Boldly cruel and consummately styled, these tales never fail to provoke if not always to satisfy.
Twelve new stories from a prolific master of the short form.
In Oates’ new collection, the zero-sum game so often at work in relationships is explored with exhaustive care. These relationships take varied forms. Sometimes characters struggle with power dynamics. In “Lovesick,” E___ seeks out her former lover to tell him she is being threatened by an anonymous caller, a fact that seems to shock and gratify him in equal turns. In other stories, the relationships are well worn, long settled in their more-or-less predictable gender roles, which have become insufficient to clothe the hostilities that exist at their cores. The lengthy central story, “The Suicide,” stuns with the relentless misogyny of the main character, a brilliant writer consumed by suicidal ideation, who’s disgusted by the “bottomless tar pit of [his wife’s] compassion” even as he reveals that this slavish compassion is the only emotion he has allowed her to express. Indeed, in many of the stories, the power that is transferred between characters centers around a perversion of the expression of female nurture. In “The Cold,” a mother of young children who has suffered a recent miscarriage is prevented from recovery by the presence of frigid breezes that creep up behind her like “an unwanted caress.” As bound as these characters are by their knotted relationships, they are even more bound by the taut, efficient sentences that throttle any hope a character might have of resolving their intractable dilemmas. Indeed, throughout the collection, Oates’ vicious incisiveness enacts a more brutal persecution than any of the cruelties the characters inflict upon each other—ultimately leaving little room for change in any direction other than the downward spiral. While this makes for a heady reading experience, it also creates a certain thinness to the collection as a whole that results in individual stories feeling like experiments with a theme rather than explorations of the unlikely, but still human, extremes to which the characters are forced.
Boldly cruel and consummately styled, these tales never fail to provoke if not always to satisfy.Pub Date: July 18, 2023
ISBN: 9780593535868
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: May 9, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2023
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
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
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