A compelling novel of grief and family secrets.
In Foster’s debut novel, a reclusive college professor delves into the tragedy that defined his life.
Philip Rutledge lives a solitary life, teaching in the English department at Virginia’s Grainger University. “I hadn’t come to Grainger to have fun,” narrates the 30-year-old. “I came to teach and to be left alone in a town where no one knew me or cared to.” A fire at a campus dorm that kills eight students barely penetrates his standoffishness (he’s even reluctant to allow his seizure-prone Labrador, Dilsey, to comfort the traumatized survivors). Then he receives an email from a young woman named Emily Warner. She’s looking for information regarding a shooting that took place a decade earlier in which Philip’s younger brother was killed—Philip and his father, a powerful politician, were also involved and hospitalized for their injuries. The shooter was Emily’s father, and she only ever knew him to be a good man. How, then, did it all go so wrong? At first, Philip refuses to get involved; he’s buried the pain and grief so deeply that unearthing them feels impossible. As he and Emily begin sharing notes, however, Philip realizes he doesn’t know much about the shooting either. When he begins asking questions, he learns that there may be more to the story than his secret-filled family ever let on. The author’s elegant prose mirrors Philip’s emotions, as when the description of his family’s farm reflects his fears of returning home after a long estrangement: “The paved drive to the farm’s main entrance diverged abruptly from the road and headed into dense pines and hardwoods. Iron double gates flanked by brick columns connected the wrought iron fencing that stabbed upward on either side of the drive.” The novel is a bit long at nearly 400 pages, but the premise is intriguing and the plot unfolds at a steady pace.
A compelling novel of grief and family secrets.Pub Date: June 13, 2023
ISBN: 9781954805224
Page Count: 402
Publisher: Bold Story Press
Review Posted Online: June 2, 2023
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Hokey plot, good fun.
A business executive becomes an unjustly wanted man.
Walter Nash attends his estranged father Tiberius’ funeral, where Ty’s Army buddy, Shock, rips into him for not being the kind of man the Vietnam vet Ty was. Instead, Nash is the successful head of acquisitions for Sybaritic Investments, where he earns a handsome paycheck that supports his wife, Judith, and his teenage daughter, Maggie. An FBI agent approaches Nash after the funeral and asks him to be a mole in his company, because the feds consider chief executive Rhett Temple “a criminal consorting with some very dangerous people.” It’s “a chance to be a hero,” the agent says, while admitting that Nash’s personal and financial risks are immense. Indeed, readers soon find Temple and a cohort standing over a fresh corpse and wondering what to do with it. Temple is not an especially talented executive, and he frets that his hated father, the chairman of the board, will eventually replace him with Nash. (Father-son relationships are not glorified in this tale.) Temple is cartoonishly rotten. He answers to a mysterious woman in Asia, whom he rightly fears. He kills. He beds various women including Judith, whom he tries to turn against Nash. The story’s dramatic turn follows Maggie’s kidnapping, where Nash is wrongly accused. Believing Nash’s innocence, Shock helps him change completely with intense exercise, bulking up and tattooing his body, and learning how to fight and kill. Eventually he looks nothing like the dweeb who’d once taken up tennis instead of football, much to Ty’s undying disgust. Finding the victim and the kidnappers becomes his sole mission. As a child watching his father hunt, Nash could never have killed a living thing. But with his old life over—now he will kill, and he will take any risks necessary. His transformation is implausible, though at least he’s not green like the Incredible Hulk. Loose ends abound by the end as he ignores a plea to “not get on that damn plane,” so a sequel is a necessity.
Hokey plot, good fun.Pub Date: Nov. 11, 2025
ISBN: 9781538757987
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Review Posted Online: Aug. 29, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2025
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
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