriage to the enigmatic poet Yosano Tekkan. Raised as a “girl in a box,” sheltered from the outside world until she was of marriageable age by being locked in her room at night, Sho (Akiko’s given name) struggles with the strict rules of conduct imposed on young Japanese women in early 20th century. As her talent for poetry—particularly the 31-syllable form known as tanka—develops and receives recognition, she’s emboldened to leave her family’s home and embark on a tortuous relationship with Tekkan. As the couple enjoy differing levels of success with their writing, they become the parents of 13 children, 11 of whom survive. Faced with the primary responsibility of caring for her kids, Akiko suffers financial insecurity and emotional miseries related to Tekkan’s marital indiscretions. The family sends three daughters out to foster families in order to cope with the strains on the household. Akiko’s increasingly frank writing about women’s lives and desires often resulted in a critical focus on her work. A lifelong connection to the classic The Tale of Genji prompts her to embark on a gargantuan project of translating the tale into modern Japanese. Kocienda’s novel is far-reaching in scope but intimate in tone. The comprehensive yet expressive text is interspersed with the author’s original translations of the poet’s work, such as “Missing her mother, her spirit wanders, lost in the dark, / And like a thin plum tree, shivers in the freezing rain.” Kocienda’s work is buttressed by extensive proof of the clearly enormous amount of research underlying it, including photos, references, a family tree, a guide to Japanese naming conventions, a glossary, and a bibliography.
A detailed work that effectively conveys the truths of an extraordinary life.Pub Date: April 21, 2026
ISBN: 9798897400126
Page Count: 360
Publisher: Sibylline Press
Review Posted Online: Jan. 23, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2026
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Fans of Stockett’s bestselling debut will love this engaging follow-up.
Stockett heads to Mississippi for another historical novel about feisty women.
This time, perhaps recalling criticisms of cultural appropriation in The Help (2009), she sticks to feisty white women, with one exception. The setting is Oxford in 1933. For two miserable years, 11-year-old Meg has lived in “the Orphan,” a county asylum for parentless girls. Chairlady Garnett—a villain so one-note she’d twirl a mustache if she had one—makes it her mission to ostracize the older girls she deems unadoptable, stigmatizing them as offspring of the “feebleminded” mothers who abandoned them. She particularly has it in for smart, sassy Meg, who refuses to believe her mother’s mysterious disappearance was deliberate. Elsewhere in Oxford, Birdie Calhoun comes to visit her sister Frances, who married a wealthy banker, to ask for money on behalf of their mother and grandmother back in Footely. Frances isn’t thrilled by this reminder of her impoverished small-town origins. But she’s trying to climb up in Oxford society by volunteering at the Orphan, the asylum’s books need to be done before the state inspector shows up in a few weeks, and Birdie is a bookkeeper. Having neatly arranged to keep Birdie in town and draw these two storylines together, Stockett goes on to spin a compulsively readable yarn with enough plot for a half-dozen novels. Birdie and Meg become friends, Meg is adopted despite Garnett’s best efforts, Meg’s mother turns up at the Orphan demanding to know where her child is—and that’s less than a quarter of the way through a long, winding narrative that keeps piling on more dramatic developments until all loose ends are neatly, if hastily, wrapped up in the final pages. Stockett might be making a point about Southern women facing facts and standing up for themselves, but mostly this is just a satisfyingly twisty tale that should make a great miniseries.
Fans of Stockett’s bestselling debut will love this engaging follow-up.Pub Date: May 5, 2026
ISBN: 9781954118812
Page Count: 656
Publisher: Spiegel & Grau
Review Posted Online: Feb. 2, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2026
BOOK REVIEW
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
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