A sentimental, clichéd tale that gloriously depicts Cajun country.
A Cajun lawyer juggles his work for the mob with a commitment to social justice in the mid-20th century.
Noel Corbin’s upbringing was a modest one on Bon Terre, a small island in the Gulf of Mexico and a “childhood paradise.” Both his parents were profoundly Cajun, a culture he happily imbibed. But when his parents died in quick succession, he lost all hope and his faith in God. He meets Armand, his mother’s cousin, who offers him work in New Orleans and turns out to be the “boss of the Cajun mob.” Armand employs him under the condition he attends college, a tedious task for Noel, who does well with minimal effort since he has a photographic memory. He eventually becomes a lawyer working for organized crime, and due to his underhanded tactics, he garners a reputation as a “rogue, a scoundrel, and the devil incarnate.” However, despite his cynicism and total disregard for the law, he’s also a “champion of the underdog, a seersucker-suit warrior fighting the all-powerful establishment.” Corbin ends up defending Black teenager Gasper Babineaux, who is framed by District Attorney Benjamin Heick for being a Communist, a terrifying charge. At the core of Martinez’s book is a rich depiction of Cajun culture, one that the author, who has deep Cajun roots, lucidly portrays (“I could cast a net only feet from my house and catch large, brown shrimp that Mom used to make her lip-smacking gumbo”). However, the plot is glacially slow and equally melodramatic. And the writing is often clichéd. Consider this description of Gale Guidry, a private detective and “Cajun goddess”: “She was the kind of woman who made me glad I was a man. Gale had a body that required a warning sign: BEWARE OF DANGEROUS CURVES.” Still, those interested in an authentic portrayal of New Orleans will find a lot to savor.
A sentimental, clichéd tale that gloriously depicts Cajun country.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: 277
Publisher: Manuscript
Review Posted Online: Sept. 21, 2022
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
Fans of Stockett’s bestselling debut will love this engaging follow-up.
Stockett heads to Mississippi for another historical novel about feisty women.
This time, perhaps recalling criticisms of cultural appropriation in The Help (2009), she sticks to feisty white women, with one exception. The setting is Oxford in 1933. For two miserable years, 11-year-old Meg has lived in “the Orphan,” a county asylum for parentless girls. Chairlady Garnett—a villain so one-note she’d twirl a mustache if she had one—makes it her mission to ostracize the older girls she deems unadoptable, stigmatizing them as offspring of the “feebleminded” mothers who abandoned them. She particularly has it in for smart, sassy Meg, who refuses to believe her mother’s mysterious disappearance was deliberate. Elsewhere in Oxford, Birdie Calhoun comes to visit her sister Frances, who married a wealthy banker, to ask for money on behalf of their mother and grandmother back in Footely. Frances isn’t thrilled by this reminder of her impoverished small-town origins. But she’s trying to climb up in Oxford society by volunteering at the Orphan, the asylum’s books need to be done before the state inspector shows up in a few weeks, and Birdie is a bookkeeper. Having neatly arranged to keep Birdie in town and draw these two storylines together, Stockett goes on to spin a compulsively readable yarn with enough plot for a half-dozen novels. Birdie and Meg become friends, Meg is adopted despite Garnett’s best efforts, Meg’s mother turns up at the Orphan demanding to know where her child is—and that’s less than a quarter of the way through a long, winding narrative that keeps piling on more dramatic developments until all loose ends are neatly, if hastily, wrapped up in the final pages. Stockett might be making a point about Southern women facing facts and standing up for themselves, but mostly this is just a satisfyingly twisty tale that should make a great miniseries.
Fans of Stockett’s bestselling debut will love this engaging follow-up.Pub Date: May 5, 2026
ISBN: 9781954118812
Page Count: 656
Publisher: Spiegel & Grau
Review Posted Online: Feb. 2, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2026
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