This is a lyrical meditation on love as well as storytelling itself.
A story for fans of Jenny Offill and Marguerite Duras.
The narrator of British poet Goddard’s debut novel is a writer who falls in love with an editor who publishes one of his quirky essays. The book highlights the way they meet and marry, and the contours of their relationship, through fragmented narrative. It is a tantalizing concept decently executed. For every lovely flourish of language, there is an odd moment that goes on a beat too long, such as early in the courtship, when the protagonist asks his lover to “push a bit of chewed-up potato into [his] mouth as if [he] were a baby bird,” and she does. To each their own when it comes to intimacy—and at the very least the vulnerability is admirable, as is the poetic gambit of the second person. Goddard’s use of the “you” address as a device throughout the book, as if the narrator is writing an extended letter to his beloved, works until it doesn’t. It makes sense to clarify the writer’s thoughts and feelings in certain moments, to show him understanding parts of their love story anew in hindsight, but it wears thin when he narrates events for the sake of the reader that the beloved would have been aware of as a participant, as in that time at the cafe, that other time at the bar, at dinner, at the party, at the pub. It does, however, offer readers the immediacy of a voyeuristic gaze. As a result, the story moves swiftly and elliptically in and out of reverie. Eventually the narrator slips into a malaise that reads as both idiosyncratic and relatable and touches on everything from the nature of labor and class to the role of media in our lives to living in an aging body. A funny and smart, insightful and strange story about time, memory, and grief.
This is a lyrical meditation on love as well as storytelling itself.Pub Date: Feb. 14, 2023
ISBN: 9781609458171
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Europa Editions
Review Posted Online: Dec. 23, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2023
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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