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
A welcome literary resurrection that deserves a place alongside Wright’s best-known work.
A falsely accused Black man goes into hiding in this masterful novella by Wright (1908-1960), finally published in full.
Written in 1941 and '42, between Wright’s classics Native Son and Black Boy, this short novel concerns Fred Daniels, a modest laborer who’s arrested by police officers and bullied into signing a false confession that he killed the residents of a house near where he was working. In a brief unsupervised moment, he escapes through a manhole and goes into hiding in a sewer. A series of allegorical, surrealistic set pieces ensues as Fred explores the nether reaches of a church, a real estate firm, and a jewelry store. Each stop is an opportunity for Wright to explore themes of hope, greed, and exploitation; the real estate firm, Wright notes, “collected hundreds of thousands of dollars in rent from poor colored folks.” But Fred’s deepening existential crisis and growing distance from society keep the scenes from feeling like potted commentaries. As he wallpapers his underground warren with cash, mocking and invalidating the currency, he registers a surrealistic but engrossing protest against divisive social norms. The novel, rejected by Wright’s publisher, has only appeared as a substantially truncated short story until now, without the opening setup and with a different ending. Wright's take on racial injustice seems to have unsettled his publisher: A note reveals that an editor found reading about Fred’s treatment by the police “unbearable.” That may explain why Wright, in an essay included here, says its focus on race is “rather muted,” emphasizing broader existential themes. Regardless, as an afterword by Wright’s grandson Malcolm attests, the story now serves as an allegory both of Wright (he moved to France, an “exile beyond the reach of Jim Crow and American bigotry”) and American life. Today, it resonates deeply as a story about race and the struggle to envision a different, better world.
A welcome literary resurrection that deserves a place alongside Wright’s best-known work.Pub Date: April 20, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-59853-676-8
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Library of America
Review Posted Online: March 16, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2021
BOOK TO SCREEN
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