A moving debut novel about sisterhood, ambition, and the quest to become one’s true self.
In Singapore in 2015, Genevieve Yang Si Qi’s terminally ill mother has one last request—to see her two daughters together again.
Genevieve—who narrates the story—refuses to reach out to her estranged sister, Arin Yang Yan Mei, feeling that to honor her mother’s request would be to betray herself. With deep and often poetic insight, the novel goes on to chart the sisters' relationship over the past 20 years. Unlike many siblings, Arin arrives fully formed when Genevieve is 8 and she's just a bit younger; it turns out that Genevieve's grandfather, who disappeared years ago and has only just died, had a whole secret family and Arin was his granddaughter. The girls are close as children, with Genevieve playing the protective, comforting older sister as Arin struggles to find a place for herself in the family and the world at large. As their talents and interests diverge, however, the two girls gradually and then more quickly grow apart. As much as Genevieve loves Arin, she begins to wonder if her increasing distance is what fuels her sister’s success as an actor—if her absence from her sister’s life “unclipped her wings” and finally allowed her to thrive. As Genevieve watches the film that promises to be Arin’s breakout role, however, she discovers a betrayal that threatens to undermine the women’s relationship forever. Wei's novel glistens with often profound insights about the complicated relationship between a person's identity and the dynamic forces of family and friendship, with Genevieve remarking at one point: “How vast the legion of unrealized, contradictory, impractical ghosts crammed within each mortal body was.” The first half of the novel is much stronger than the second, in which the plot machinations can feel somewhat forced. Though Genevieve is someone for whom violence “bloomed like desire,” her motives sometimes come across as thinly disguised plot devices more than organic outgrowths of a fully fleshed-out character.
A moving debut novel about sisterhood, ambition, and the quest to become one’s true self.Pub Date: May 6, 2025
ISBN: 9780385551014
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: April 4, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2025
PERSPECTIVES
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
A welcome literary resurrection that deserves a place alongside Wright’s best-known work.
A falsely accused Black man goes into hiding in this masterful novella by Wright (1908-1960), finally published in full.
Written in 1941 and '42, between Wright’s classics Native Son and Black Boy, this short novel concerns Fred Daniels, a modest laborer who’s arrested by police officers and bullied into signing a false confession that he killed the residents of a house near where he was working. In a brief unsupervised moment, he escapes through a manhole and goes into hiding in a sewer. A series of allegorical, surrealistic set pieces ensues as Fred explores the nether reaches of a church, a real estate firm, and a jewelry store. Each stop is an opportunity for Wright to explore themes of hope, greed, and exploitation; the real estate firm, Wright notes, “collected hundreds of thousands of dollars in rent from poor colored folks.” But Fred’s deepening existential crisis and growing distance from society keep the scenes from feeling like potted commentaries. As he wallpapers his underground warren with cash, mocking and invalidating the currency, he registers a surrealistic but engrossing protest against divisive social norms. The novel, rejected by Wright’s publisher, has only appeared as a substantially truncated short story until now, without the opening setup and with a different ending. Wright's take on racial injustice seems to have unsettled his publisher: A note reveals that an editor found reading about Fred’s treatment by the police “unbearable.” That may explain why Wright, in an essay included here, says its focus on race is “rather muted,” emphasizing broader existential themes. Regardless, as an afterword by Wright’s grandson Malcolm attests, the story now serves as an allegory both of Wright (he moved to France, an “exile beyond the reach of Jim Crow and American bigotry”) and American life. Today, it resonates deeply as a story about race and the struggle to envision a different, better world.
A welcome literary resurrection that deserves a place alongside Wright’s best-known work.Pub Date: April 20, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-59853-676-8
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Library of America
Review Posted Online: March 16, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2021
BOOK TO SCREEN
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