A sharp, beguiling tale of madness, this is metafiction done right.
Recently, Angela’s husband died, she got kicked out of her doctoral program in linguistics at Harvard, and she had a miscarriage. And, as is apparent from the fact that she’s writing her story from jail, that’s hardly the worst of it.
With $78,000 of student loan debt, a grief-stricken 4-year-old daughter, and a resumé that reveals her to be nearly unemployable, Angela is forced to move in with her mother, a social worker, in Medford (“not the nice part”). One bit of luck: Alan, her mother’s longtime colleague and best friend, has found her a job working as a speech pathologist, helping nonspeaking patients communicate via a device she describes as “an overgrown graphing calculator.” The therapy has patient and facilitator hand in hand, spelling words on the machine. It’s controversial and unproven (“like a Ouija board,” Angela and the reader think) but she needs the work, so she takes it. Eventually, Angela is assigned to Sam, a 28-year-old who inexplicably stopped thriving at 18 months and now, nonverbal and barely mobile, lives with his mother, Sandi. Soon enough, an initially skeptical Angela makes wild progress, discovering in Sam a keen and uncannily simpatico thinker who could very well be her soul mate. During their breakthrough session he tells her, “I am excruciatingly literate.” Indeed! Author duBois expertly unspools Angela’s journey to the dock, as the unreliable narrator’s mental state comes increasingly into question, teasing a Garp-ian turn and dire consequences that contemporary notions of sexual abuse and consent require. While occasionally tiresome (because linguistics), the beyond-biting academic-satire companion plot provides many laugh-out-loud moments. Angela, cursing her “archnemesis”: “I hoped he was on NPR every day until he died.” Delicious.
A sharp, beguiling tale of madness, this is metafiction done right.Pub Date: Oct. 17, 2023
ISBN: 9781639551088
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Milkweed
Review Posted Online: Aug. 12, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2023
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
Amateurish, with a twist savvy readers will see coming from a mile away.
A woman accused of shooting her husband six times in the face refuses to speak.
"Alicia Berenson was thirty-three years old when she killed her husband. They had been married for seven years. They were both artists—Alicia was a painter, and Gabriel was a well-known fashion photographer." Michaelides' debut is narrated in the voice of psychotherapist Theo Faber, who applies for a job at the institution where Alicia is incarcerated because he's fascinated with her case and believes he will be able to get her to talk. The narration of the increasingly unrealistic events that follow is interwoven with excerpts from Alicia's diary. Ah, yes, the old interwoven diary trick. When you read Alicia's diary you'll conclude the woman could well have been a novelist instead of a painter because it contains page after page of detailed dialogue, scenes, and conversations quite unlike those in any journal you've ever seen. " 'What's the matter?' 'I can't talk about it on the phone, I need to see you.' 'It's just—I'm not sure I can make it up to Cambridge at the minute.' 'I'll come to you. This afternoon. Okay?' Something in Paul's voice made me agree without thinking about it. He sounded desperate. 'Okay. Are you sure you can't tell me about it now?' 'I'll see you later.' Paul hung up." Wouldn't all this appear in a diary as "Paul wouldn't tell me what was wrong"? An even more improbable entry is the one that pins the tail on the killer. While much of the book is clumsy, contrived, and silly, it is while reading passages of the diary that one may actually find oneself laughing out loud.
Amateurish, with a twist savvy readers will see coming from a mile away.Pub Date: Feb. 5, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-250-30169-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Celadon Books
Review Posted Online: Nov. 3, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2018
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