A raucous, poignant exploration of the blood ties that bind…and chafe.
A 12-year-old girl, her mom, and their elderly landlady support each other through family separation, violence, and much kvetching banter in this warmhearted family saga.
Nicholas’ novel unfolds at the turn of the 21st century and centers around Maureen LeeRoyce, a 30-ish widow who waitresses and cleans houses to support her daughter Kalayla—Cambridge, Massachusetts’ most obstreperous 12-year-old. Almost as cantankerous is their septuagenarian neighbor and landlady Lena Barzetti, who lends Kalayla a helping hand and unwanted advice. Both have spectacularly fractured families. Maureen was disowned by her Irish Catholic mother for marrying Kalayla’s father Jamal, a Black man and a Protestant to boot; when Kalayla learns about the rejection (Maureen had told her that the maternal side of the family all died in an explosion before she was born), she has an emotional meltdown that Lena trudges in to repair. Lena’s own fraught past includes savage beatings at the hands of her now-deceased husband, the disappearance of one of her sons, and the deaths of two others in combat in the Vietnam War. Balm for the ladies’ wounded souls appears in the persons of Matthew Eccli II (called Mattwo), Lena’s high school flame, and his son, Rico, a 30-something hunk who’s next in line to run the family karate dojo and starts paying welcome attention to Maureen. Kalayla meets her cousin Kieran, which initiates a drift toward reconciliation between Maureen and her parents, and Maureen resumes her ambition to be an artist (with Lena’s help). But even as things seem to be looking up for Maureen and Kalayla, they must confront the increasingly menacing presence of Jamal’s mentally unstable brother Clarence, who becomes obsessed with Maureen.
Nicholas’ yarn is an engrossing look at families that unravel and must be painfully knitted back together and the knotted, traumatic histories that give rise to unforgivable sins that must somehow be forgiven. The author crafts sharply etched, vibrant, prickly characters who resonate despite their differences; Kalayla and Lena, in particular, are two tough cookies (as fiercely protective of loved ones as they are annoyingly critical of them) who have their own internal weaknesses that sometimes make them break. Nicholas’ portrait of Kalayla is brilliant—she’s a pitch-perfect smart, sullen tween, full of prickly attitude and rigid, juvenile moralizing dragged kicking and screaming toward adult complexity—all rendered in an adolescent’s crudely vigorous language. (“I hated that I felt sorry for him, hated that I couldn’t tell him he was a jerk and a butthole and a rotten uncle and a disgusting brother. I hated that I couldn’t hate him the way I wanted to.”) Lena displays a singular voice in her own right as she helps Kalayla figure it all out in her acerbic, exasperated dudgeon (“You don’t understand your mama at all! She does stupid things just like you, me, and everybody else! You’re the one who put her on the Perfect Mama Pedestal. She never belonged there. Nobody does”). The result is an entertaining saga about the wisdom that grudgingly passes from old to young.
A raucous, poignant exploration of the blood ties that bind…and chafe.Pub Date: Jan. 31, 2025
ISBN: 9798218572617
Page Count: 377
Publisher: KDP
Review Posted Online: March 19, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2025
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with...
Talk-show queen takes tumble as millions jeer.
Nora Bridges is a wildly popular radio spokesperson for family-first virtues, but her loyal listeners don't know that she walked out on her husband and teenaged daughters years ago and didn't look back. Now that a former lover has sold racy pix of naked Nora and horny himself to a national tabloid, her estranged daughter Ruby, an unsuccessful stand-up comic in Los Angeles, has been approached to pen a tell-all. Greedy for the fat fee she's been promised, Ruby agrees and heads for the San Juan Islands, eager to get reacquainted with the mom she plans to betray. Once in the family homestead, nasty Ruby alternately sulks and glares at her mother, who is temporarily wheelchair-bound as a result of a post-scandal car crash. Uncaring, Ruby begins writing her side of the story when she's not strolling on the beach with former sweetheart Dean Sloan, the son of wealthy socialites who basically ignored him and his gay brother Eric. Eric, now dying of cancer and also in a wheelchair, has returned to the island. This dismal threesome catch up on old times, recalling their childhood idylls on the island. After Ruby's perfect big sister Caroline shows up, there's another round of heartfelt talk. Nora gradually reveals the truth about her unloving husband and her late father's alcoholism, which led her to seek the approval of others at the cost of her own peace of mind. And so on. Ruby is aghast to discover that she doesn't know everything after all, but Dean offers her subdued comfort. Happy endings await almost everyone—except for readers of this nobly preachy snifflefest.
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with syrupy platitudes about life and love.Pub Date: March 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-609-60737-5
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2001
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