An enjoyable read with a strong protagonist and a trove of historical nuggets.
A historical novel follows the early life of an Irish girl who immigrates with her family to New York City.
In 1889, 7-year-old Rose O’Brien travels to Dublin and steps aboard the Furnessia steamship, bound for a future that promises new opportunities. Her father, Charles, has already made the trip, and now she, her mother, and her three younger brothers are about to join him in New York. Charles meets them at the Castle Garden immigration center—Ellis Island will not open until 1892—and brings them to a Manhattan tenement apartment in Hell’s Kitchen. The family rejoices in the reunion, and Rose begins to make friends with the ethnically and nationally diverse immigrant kids in the area. (Her “building was filled with children of all ages….They tumbled down the stairs and sat on the stoop.”) Rose meets young Anthony Vigliano, who lives in her building and will become pivotal in her life. Then, just a few months after the O’Briens’ arrival, the “Russian Flu” brings tragedy to the family when Rose’s mother succumbs to the raging virus. Fortunately, Jenny Himmelfarb, a woman working with the outreach program run by the Neighborhood Guild, comes into their lives and arranges for Rose and her eldest brother, Maurice, to register for public school. Himmelfarb’s continued involvement with the family opens the door to the children’s integration into American life. McCann’s gentle novel is narrated by Rose in a charming and optimistic voice supporting women’s equality that carries a tinge of Hallmark gloss in the descriptions of the opportunities offered and successes achieved by the immigrant kids in her circle. The narrative moves pleasantly and episodically through a decade and a half of Rose’s growth into womanhood. Although light in significant dramatic tension, the tale richly overflows with everyday details of turn-of-the-20th-century life in New York, including the social and political movements of the period. And despite Rose’s commitment to becoming a nurse—which, according to the standards of the day, means remaining single and chaste—her budding romance with Anthony keeps the story intriguing.
An enjoyable read with a strong protagonist and a trove of historical nuggets.Pub Date: Oct. 26, 2022
ISBN: 9780578273464
Page Count: 482
Publisher: Hazel Wand Publishing
Review Posted Online: Dec. 29, 2022
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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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