Accomplished achronological storytelling with a fabulous final twist.
A group of former sorority sisters harboring secrets and struggles reunites to finish a cross-country road trip cut short by tragedy 20 years earlier in Klepper’s novel.
In 2019, physician Lisa Callihan is nervous as her husband answers their ringing landline. Thankfully, it’s not the reporter who recently left a voicemail on her cell asking about the 1999 car crash in Texas that killed driver Parker Harrison, whose older brother Tripp is now intending to run for the U.S. Senate; Lisa had secretly “signed away her integrity” regarding that event. The call is, however, a different trigger stirring up the past: It’s from recent divorcée Mary Blake, inviting Lisa to join her and her fellow former college sorority sisters Helen, Annesley, and Charlie to complete their Virginia-to-California road trip that halted abruptly—in Texas, in 1999. Chapters of the book then alternate between 2019 and 1999 and the third-person viewpoints of each woman. Various past and present issues are conveyed (including problematic parents, a suppressed college rape, and a recent recurrence of cancer) amidst the unspooling of the series of events on the 1999 trip that led to the rupture in Texas. By the novel’s end, the “do-over” trip has brought forth renewed bonds and several disclosures, although Lisa still remains silent about the motivations that fueled her long-ago choice. Klepper deploys admirable and engaging craft in this weaving together of five women’s backstories, their assorted interpersonal dynamics, and the two time periods. While readers will naturally root for or relate to some of the women more than others, the author effectively depicts the coming-of-age and adult concerns of each to make all past and present actions understandable. Her final full recounting of what happened that deadly night in Texas is particularly masterful, offering suspense as readers brace for the established upcoming crash, and surprises as Klepper reveals why Lisa will continue to keep some elements of the story to herself.
Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: -
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: Dec. 20, 2024
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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