A book about searching for love—both parental and romantic—and reckoning with the past.
The latest novel from Alharthi—winner of the International Booker Prize for Celestial Bodies (2019)—explores the lives of three Omani women.
The story starts with a nursing mother literally dropping her infant daughter in a moment of shock and grief. The baby is rescued by another villager, Saada, who nurses her with her own daughter, Asiya. Called Ghazaala, or Gazelle, the baby grows up as Asiya’s “milk-sister,” always preferring her foster mother Saada’s household over her own. Then a twofold tragedy strikes, rendering Asiya motherless; she departs the village without saying goodbye, disappearing from Ghazaala’s life. As in the justly celebrated and more ambitious Celestial Bodies, Alharthi employs a circular, layered approach to storytelling. The narrative moves forward and backward in time, sometimes dizzyingly, and covers the lives of many characters. Much of the book is in third person, though one thread is narrated by Ghazaala’s university friend Harir. Obsessed by the memory of a mysterious girl who was briefly her neighbor, Harir unwittingly comes into possession of the truth about the tragedy still haunting Ghazaala. Alharthi mines rich material with her details of Omani history, like the country’s system of ancient canals and the fortunes once made in pearls; Asiya’s drunkard father tells the girls about ghosts in the abandoned mansions of former pearl magnates: “the divers whose lungs had exploded in the depths of the Gulf...the boat captains who’d been weighed down by debt...the English consul, wearing his dust-laden chest medals...the slaves whose backs had been broken by the heft of the pearl caskets.” Other sections are less compelling, like Ghazaala’s unhappy pursuit of men who remain unavailable and opaque.
A book about searching for love—both parental and romantic—and reckoning with the past.Pub Date: Aug. 13, 2024
ISBN: 9781646222070
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Catapult
Review Posted Online: June 15, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
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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