In the broad shadow of Johnny Appleseed, this lumberjack's adventures captivate.
Irascible Weldon Applegate, 99 years old "but still I was in my prime," relives his tumultuous days as an orphan among hard-bitten lumberjacks in this free-wheeling folktale by singer/songwriter Ritter.
The novel is set in the Idaho town of Cordelia, where Weldon's widowed father, part of a famous family of "jacks," came to run a general store and raise his son. Ignoring the Witch, a Finnish fortuneteller who says he'll die if he returns to jacking, he meets his maker in the form of "two hundred feet of white pine in [his] face." Inheriting the Lost Lot, a treacherous stretch of forest that Weldon's grandfather won in a card game, the 13-year-old boy becomes a thorn in the side of 7-foot terror Linden Laughlin, who wants it for himself. Though Laughlin is known as "the best jack that had ever lived," his co-workers have a way of dying in suspicious accidents. Will young Weldon be next? Spanning Prohibition, the Great Depression, World War II, and the dreaded modern world of flat-screen TVs, Ritter's follow-up to Bright's Passage (2011) is a scenic, phrase-spinning account that delights in detailing the perilous life of a lumberjack—the difficulty, for example, of getting gigantic trees to fall right and the daunting odds against transporting these "monster logs" to the river bank via a rickety chute. Even accepting the exaggerated reality of a yarn like this, it's not always easy to believe a 13-year-old could do and say the things Weldon does. And a framing story involving a calculating frenemy of the aged protagonist bogs down. But like the song without an ending that one character after another can't get out of their head, the novel has its own infectious quality.
In the broad shadow of Johnny Appleseed, this lumberjack's adventures captivate.Pub Date: Sept. 7, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-335-52253-5
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Hanover Square Press
Review Posted Online: June 28, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2021
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
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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