Another somewhat mystic parable about middle-aged crazy and our search for meaning in a world that has lost its way.
A stranger on a journey experiences much of life’s bounties and disappointments.
Brazilian author Noll is a weird cat, as evidenced by previous work including Lord (2019) and Atlantic Hotel (2017), and there's not much variation from his usual modus operandi here. We meet a nameless, emotionally adrift narrator who seems to exist in his own constant fugue state and shows signs of being an unreliable narrator. He's looking for the titular lost city in an unknown nation, starting out as something of a vagrant, sleeping under a tree and fishing naked with a fellow traveler before wandering into a hotel straight out of Hotel California. There, he finds a poster for a nearby play by a Russian author named Yuri Dupont, starring two spectacular women with whom he is immediately lured into a sexual threesome that turns quite unexpectedly into a foursome. Afterward, he flees the hotel and is offered a job facilitating cockfights by an old friend. He tries to explain what he used to be: “I was an artist, an actor. And since then, ever since I left the profession or was left by it, I don’t know, since then I can’t do anything else. It’s not that I haven’t tried, I have, but now I don’t even try anymore; I’ll explain why: everything I do is like acting, you see?” It doesn’t make much more sense from here. He wanders into a church called the Temple of Gentleness, reunites with his uncle, Alexandre, takes a day job as a secretary, and marries a cipher of a woman named Jane who leaves him because he can’t give her a child. He soon moves into a shelter, connecting with a young woman who may or may not be related to him. The writing is excellent and strange in the fashion of much of the Argentinian fabulists, but there’s no real point to it.
Another somewhat mystic parable about middle-aged crazy and our search for meaning in a world that has lost its way.Pub Date: Nov. 10, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-949641-05-9
Page Count: 168
Publisher: Two Lines Press
Review Posted Online: Sept. 1, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2020
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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