An intergenerational story that interrogates and celebrates the American dream.
In the early 1920s, Veronica Chavez, the daughter of a fisherman, falls in love with an American poet visiting her seaside village in Mexico.
She becomes pregnant with his child, and together they leave Mexico for his home in Seattle. It’s not just Jason’s shabby apartment that shatters Veronica’s naïve romantic fantasies of life with an American man. Her lover proves abusive and unfaithful. Though isolated in a country where she doesn’t speak the language, Veronica finds the courage to flee again. It’s a heady time to be in the United States, especially the Western part of the country. Immigration policies are in flux, and while opportunities abound, so do perils. The same is true of the 1990s, when teenage Chuy arrives in Salt Lake City to live with his great-aunt Veronica, now in her 80s. Chuy, his mother, his older brother, and his father—who had been living in the U.S. for years to finance their family’s migration—do their best to build a life in Utah, but it’s not easy. They live in a predominantly white Mormon community and under the watchful eye of law enforcement. One pastime that helps them cope with life’s stresses is watching a reality TV competition called Cast Away. Chuy believes that if he trains hard enough, gets on the show, and wins the $1 million prize, he can secure his family’s future. The novel alternates between Chuy’s coming-of-age in the 1990s and Veronica’s in the 1920s with humor and warmth. The tone is charming even as the book tackles challenging themes around family, grief, home, and heartache. The two timelines, the protagonists of different genders, and Johnstun’s attention to the details of Utah’s unique landscape and milieu make the novel feel greater than the sum of its parts.
An intergenerational story that interrogates and celebrates the American dream.Pub Date: May 14, 2024
ISBN: 9781948814928
Page Count: 261
Publisher: Torrey House Press
Review Posted Online: March 23, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 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
A dark and twisty look at just how far one woman is willing to go to find inspiration.
A struggling writer finds an unexpected muse when a mysterious man shows up at her cabin.
Petra Rose used to pump out a bestselling book every six months, but then the adaptation happened—that is, the disastrous film adaptation of her most famous book. The movie changed the book’s storyline so egregiously that fans couldn’t forgive her, and the ensuing harassment sent Petra into hiding and gave her a serious case of writer’s block. Petra’s one hope is her solo writing retreat at a remote cabin, where she can escape the distractions of real life and focus on her next book, a story about a woman having an affair with a cop. When officer Nathaniel Saint shows up at her cabin door, inspiration comes flooding back. Much like the character from Petra’s book, Saint is married, and he’s willing to be Petra’s muse, helping her get into her characters’ heads. Petra’s book is practically writing itself, but is the game she’s playing a little too dangerous? Does she know when to stop—and, more importantly, is Saint willing to stop? Hoover is no stranger to controversial movie adaptations and internet backlash, but she clarifies in a note to readers that she’s “just a writer writing about a writer” and that no further connections to her own life are contained in these pages—which is a good thing, because the book takes some horrifying twists and turns. Petra finds herself inexplicably attracted to Saint, even as she describes him as “such an asshole,” and her feelings for him veer between love and hate. The novel serves as a meta commentary on the dark romance genre—as Petra puts it, “Even though, as readers, we wouldn’t want to live out some of the fantasies we read about, it doesn’t mean we don’t enjoy reading those things.”
A dark and twisty look at just how far one woman is willing to go to find inspiration.Pub Date: Jan. 13, 2026
ISBN: 9781662539374
Page Count: -
Publisher: Montlake
Review Posted Online: Sept. 27, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2025
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