Underbaked novel about how you can go home again and, if it’s coastal Maine, probably should.
After a decade away, a woman heads home to Maine to grapple with a resentful sister, a naughty ex-boyfriend, midlife hormones, and sundry personal demons.
Journalist Rachel Calloway, the narrator of Christensen’s eighth novel, is a self-described “middle-aged childless recently orphaned menopausal workaholic.” Her life, she announces, is “hell.” By day, Rachel chronicles the ravages of climate change, and by night retreats to the Washington, D.C., condo she shares with her former husband (who has ALS) and his boyfriend. The marriage ended when Rachel found the men in bed together, but while she has forgiven all, the boyfriend wants her out of the condo almost as much as her “evil little lickspittle rodent of a newly appointed editor in chief” wants her out of her job. That’s more than enough drama to juice a plot right there, but in this smart yet unfocused novel, it’s just distracting backstory. The real action begins when Rachel’s narcissistic mother dies and leaves her a house in Portland, Maine. As Rachel’s plane descends “over thick pine forests rolling to meet the hard metallic skin of the Atlantic Ocean, glinting in the sunlight,” readers will instantly grasp that Christensen is serving up a dreamy new life for her embattled heroine in a postcard-pretty locale. Granted, complications abound. Rachel’s sister, Celeste, frequently berates her for not helping nurse their mother through a brutal cancer death. She’s also a passive-aggressive troublemaker: The night of Rachel’s arrival, she invites Rachel’s old flame, David Mansfield, and his new wife to dinner. It turns out that David wants back into Rachel’s bed, and she would probably welcome him—except he may or may not have done something unforgivable with her late mother. Aiming to sell her inherited house and get back to Washington, Rachel finds a homeless pillhead to move in and help renovate. (As one does.) A crisis ensues. Throughout this jumpy novel, Rachel has been lost in Dante’s figurative dark wood of midlife, but in its long finale she finds herself wandering around a literal dark wood complete with bears, until a path forward reveals itself.
Underbaked novel about how you can go home again and, if it’s coastal Maine, probably should.Pub Date: Dec. 5, 2023
ISBN: 9780063299702
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Aug. 30, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2023
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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