An affecting character study and excoriating indictment of the way we live now.
A former child actor sees possibilities for reinvention in a media landscape dominated by recycled intellectual property.
David Crader experienced a measure of success as an actor when, as a teen, he co-starred on Rev Beach, a supernatural-tinged TV drama that, despite a lack of critical appreciation, attracted a cult audience. Now approaching middle age, David has struggled with alcoholism in the intervening years and is the twice-divorced father of a young son, Henry. Adrift and unhappy, he gets by doing voiceover work for video games and half-heartedly running a bar. When Rev Beach unexpectedly becomes a hot commodity again—it was a fluke streaming sensation during the pandemic lockdown—David receives an offer from his old co-star (and first ex-wife), Grace Travis, to reboot the series, provided he can convince Rev Beach lead actor and current superstar Shayne Glade to participate. While there’s plenty of plot (the story also concerns another Rev Beach actor’s political career, various natural disasters, the machinations of radicalized Internet subcultures, and David’s fraught family drama), the narrative also overflows with witty and incisive ideas. The theme of rebooting animates every thread—characters strive to reinvent themselves, start new families and careers, and rewrite their histories while an all-consuming media vortex endlessly recycles and recombines content (Shayne stars in “the stage musical adaptation of David Cronenberg’s film adaptation of Don DeLillo’s Cosmopolis”). Taylor’s prose is unfailingly engaging as David’s internal monologue cycles through sophisticated pop cultural analysis, rueful self-reflection, and sundry conspiracy theories (Hollow Earthers and lizard people get an airing), and there is true poignancy in David’s interactions with his child and in his fumbling attempts at redemption. Taylor’s fluency, intellectual nimbleness, and playful sense of humor call to mind the work of David Foster Wallace; the reader can easily imagine David Crader’s video game adaptation of Infinite Jest.
An affecting character study and excoriating indictment of the way we live now.Pub Date: April 23, 2024
ISBN: 9780553387629
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Pantheon
Review Posted Online: Jan. 20, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
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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