Runde’s family story is sweet, sad, and surprising.
A summer at the shore turns real for a family experiencing loss and love at the same time.
Margot and Brian Dunne, who’ve been married forever and are the parents of teenagers Liz and Evy, run a chain of rental houses in Seaside, on the Jersey shore. Former teachers, the couple worked their way up from modest circumstances and lead a life many would consider ideal. Brian’s tortuous descent into anger and oblivion—the agonizing results of a growing brain tumor—marks the course of an emotionally tumultuous summer for the family. Margot shoulders the burden of operating the family business with help from Liz and Evy, who are also continuing their own work: passing from adolescence to adulthood (with the attendant insecurity and heartache that process brings). While maintaining a united front to the outside world, the three women deal with familial misunderstandings and secrets, all now freighted with added urgency in light of Brian’s decline. Margot shares her fears and plans on an online forum, unaware that her internet-savvy girls are, maybe, one step ahead of her there. Liz and Evy don’t know what they don’t know about their parents’ relationship over the years despite internet and household sleuthing. Runde’s sympathetic portrait of a family in crisis is not without humor and insight: The brigade of well-meaning friends and neighbors who support the family with a never-ending supply of IDCs (Inevitable Death Casseroles) is just one finely drawn target here. An epigraph from Springsteen’s “Born to Run” places Runde’s account of abandonment, loneliness, and recovery firmly on the Jersey shore and among its yearning populace.
Runde’s family story is sweet, sad, and surprising.Pub Date: May 10, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-982180-17-1
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Scribner
Review Posted Online: March 15, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2022
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
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