A gentle, funny, heartbreaking indictment of the naïve excesses of the 1960s and the testament of a woman who survived them.
A posthumously published novel from the author of Geek Love (1989).
Dunn’s magnum opus—the tale of a family of carnival freaks—is a true cult classic, but the year it was published, it was also a finalist for the thoroughly mainstream National Book Award. Geek Love has never been out of print, and it continues to be a solid backlist performer. Few authors with one bestseller get an obituary in the New York Times, but Dunn achieved that distinction in 2016. She’s an author who wrote a book about outsiders who has been embraced by insiders. This newly published novel suggests that this counterculture hero had a complicated relationship with the counterculture of her youth. The narrator is Sally Gunnar, a woman who has chosen to live alone except for the goldfish she keeps in a jar on her kitchen table, the toad that lives in her yard, and the handful of visitors she invites into her house. When her sister-in-law asks, “Remember Sam and Carlotta? Whatever became of them?” Sally drifts back to Portland in the 1960s. A student at a small liberal arts school—Dunn attended Reed—Sam is, in Sally’s words, a “spunky little character with an intellectual air.” He’s also a jackass. In his desire to outgrow his middle-class New York upbringing, Sam tries on a variety of names and ethnicities. He falls in love with Carlotta, an ethereal hippy who seems to find him as profound as he finds himself. Together with a narcissistic psychology student named Rennel, these misfits form something close to a family. Sally is part of this unit—she even starts taking classes at their fancy college—but she never loses an outsider’s perspective. She recognizes that her friends are ridiculous, and she loves them anyway. As the narrative moves back and forth in time, it takes a dark turn. Sam and Carlotta’s belief that they are equipped to live off the land leads to tragedy. Sally’s self-deprecation—which at first seems like her viewing herself with the same irony with which she regards her friends—turns out to be a mask for clinical depression. But Sally endures to find a fragile peace, carefully tended day by day.
A gentle, funny, heartbreaking indictment of the naïve excesses of the 1960s and the testament of a woman who survived them.Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-374-60232-1
Page Count: 352
Publisher: MCD/Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: Aug. 16, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2022
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
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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