Original, deftly told stories that chart coming-of-age in perilous times for our planet.
A debut collection that mingles the magical and uncanny with signs of global warning.
These coming-of-age stories about young women are sometimes set against a backdrop of climate change, sometimes in altered magical worlds. Because we live in an age in which rising temperatures and raging wildfires, significant loss of biodiversity, and monster storms worry the line between what used to seem impossible and our new reality, this mix of genres is potent. In “Endangered Animals,” the disappearing glaciers in Glacier National Park are both a destination for a young woman and her ex-girlfriend on a road trip together and the perfect metaphor for the painful thaw of their dying affection. In “Algal Bloom,” a lake poisoned by algae during an uncharacteristically hot summer is a temptation for the slightly rebellious almost 13-year-old narrator and her best friend while also capturing the murkiness of the narrator’s desires—the peril of feelings she’s not quite old enough to name. Elsewhere, in “Fruiting Bodies,” a woman sprouts mushrooms from her body, which her lover gently harvests and cooks into elaborate meals, an act both nurturing and parasitic—and almost possible in some dystopic future. Harlan crafts gorgeous prose; in her hands, even the dirty work of maggots, using “their hooked mouths to spoon up the body’s liquids,” becomes something beautiful. Her stories twist away from expected endings—as in “Hunting the Viper-King,” in which the narrator’s father’s hunt for a mythical snake both is and isn’t as crazy as it seems—and offer nuanced emotional insights. A few stories miss the mark when the magic fails to become emotionally resonant (“Is This You?”) or the characters feel thin, like ideas in service to inventive plots (“Fiddler, Fool Pair”).
Original, deftly told stories that chart coming-of-age in perilous times for our planet.Pub Date: June 7, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-324-02122-3
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Norton
Review Posted Online: March 24, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2022
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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