An inviting, though dialogue-heavy, dive into the fragile world of a fading empire.
Howse’s literary novel follows a Russian woman in the waning days of the Soviet Union.
Nadezhda “Nadia” Mikhailovna is the daughter of a shipping clerk and a factory worker. At a young age, she moves with her family from Estonia to Odessa. At 16, she’s sent back to Estonia to live with her grandmother, a spirited woman who weathered World War II, in the city of Tallinn. While in Estonia, Nadia learns of an “occurrence” at the Vladimir Ilyich Lenin Nuclear Power Plant that forces the evacuation of a place called Chernobyl. After visiting with Grandma, Nadia is off to see her sister, Nastya, in Kiev. She also interacts frequently with her childhood friend Ida Ivanova, an ethnic German who had “gone to a boarding school for orphans.” Ida undergoes shock therapy before she eventually gets to live in an apartment with a computer scientist. As the pensive Nadia goes from place to place and interacts with many people, readers learn her thoughts and impressions. She considers history to be “a melancholy treasure-house” and often reflects on her own and others’ memories. For example, Nadia embarks on a playful mission to find the grave of a cat that died in 1940 simply because the act helps an old man remember his family. Throughout the novel, the author provides a rich cross-section of the population: Nadia’s grandmother recollects how, during World War II, she “rode to Berlin on the gun mantlet of a T-34-85,” and her brother-in-law, a police officer, asks repetitive questions. Bland dialogue, however, sometimes drains momentum (“He asked about you and your friend. He said he saw you earlier” or “Your clothes are in the dryer”). As realistic as such exchanges may be, they can make scenes drag. But on the whole, Nadia’s journey is a memorable one. She comes of age in places as diverse as Estonia and Ukraine, which, while beset by Soviet malaise, abound with colorful characters.
An inviting, though dialogue-heavy, dive into the fragile world of a fading empire.Pub Date: Sept. 6, 2022
ISBN: 9781738788651
Page Count: 356
Publisher: Nummist Media
Review Posted Online: Jan. 3, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2024
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
A debut novel with bright spots, but unbalanced and lacking in finesse.
A high school senior pursues an affair with her teacher.
Seventeen-year-old Waldo, the narrator of McCurdy’s fiction debut, lives in Anchorage, Alaska, with her mother, though she’s long been the parent in their relationship. She heats her own frozen meals and pays the bills on time while her mom chases man after man and makes well-meaning promises she never keeps. Waldo blows her Victoria’s Secret wages on online shopping sprees and binges on junk food, inevitably crashing after the fleeting highs of her indulgences. Mr. Korgy, her creative writing teacher, has “thinning hair and nose pores”; he’s 40 years old and married with a child. Nevertheless—or possibly as a result?—Waldo’s attraction to him is “instant. So sudden it’s alarming. So palpable it’s confusing.” Mr. Korgy professes to want to keep their friendship aboveboard, but after a sexual encounter at the school’s winter formal that she initiates, an affair begins. Will this reckless pursuit be the one that actually satisfies Waldo, and is she as mature as she thinks she is? Waldo is a keen observer of people and provides sharp commentary on the punishing work of female beauty. Readers of McCurdy’s bestselling memoir, I’m Glad My Mom Died (2022), will surely be curious about the tumultuous mother-daughter relationship, and it is one of the novel’s highlights, full of realistic pity and anger and need. (“I want to scream at her. I want her to hug me.”) Unfortunately, the prose is often unwieldy and sometimes downright cringeworthy: When Waldo tells Mr. Korgy she loves him, “The words hang in the air in that constipated way they do when you know that you shouldn’t have said them.” Waldo frequently lists emotions and adjectives in triplicate, and events that could be significant aren’t sufficiently explored or given enough space to breathe before the novel races on to the next thing.
A debut novel with bright spots, but unbalanced and lacking in finesse.Pub Date: Jan. 20, 2026
ISBN: 9780593723739
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: Nov. 22, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2026
BOOK REVIEW
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