An extension of a genre-busting narrative, maintaining and complicating its vibes.
VanderMeer extends his Southern Reach trilogy with a deeper exploration of worlds both creepy and bureaucratic.
The charm (and frustration) of VanderMeer’s epic saga about the mysterious Area X is how much information is withheld, making the reader unsure of where they stand until the story explodes into uncanny and horrifying terrain. In that regard, the fourth entry in the series sticks to type, roughly focused on events preceding and following the earlier books. The opening sections concern Old Jim, a Central investigator researching the first expeditions by biologists into the Forgotten Coast, which involved the introduction of alligators and unsettling encounters with the rabbits first met in Authority (2014), as well as a mysterious Rogue that may be working in league with a particularly aggressive alligator nicknamed the Tyrant. Later chapters focus on Lowry, an investigator on a later expedition into the region, observing his colleagues’ numbers rapidly whittled down as the malevolent Tyrant emerges. Lowry is profane—few books published in the past 10 years have a higher f-bomb-to-page ratio—and highly drugged, elements that enliven the story in two ways. They convey the contempt and frustration with institutions that have been a hallmark of the Southern Reach series; more ingeniously, they underscore the latter chapters’ surrealistic, psychedelic brand of horror, which helps sell some more grotesque incidents Lowry becomes a part of. Indeed, Lowry’s sections feature some of the most vivid writing in the entire series, sinuous and delightfully weird. Does VanderMeer resolve lingering questions from the previous novels? Not really. But the main theme of the trilogy was always unknowability—untrustworthy leaders, reckless wildlife, and complicated humans are his constant focus, and here he cannily balances the strangeness with the terror of confronting it. And it’s fair to suspect the terror will go on: As he writes, “Nothing in the end could placate Area X.”
An extension of a genre-busting narrative, maintaining and complicating its vibes.Pub Date: Oct. 22, 2024
ISBN: 9780374616595
Page Count: 528
Publisher: MCD/Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: July 10, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
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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