Insightful perspectives on historical and contemporary bigotry, despite some awkward juxtapositions.
Markowitz’s novel follows two men separated by generations but both facing racism and violence in a rural community.
In 2023, Charlie Levenson has just purchased the old lock-tender’s house along a quaint canal not far from Princeton, New Jersey. With the help of his son Ben, Charlie starts to fix up the dilapidated property, imagining how much his late wife Zoya would have hated it. The welcome from his new neighbors is anything but warm—a gruff stranger gives Charlie a cryptic warning: “Bad things have been known to happen here. You never can tell when bad things might happen again.” In 1933, Abe Dubinski lives in the same house and works as the canal’s last lock-tender before the advent of rail transit. Abe and his family meet Helmut Fischer, a young man who has just arrived in America from Germany and expresses nothing but aggression and menace to his Jewish neighbors. In the present day, Charlie witnesses a dangerous fire and sees a protest explode into violence, bringing him once again in contact with the mysterious stranger and setting him on a scavenger hunt for clues about the man’s identity and his connections with a local right-wing militia—which may have also played a role in his wife’s death. Back in 1933, Abe struggles to keep his family together as Helmut and a group of young Nazis camp out along the canal, targeting the lock-tender’s family. Markowitz’s parallel narratives touch upon several fascinating ideas, including the reach of Nazism—even in rural America—during WWII, the lasting impacts of the January 6 insurrection on today’s world, and the similarities between two time periods each burdened with an oppressive sense of dread. The inclusion of Zoya’s ghostly figure and her own story of coming to America from Iran provides another layer of texture and perspective while also endearing the grieving Charlie to readers. While the two stories share intriguing thematic connections, they can sometimes clash—especially as Charlie’s story ventures into tropes more common of a mystery or thriller. While the alternating timelines fail to cohere into a flowing narrative, Markowitz still offers plenty of sympathetic characters and engaging questions.
Insightful perspectives on historical and contemporary bigotry, despite some awkward juxtapositions.Pub Date: Nov. 5, 2024
ISBN: 9781685128043
Page Count: 260
Publisher: Level Best - Historia
Review Posted Online: Nov. 26, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2025
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
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
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
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