Strong, stinging social observation that doesn’t entirely work as fiction.
A woman with a long history of temporary employment finds her latest gig as a driver of a new, supposedly driverless vehicle.
“This could be a good job,” Teresa thinks aboard the shuttle bus taking her and 50 fellow trainees from Boston’s South Station to the gleaming suburban headquarters of AllOver, an “experience company” that claims to “shape the digital economy to fit neighborhood-centric needs.” She’s had plenty of jobs to compare it with; McNeil’s debut novel opens with Teresa swimming laps at a local Y while she recalls the many jobs she’s had and lost for one reason or another over several decades. At 48, living at home with her mother because she can’t afford her own place, all she hopes for is a decent paycheck. She is bemused but doesn’t really care that she will be hidden inside a “working prototype” that AllOver is promoting and putting on the road as an actual self-driving car. This seems like a possible setup for a thriller exposing a sinister corporation with some evil plan, but the insufferably woke AllOver never appears to be more than just another profit-centered business pretending to care about customers and employees. McNeil, author of a well-regarded critical history of the Internet (Lurking: How a Person Became a User, 2020), focuses here on America’s disorienting transition from an industrial to a service economy and its consequences for working people. Teresa is her case study, and the major flaw in this sharply observed, extremely well-written novel is that we are more than halfway through it before readers learn why this obviously intelligent woman is so passive and has such minimal expectations. When we do, it supplements McNeil’s powerful portrait of an unequal economy with a biting example of class privilege as an instrument of upward employment mobility. Unfortunately, the novel has been permeated for so long with Teresa’s alienated, apathetic personality that it never develops narrative momentum, and a dramatic final event leads to a painfully ironic last line rather than closure.
Strong, stinging social observation that doesn’t entirely work as fiction.Pub Date: Nov. 14, 2023
ISBN: 9780374610661
Page Count: 288
Publisher: MCD/Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: July 26, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2023
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
SEEN & HEARD
A pleasant if not entirely convincing tribute to the power of art.
A French art historian’s English-language fiction debut combines the story of a loving relationship between a grandfather and granddaughter with an enlightening discussion of art.
One day, when 10-year-old Mona removes the necklace given to her by her now-dead grandmother, she experiences a frightening, hour-long bout of blindness. Her parents take her to the doctor, who gives her a variety of tests and also advises that she see a psychiatrist. Her grandfather Henry tells her parents that he will take care of that assignment, but instead, he takes Mona on weekly visits to either the Louvre, the Musée d’Orsay, or the Centre Pompidou, where each week they study a single work of art, gazing at it deeply and then discussing its impact and history and the biography of its maker. For the reader’s benefit, Schlesser also describes each of the works in scrupulous detail. As the year goes on, Mona faces the usual challenges of elementary school life and the experiences of being an only child, and slowly begins to understand the causes of her temporary blindness. Primarily an amble through a few dozen of Schlesser’s favorite works of art—some well known and others less so, from Botticelli and da Vinci through Basquiat and Bourgeois—the novel would probably benefit from being read at a leisurely pace. While the dialogue between Henry and the preternaturally patient and precocious Mona sometimes strains credulity, readers who don’t have easy access to the museums of Paris may enjoy this vicarious trip in the company of a guide who focuses equally on that which can be seen and the context that can’t be. Come for the novel, stay for the introductory art history course.
A pleasant if not entirely convincing tribute to the power of art.Pub Date: Aug. 26, 2025
ISBN: 9798889661115
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Europa Editions
Review Posted Online: June 7, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2025
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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