Stronger on atmosphere than plot and narrative focus.
An idealistic American gets educated about Italian realities in a remote Calabrian village.
Francesca Loftfield is 27, “a bluestocking with big dreams for building a better world, one needy child at a time,” when she arrives in Santa Chionia in 1960 to open a nursery school for an international charity. She has fled a disintegrating marriage, alluding to it intermittently before she finally explains how it came apart to Cicca Casile, her grumpy landlady. Cicca warns Francesca that it’s dangerous to search for the identity of the skeleton uncovered beneath the rubble of the post office, which was destroyed in a flood that also wiped out the single bridge connecting the village to the outside world. But Francesca’s curiosity is piqued when not one but two women claim the skeleton belongs to a loved one who allegedly emigrated to America but was actually killed by “them.” As Francesca delves into the stories of Leo Romeo and Mico Scordo, she faces increasing hostility from town authorities and eventually realizes there’s a lot going on in Santa Chionia that she doesn’t understand. Complicating matters is the arrival of Ugo, a handsome village boy who is home from his job in Milan to help with his dying father and openly taken with the American visitor. The tangled plot becomes more so when Francesca decides there’s a third possible identity for that skeleton, and the final revelations would be more compelling if she were a more engaging narrator. The amount of time she spends agonizing over her not-yet-ex-husband becomes irritating, as does her cluelessness about a major character she continues to trust long after readers have seen multiple glaring clues that he’s in on all the dirty deeds. Despite some wonderfully rendered portraits of individual villagers and vivid descriptions of the Calabrian landscape, the novel never quite clicks.
Stronger on atmosphere than plot and narrative focus.Pub Date: July 23, 2024
ISBN: 9780593536179
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: May 4, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2024
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
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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