An excellent and thoughtful exploration of art, ambition, and mortality.
In this novel, the illegitimate son of a literary giant deals with love, loss, and the struggle to find himself.
Oscar Kendall’s father was Isaiah Moss, a god in the literary pantheon (think Philip Roth, John Updike, Saul Bellow). It is the old story of the epigone. Oscar is a relentless writer himself but has never published a thing because Papa Isaiah’s talent is overpowering, sapping, and emasculating. Instead, Oscar keeps a low profile, teaching at a prep school, hiding his paternity, and wallowing in his inadequacies. Then Isaiah dies and leaves Oscar his cabin on a New Hampshire lake and all its contents, which include the manuscript of his last, unpublished book. Oscar, there for the summer, meets May Pierce, a fierce amputee, and falls slowly in love with her. Readers discover information about Isaiah from his acerbic but oddly ambiguous letters to his son. Readers also learn the history of so many who suffered during various wars: Isaiah’s father, who died in World War II; May’s grandmother Ruby Pierce’s young husband, who died in Vietnam; May, who lost her legs in Afghanistan; and Isaiah, who lost his innocence in Korea. Pace is a very strong writer considering that he has to produce passages supposedly penned by this imagined titan of letters. What starts out as a rumination about literature and aspirations—will Oscar find the courage to escape his father’s shadow, or is he in fact a genteel loser?—turns subtly into a compelling reflection on the loss of life and limbs (May was a champion runner). Along the way, there are intriguing “interludes” that readers find out are excerpts or fodder for the manuscript that Oscar will finally start writing (“Free at last!”). Perhaps the best part of the book is Pace’s decision to make Oscar the narrator. He provides a wonderful voice, all the insecurities, but also all the anger and decency that Oscar is unaware of but that readers will recognize. He has always been a better man than he thought, and the audience will rejoice to see that.
An excellent and thoughtful exploration of art, ambition, and mortality.Pub Date: Dec. 14, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-936519-99-6
Page Count: 234
Publisher: Reliquary Press
Review Posted Online: June 3, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2022
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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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