Like the man she shackles to a chair in the prologue, once this narrator has you, she won't let go. A remarkable debut.
When her husband is accused of sexual misconduct on campus, an English professor is overcome by scandalous drives of her own.
The unnamed narrator of Jonas' debut has this initial reaction to five female students coming forward to accuse her husband, John, who's the chair of the English department, of inappropriate conduct: "I am depressed that they feel so guilty about their encounters with my husband that they have decided he was taking advantage of them. I want to throw them all a Slut Walk and let them know that when they’re sad, it's probably not because of the sex they had, and more because they spend too much time on the internet, wondering what people think of them." She and John have had an open marriage for decades, but the sense of exposure she feels after the accusations become public wounds her in unexpected ways. She finds herself sexually obsessed with a new hire named Vladimir Vladinski, a hunky young novelist who has arrived in town with a memoirist wife and daughter. At every point, the coolness of her intellect and the clarity of her self-awareness are at war with her vanity and shame about aging. For example, her reaction to the assiduous domestic and bodily preparations she makes to receive Vlad and family for a pool party: "Enraged at my vapidity, I forced myself to sit down and read several articles in the latest issue of the New York Review of Books before I fixed my nighttime drink." Several interesting subplots support the main one as it ticks along, picks up speed, and finally hurtles toward its explosive climax: the narrator's relationship with her grown daughter, a lesbian lawyer; the changing chemistry between her and her female students; the backstory on Vlad and his wife. A conversation at the pool party about why young writers are so drawn to memoir and autofiction, a pronouncement on the best timing for a forbidden cigarette, and advice about cooking tomato sauce are typical of the astuteness of this book on matters literary, psychological, and culinary.
Like the man she shackles to a chair in the prologue, once this narrator has you, she won't let go. A remarkable debut.Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-982187-63-7
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Avid Reader Press
Review Posted Online: Nov. 16, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2021
PERSPECTIVES
BOOK TO SCREEN
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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