When the novel focuses on a musician's creative struggles, it sings, but other elements feel forced.
A reclusive musician and songwriter is forced to reckon with his past in the wake of a local environmental disaster.
Hollis Bragg is a man who prefers to stay out of the public eye. Some of this is due to his discomfort in his own body: “Back forever crooked forward, forcing my stomach into permanent lines, flesh left sagging from being unable to perform even modest exercise.” And some of it has to do with his complex relationship with former band mate Angela—now a successful musician for whom Hollis writes songs in secret. He’s haunted by other memories as well, including some from his childhood in his father’s church, its congregation mostly “strange hill folk whom the starched-shirt preachers in town wouldn’t want to touch long enough to baptize in the creek.” Hollis’ life changes when Russell Watson, a young musician, shows up at his house with a burgeoning appreciation for Hollis’ musical history. Russell is the son of a wealthy business owner; his unstable friend Victor, who accompanies him to Hollis' house, is an activist who hates the pollution Russell’s father’s company is responsible for. A massive chemical spill into a local river further ratchets up the tension. But the disparate threads of this novel never quite connect. Although Hollis himself is vivid and contradictory—at one point, Angela talks about her frustration with his reticence, saying “The only option is to force you to [perform]”—the rest of the characters don’t feel as fleshed out. Russell never really comes into focus while Victor seems more like a plot device than anything else.
When the novel focuses on a musician's creative struggles, it sings, but other elements feel forced.Pub Date: May 5, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-593-08507-3
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: March 1, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 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
Great crime fiction.
An apparent suicide threatens to destroy an Irish farm town in the final volume of French’s Cal Hooper trilogy.
In the fictional western Ireland townland of Ardnakelty, “there’s a girl going after missing.” Soon young Rachel Holohan is found dead in the river. Shortly before, she had stopped at Lena Dunne’s home, and nothing had seemed amiss. The medical examiner determines she’d swallowed antifreeze, and he presumes she then fell from a bridge into the water. The medical examiner and the town agree she’d died by suicide. But there is far more to the plot: 16-year-old Trey Reddy thinks Tommy Moynihan murdered Rachel. Moynihan doles out favors and punishments to the local townsfolk, who know it’s best not to cross him. Now rumors spread that Moynihan wants land and has a secret plan to forcibly buy up parcels from the locals. A factory will be built, or a great big data center, or who knows what. If Tommy’s son, Eugene, can get elected to the local council, then compulsory purchase orders for land will follow, and the farms will disappear. Eugene, who’d been romantically involved with Rachel, is wonderfully described as “on the weedy edge of good-looking” and just fine as long as you “don’t have high expectations in the way of chins.” Lena is engaged to the American Cal Hooper, an ex-cop turned woodworker. They are “more or less raising” Trey, and these three core characters are drawn into the mystery of Rachel’s death and may have to face the looming clouds of civilizational change for Ardnakelty. Lena is chastised for “asking your wee questions all round the townland,” and Trey wants to quit school, against Cal’s advice. Finally, the story’s best line: “You can’t go killing people just because they deserve it.”
Great crime fiction.Pub Date: March 31, 2026
ISBN: 9780593493465
Page Count: 496
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: Dec. 26, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2026
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