A historically astute tale with deep emotional impact.
An engineer working for an illicit labor union risks his life to secure their funds in Lagodzki’s novel.
In 1982, Antoni Adamczyk (he prefers to go by Antek) is an engineer in Frombork, Poland, living under martial law imposed by the Soviet Union. He works for the local union chapter of Solidarity—a group that opposes the Soviet occupation—as its treasurer, in charge of the $20,000 he’s securely hidden in Zygmuntowo. When he runs afoul of the authorities, he is imprisoned, though the money remains safe. Antek is given a fraught chance at freedom—he declares that this is all he really wants for himself and his future children—by Roman Stelmach, a major in the Bezpieka, the secret police. Roman allows Antek to escape so he will lead him to the money, a sum that will allow Roman to begin his life afresh in Rio de Janeiro. In this riveting tale, sleepy Zygmuntowo is the stage for an anxious, gathering intrigue—there, a telephone operator, Emilia Sokołowska, finds herself entrusted with the money and suddenly becomes a potential target of Roman and his henchmen as well. Emilia is an extraordinary character, an artfully drawn symbol of Poland’s humiliation under Soviet despotism—she is reduced to spying on the phone calls of others, cataloging their “sin, love, and banality” and reporting them to the police. She falls in love with her best friend, Kalina, who is being repeatedly raped by her father, Pan Zalewski. Emilia hatches a plan to exact revenge upon Pan called Operation Pig, which is to be executed with another of her closest friends, Agata, also the victim of his sexual abuse. Emilia’s mother is a Communist Party functionary, and as a result she enjoys a certain measure of protection from the authorities, but Emilia is finally drawn into a predicament that her mother will not be able to extricate her from.
Lagodzki’s depiction of Poland’s plight is both subtle and luridly vivid; every significant character, including Roman (ostensibly an enforcer of tyranny), longs to be delivered into liberty. Roman might be the novel’s most complex character. In his youth, he planned on becoming an architect, but once his girlfriend, Bernadeta, became pregnant, he was compelled to drop out of school and find work with the Bezpieka; he’s an ordinary man endowed with an opportunistic nihilism. Emilia is a tantalizingly rich character as well, a moving example of the ways in which totalitarianism makes a private life distinct from political reality simply impossible. While the novel is politically savvy, the two main plots are essentially affecting love stories—the love of Emilia for Kalina and of Antek for his wife, Dorota. Here, the author captures the tender shock of electricity Kalina catalyzes in Emilia’s heart, setting off a conflagration of ungovernable emotion: “Did the desire to kiss Kalina make her a freak? As if the missed masses and holy communions had accumulated to mount a set of devil’s horns on her forehead. Horns or not, if she had any money, she would have given all of it to Kalina just to see her smile.” Lagodzki’s prose is as powerful as his plot is gripping.
A historically astute tale with deep emotional impact.Pub Date: Aug. 20, 2024
ISBN: 9798888192061
Page Count: 228
Publisher: Milford House Press
Review Posted Online: Sept. 26, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2024
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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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