A thrilling, hopeful retelling of the myth of Daedalus and Icarus.
What if flight was freedom?
Burned out and disillusioned 24-year-old grad student Jane goes on the lam, abandoning her classes in computer coding and her family. It’s the early aughts, during George W. Bush’s presidency; America is on the brink of political, economic, and climate collapse; and Jane is searching for a more fulfilling life. In the aptly named town of Lack, in upstate New York, Jane meets the reclusive Barry and his 20-ish son, Ike, who have chosen not to engage with capitalism, instead sustaining themselves entirely on the land. Barry is sure that with the right pair of handmade wings, humans would be able to fly, absolving themselves of the bonds of earthly existence. Charming and persuasive, he enlists Jane to help build his wings; Ike, pragmatic and anxious and sure this pursuit will kill his father, is desperate to keep him alive. Throughout the course of the novel, Jane finds herself, then loses herself again, struggling to hold Barry’s vision alongside the realities of late-stage capitalism. Is flying the solution, or only another danger? Fassler’s prose is dazzling, alive, peppered with rich metaphors: paper cuts that open like “fish gills,” a knife blade “crested with teeth.” Jane is fully embodied, her every touchingly human thought reflected on the page, her disappointment with society ringing true; through her, we can imagine another, more substantive and rewarding life. It’s only in fairly blunt justifications of flying as a proposed solution to capitalist and environmental disaster that the novel begins to falter—Barry, “spilling over with missionary zeal,” routinely goes on bald, unnuanced tirades to the effect of “flight could chart us on a different course, grinding the great global machinery to a halt.” Even Jane: “Why had we done it?...To change everything, because everything so badly needed changing.” These sweeping pedagogical links threaten to prohibit readers themselves from imagining what flight could offer.
A thrilling, hopeful retelling of the myth of Daedalus and Icarus.Pub Date: April 23, 2024
ISBN: 9780143135685
Page Count: 464
Publisher: Penguin
Review Posted Online: Feb. 3, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2024
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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