Intelligent, challenging fiction.
Childhood friends from a small Utah town reconnect in Los Angeles, with unexpected results for both.
Dumped by her husband of almost 20 years, 37-year-old Verna decides to head for LA. She finds temporary refuge there with Jolene, the free-spirited best friend she hasn’t seen since high school, who is now a famous performance artist. But things are clearly tense between Jolene and her husband, Vincent, and working-class, undereducated Verna feels out of place with this wealthy, intellectual couple. She finds a job in MacArthur Park and an inexpensive apartment nearby, “my own private place in the churning city.” A few months later, Vincent visits with the news that Jolene has left him and moved to New York. Verna finds herself drawn to this odd, aloof man, and though he admits “I have difficulty showing my feelings,” he soon proposes and they are married. Flash-forward 30 years: The couple is still living in Verna’s MacArthur Park apartment, but the building is about to be sold and they will have to leave, a severe disruption for change-phobic Vincent. At the same time, Jolene reappears, dying of cancer and asking Verna to take a road trip back to Utah with her. These developments background Freeman’s extended explorations into the complexities of marriage, friendship, and art. Verna has been able to accept and cope with Vincent’s Asperger’s-related peculiarities as Jolene could not; she remains grateful that he gently introduced her to the worlds of literature and art. Now, at 67, Verna is a respected writer, to Jolene’s rather condescending approval. Their long drive to Utah, in addition to showcasing Freeman’s bravura descriptions of diverse American landscapes, spotlights Jolene’s arrogance and egotism; she pontificates about feminist art, American politics, and the meaning of their childhood friendship, while Verna quietly seethes. Yet she does love this difficult, complicated woman, and the trip brings their relationship to a new equilibrium as Jolene prepares to die. Readers may find it frustrating that warm, perceptive Verna has spent so much of her life adapting to the demands of two self-absorbed people, but Freeman asks us to understand that committed relationships necessarily involve conflict and compromise.
Intelligent, challenging fiction.Pub Date: Oct. 12, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-593-31595-8
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Pantheon
Review Posted Online: July 9, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2021
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
SEEN & HEARD
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