A raucous, gutting workplace novel.
An employee at a travel-agency call center scrapes together moments of hilarity and strange intimacy into a life he can stand, somewhat.
The first three pages of this book describe our protagonist, Jimmie, losing control of his bowels on his doorstep (or, rather, the doorstep of his mother’s house, where she lets him live). This idea, that “bodies get in the way”—of the productivity expected at a dead-eyed corporate job, of true connection with other people—pervades Volckmer’s novel. Jimmie is good at playing the fool: After finishing drama school, he worked as a clown, and then a paid funeral mourner, and now, as he puts it, “a call boy” in London. For minimum wage and no benefits, he half-attends to the complaints of vacationers. The callers he services are usually ridiculous, and their perceived problems even more so. A man in pursuit of a “seamless” tan calls in a huff after being told off for going nude at his Sardinian resort, to which Jimmie responds, “You might want to try wearing a sock?” When a woman staying in the Marais calls, convinced the staff at her hotel are mocking her for her weight, he assures her “that nobody likes French people.” Jimmie feels the weight of this daily humiliation ritual, and, as he nears 30—socially isolated and, as a fat, gay immigrant, socially marginalized—he sees the possibilities life might have held for him winking out one by one. However, over the course of a single workday, we see Jimmie manage to poke holes in precarity, reaching for moments of freedom through daydreams, illicit intrigues (real and imagined) with coworkers, and leaps over the established boundaries of customer service. Volckmer’s prose is electric, and as she skillfully unearths moments of tenderness, even ecstasy, amid the sweat and stench of abjection, she ensures this brief book lingers past its pages.
A raucous, gutting workplace novel.Pub Date: Sept. 16, 2025
ISBN: 9781953387943
Page Count: 166
Publisher: Two Dollar Radio
Review Posted Online: July 17, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles...
Sisters in and out of love.
Meghann Dontess is a high-powered matrimonial lawyer in Seattle who prefers sex with strangers to emotional intimacy: a strategy bound to backfire sooner or later, warns her tough-talking shrink. It’s advice Meghann decides to ignore, along with the memories of her difficult childhood, neglectful mother, and younger sister. Though she managed to reunite Claire with Sam Cavenaugh (her father but not Meghann’s) when her mother abandoned both girls long ago, Meghann still feels guilty that her sister’s life doesn’t measure up, at least on her terms. Never married, Claire ekes out a living running a country campground with her dad and is raising her six-year-old daughter on her own. When she falls in love for the first time with an up-and-coming country musician, Meghann is appalled: Bobby Austin is a three-time loser at marriage—how on earth can Claire be so blind? Bobby’s blunt explanation doesn’t exactly satisfy the concerned big sister, who busies herself planning Claire’s dream wedding anyway. And, to relieve the stress, she beds various guys she picks up in bars, including Dr. Joe Wyatt, a neurosurgeon turned homeless drifter after the demise of his beloved wife Diane (whom he euthanized). When Claire’s awful headache turns out to be a kind of brain tumor known among neurologists as a “terminator,” Joe rallies. Turns out that Claire had befriended his wife on her deathbed, and now in turn he must try to save her. Is it too late? Will Meghann find true love at last?
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles (Distant Shores, 2002, etc.). Kudos for skipping the snifflefest this time around.Pub Date: May 1, 2003
ISBN: 0-345-45073-6
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2003
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
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