A tender evocation of grief, hope, and dignity.
Struggles and dreams on Colorado’s high plains.
Essayist and memoirist Johnstun makes his fiction debut with an appealing story centered on two families roiled by the Great Depression, dust storms, racism, and war. Della, the bright, ambitious daughter of a Native American mother and Mexican father, and John, a quiet, diffident boy whose Mexican father labors in the coal mines, recount their lives in alternating chapters beginning in 1927, when the two are children in Trinidad, a town in southeastern Colorado “covered in scrub oak and hard dirt.” Della grows up encouraged to achieve. She is too smart to be a ranchero, her father tells her; her brother will inherit the family’s land, he says, and she must go on to do great things. Devouring books about science in the Trinidad library, Della sees education as the path away from “the stalks, stables, and land of the KKK.” Both families are threatened by racist violence: “Since there were no African Americans living in Southern Colorado,” Della observes, “the KKK had to hate someone, so they hated us.” Nature is another threat. As the drought intensifies in the 1930s, Della’s parents struggle to eke out a living. “At one point,” Della recalls, “I think we ate corn for three months straight.” While Della vows to leave Trinidad, go to college, and make her family proud, John assumes he will become a miner like his father; shyly in love with Della, he imagines her by his side. Dramatic events, though, upend the lives of John, his sister, and two brothers. And World War II radically changes the future for both Della and John. Johnstun knows his terrain well, creating a palpable sense of the sky and soil, grasses and wildlife of the mesa—and the winds of change that swept through the nation for two tumultuous decades.
A tender evocation of grief, hope, and dignity.Pub Date: Oct. 5, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-948814-51-5
Page Count: 250
Publisher: Torrey House Press
Review Posted Online: July 27, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2021
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 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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