An inspired, if uneven, dissection of the nebulousness of life after the upheaval of war.
A debut collection of short stories examines characters who become unmoored by personal and historical circumstances.
Hiltner’s tales explore a cast of characters who are dispossessed in a variety of ways. The author grew up in Ohio but lived and worked for many years abroad, mainly in Germany and Hungary, and these locations come up often in his works. Many are set during the World War II era and afterward, following individual people and families divided by conflict; there are also detours to the American Midwest and, in one story, Africa. The works often employ detached first-person narrators who observe and report more than they actively participate in the stories’ events. Although geopolitics is a thematic element of many of these tales, they are not generally action-oriented, nor are they centered on specific battles or historical figures; rather, they follow everyday people who often recount personal tragedies as they try to pick up the pieces of their lives. In these stories, sons leave their parents (“The Missing Sheep of Coshocton County”) and husbands leave their wives (“Remember Me”); one tells of running a factory in a stable postwar economy (“The Open Window”) and another of a visit to the beach (“Crescent Beach”). At least three stories include a suicide, and very few of them convey any kind of optimism for the postwar future—or joy for the characters who are living through it. There are some outliers, though, such as “The Double Standard Bra,” which, in fewer than two pages, ponders double standards of sexuality.
The author’s clear research and sense of place supply the European stories with a sense of confidence and authenticity, and the thinly described narrators give many of them an eerie, cautionary quality. There are 22 stories here, and many are on the shorter side and use dialogue sparingly; as a result, some feel as though they might have benefited by more clearly expressing characters’ personalities and motives. Many seem to be on the cusp of poignancy, but abrupt ends or time skips undermine their significance. “Beneath the Balboa Tree of Guescheme” stands out as one of the most fully realized works. It follows Baptist missionaries in Africa who witness the genital mutilation of a group of young local girls, relaying their experiences in dialogue and diary entries. It does not, however, deeply examine the implications of missionaries visiting African countries, and it seems to exoticize Muslim African communities. Overall, Hiltner’s prose is utilitarian, and the strongest lines come from narrators’ internalization of their bleak circumstances and observations on how time shapes our perceptions of suffering: “Perhaps the passing of a generation would settle long ago questions….The important thing was so simple, like the sitting in an orchard, and the taste of a pilsner. Perhaps there was no freedom and there was no tether. Perhaps the one who is tied is free, and the one who is free is tethered.” An inspired, if uneven, dissection of the nebulousness of life after the upheaval of war.Pub Date: Jan. 13, 2022
ISBN: 9798985215410
Page Count: 166
Publisher: Kniemst Press
Review Posted Online: Dec. 28, 2022
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Fans of Stockett’s bestselling debut will love this engaging follow-up.
Stockett heads to Mississippi for another historical novel about feisty women.
This time, perhaps recalling criticisms of cultural appropriation in The Help (2009), she sticks to feisty white women, with one exception. The setting is Oxford in 1933. For two miserable years, 11-year-old Meg has lived in “the Orphan,” a county asylum for parentless girls. Chairlady Garnett—a villain so one-note she’d twirl a mustache if she had one—makes it her mission to ostracize the older girls she deems unadoptable, stigmatizing them as offspring of the “feebleminded” mothers who abandoned them. She particularly has it in for smart, sassy Meg, who refuses to believe her mother’s mysterious disappearance was deliberate. Elsewhere in Oxford, Birdie Calhoun comes to visit her sister Frances, who married a wealthy banker, to ask for money on behalf of their mother and grandmother back in Footely. Frances isn’t thrilled by this reminder of her impoverished small-town origins. But she’s trying to climb up in Oxford society by volunteering at the Orphan, the asylum’s books need to be done before the state inspector shows up in a few weeks, and Birdie is a bookkeeper. Having neatly arranged to keep Birdie in town and draw these two storylines together, Stockett goes on to spin a compulsively readable yarn with enough plot for a half-dozen novels. Birdie and Meg become friends, Meg is adopted despite Garnett’s best efforts, Meg’s mother turns up at the Orphan demanding to know where her child is—and that’s less than a quarter of the way through a long, winding narrative that keeps piling on more dramatic developments until all loose ends are neatly, if hastily, wrapped up in the final pages. Stockett might be making a point about Southern women facing facts and standing up for themselves, but mostly this is just a satisfyingly twisty tale that should make a great miniseries.
Fans of Stockett’s bestselling debut will love this engaging follow-up.Pub Date: May 5, 2026
ISBN: 9781954118812
Page Count: 656
Publisher: Spiegel & Grau
Review Posted Online: Feb. 2, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2026
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
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