An enigmatic love story set at the height of the AIDS pandemic.
Two lovers face daunting challenges in 1992.
When Dempsey Coates offers Johnny Donegan a respite from his duties as a New York City firefighter in her Tribeca loft building, the encounter launches the mismatched pair into a complex relationship that’s shadowed by her diagnosis of AIDS, contracted while using intravenous drugs. Johnny, the son of a traditional Irish Catholic family on Staten Island, falls instantly in love with the beautiful, troubled artist, who’s at work on a series of paintings recounting the biblical story of Lazarus, even becoming her model. Their episodic affair becomes more complicated when he encounters the objections of his parish priest, who explains that the need for Johnny to practice safe sex prevents the church from giving its blessing should they wed, and Dempsey’s medical condition takes an unusual turn after Johnny, in a fit of desperation at his faith’s intransigence, allows himself to pray for a cure. Caldwell, a playwright and memoirist, impressively tackles consequential themes like the power of belief, miracles, and the oppressive weight of guilt, but he’s overly fond of descriptive prose that, for all its facility, too often serves to subordinate these themes and the plot itself to unnecessary digressions. In its concluding chapters, the novel becomes darker as Dempsey, a fierce atheist, and the almost saintlike Johnny, who is credited with rescuing two people from burning buildings, grapple with the unforeseen directions in which fate has guided their lives. When each, in a radically different way, chooses to respond to the lessons gleaned from their experience, their decisions seem jarring rather than earned, leaving behind an aftertaste of unfairness in place of the inevitability that’s the stuff of great tragic drama.
An enigmatic love story set at the height of the AIDS pandemic.Pub Date: Dec. 1, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-883285-99-9
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Delphinium
Review Posted Online: Oct. 26, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
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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