Mesmerizing.
A supernatural creature takes interest in a young boy, and both suffer ordeals and wrestle with their worst instincts in this wordless, psychedelic graphic novel.
On a family outing in the city, a young boy tosses a button to a sea gull, attracting the attention of a lanky, long-nosed, humanoid creature who follows the boy and his family back to their home and perches in a tree outside. That night, an explosive fire orphans the boy and lands him in the hospital. After holding vigil from a nearby branch, the creature escorts the boy out the window of his hospital room, and they set off on a long canoe ride through a gaudy, abstract landscape. The creature provides what comfort it can as grief and hunger overwhelm the boy. Eventually a storm swamps their canoe, and the creature struggles to shore with the boy in its arms, where a woman—distressed by the sight—strikes the creature with a pitchfork and absconds with the boy. She nurses the boy back to health and grapples with the reality of raising a young child, even as the recovered creature sets up shop in a tree outside her home. After the woman and boy become close, the creature takes its gruesome revenge, which reverses the caretaking roles of boy and woman. The boy and now-disabled woman set off on a journey that tempts the boy with a new, thrilling-but-frustrating life among his peers and presents the creature with an opportunity to atone for its brutality. Kessler’s art is a striking mix of heavy, kinetic lines; simple but expressive faces and bodies; and a riot of mostly primary colors—like the trauma drawings of a child with a keen grasp of both color theory and sequential art.
Mesmerizing.Pub Date: May 2, 2023
ISBN: 9781681377391
Page Count: 216
Publisher: New York Review Comics
Review Posted Online: March 10, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2023
PERSPECTIVES
PERSPECTIVES
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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