A probing, astute portrayal of a fraught and late-blooming coming-of-age.
After her husband is killed in a car crash, a recently married lawyer learns he was involved with another woman for years.
And it’s someone she works with! This disgusting detail is just one piece of an avalanche of bad news that tumbles down on poor Ellie Huang in the first chapters of Lin’s debut. By the time she learns that her husband, Ian Anderson, a lawyer of less skill and brains but significantly more social elbow grease than she, was screwing this other woman even before he proposed marriage, she’s reeling. It’s then that a piece of somewhat better news arrives—Ian had life insurance based on a forecast of his future earnings, and Ellie is the sole beneficiary. In addition, her supervisor at work really thinks she needs to take some time off, as her sentences have stopped making sense. Her best friend, Mable Chou, who has been staying over at Ellie's house every night since the accident, strongly recommends therapy. She could pay off the house, but does she even want to live there anymore? Ellie decides to put her windfall to use flying Mable and herself first class to Nice, and then on to the ultra-luxurious Hotel du Cap-Eden-Roc in Antibes. This premise sounds like fun, but Lin’s protagonist is no merry widow, and her narrative takes things in a more serious direction. At the resort, Ellie and Mable make friends with a somewhat mysterious couple—the man Asian like them, the woman White. Long-standing flaws in the friendship are exposed by their differing reactions to Robbie and Fauna as well as by Ellie's choppy processing of her complicated grief and rage. (Mable’s right—she really does need therapy.) Lin's treatment of the glamorous, decadent setting, with its stream of gourmet meals and artisanal cocktails, is far from escapist wealth porn—she has complicated things to say about privilege and its intersection with race, ambition, and identity.
A probing, astute portrayal of a fraught and late-blooming coming-of-age.Pub Date: June 13, 2023
ISBN: 9780063241435
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: March 27, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 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
© Copyright 2026 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
