A damning, if not wholly successful, examination of the violences of womanhood.
Short stories that expose the rages, obsessions, and plights of girls and women.
In “The Hot Girl,” the narrator’s best friend stabs her boyfriend in the leg in a jealous fit of rage, nearly killing him. In “Roadkill,” a group of restless and unhappy college-aged girls spend their weekends partying and taunting their peers; one night, they sexually assault a boy. In “The Ryans,” two teenage girls vengefully trash the room of their friend, Ryan, who has sold them fake pot. Escoria’s raw stories span from early childhood (a third-grade girl’s friend, Katie, wants to “play girlfriend and boyfriend” and simulates having sex) to adulthood (in “Hazel: A Diptych,” a relative learns about the life of the now-deceased Hazel, who was bipolar and was raped by her father and sexually assaulted her own son). All of Escoria’s characters seem to exist in the same fraught and relentless world—one rife with violence, addiction, partying, sexual assault. Many of the stories feature heavy drug usage: a student who tries meth before a midterm, a recovering addict who takes her 60-something heroin-addicted uncle to AA. Escoria highlights apathetic, almost sociopathic women—characters who, upon learning of a hated co-worker or fellow student’s death, “wanted to laugh but…didn’t.” Her stories are permeated by violence, both physical and emotional, and seek to expose the dirty underbelly of everyday, more peaceable life. At times, these revelations can feel refreshingly peculiar; in these moments, the secret pains of womanhood feel collective, shared. In one such tale, a young woman and her boyfriend wait out a storm in Brooklyn while in the middle of breaking up: “My heart was still pounding from the ride but also from the knowledge that this was a person fading, someone who was there in my life but also wasn’t.” But more often, the stories lack an adequate contextual framework, and feel unnecessarily—even irredeemably—cruel.
A damning, if not wholly successful, examination of the violences of womanhood.Pub Date: June 18, 2024
ISBN: 9781593767747
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Soft Skull Press
Review Posted Online: April 5, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles...
Sisters in and out of love.
Meghann Dontess is a high-powered matrimonial lawyer in Seattle who prefers sex with strangers to emotional intimacy: a strategy bound to backfire sooner or later, warns her tough-talking shrink. It’s advice Meghann decides to ignore, along with the memories of her difficult childhood, neglectful mother, and younger sister. Though she managed to reunite Claire with Sam Cavenaugh (her father but not Meghann’s) when her mother abandoned both girls long ago, Meghann still feels guilty that her sister’s life doesn’t measure up, at least on her terms. Never married, Claire ekes out a living running a country campground with her dad and is raising her six-year-old daughter on her own. When she falls in love for the first time with an up-and-coming country musician, Meghann is appalled: Bobby Austin is a three-time loser at marriage—how on earth can Claire be so blind? Bobby’s blunt explanation doesn’t exactly satisfy the concerned big sister, who busies herself planning Claire’s dream wedding anyway. And, to relieve the stress, she beds various guys she picks up in bars, including Dr. Joe Wyatt, a neurosurgeon turned homeless drifter after the demise of his beloved wife Diane (whom he euthanized). When Claire’s awful headache turns out to be a kind of brain tumor known among neurologists as a “terminator,” Joe rallies. Turns out that Claire had befriended his wife on her deathbed, and now in turn he must try to save her. Is it too late? Will Meghann find true love at last?
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles (Distant Shores, 2002, etc.). Kudos for skipping the snifflefest this time around.Pub Date: May 1, 2003
ISBN: 0-345-45073-6
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2003
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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