An evocative, sometimes-shocking novel that’s slow to unfold.
In Robinson’s latest novel, a parolee struggles to forge a new life for himself in his decaying rural hometown.
Bilbo is a fictional small town situated somewhere on the Appalachian Trail. It has just one street, known to the locals as “Only Street,” and is the kind of place those passing through look forward to seeing in their rearview mirrors. Timewall Speaks has just been released from prison after serving two and a half years for stealing a beer. Although a seemingly minor misdemeanor, his parole officer delights in reminding him that his buddy had a gun, making it a felony, and Timewall “popped” the cop that came to arrest them. Returning to Bilbo, Timewall moves in with his mother, Blaize, a straight-talking hellcat who hangs out with bikers. He is sent to work at a car wash run by Roger Qualls, whom Timewall has detested since high school. Forced to accept less than minimum wage, the parolee is eager to find a way out of the dead-end job, whereas Roger is keen to settle a vendetta and help send Timewall back to prison. Timewall steals and restores an old vending machine from the car wash storeroom and sets it up in the woods, catering to hikers on the Appalachian Trail. He is astonished at how much money the machine makes him. A twist of fate also sees him return to school to study; but Bilbo’s shady underworld of drugs and corruption holds the power to ruin his progress.
Themes explored by Robinson in previous works—hiking, rural Appalachia, and escaping confining realities—intersect here with varying degrees of success. The author remains a master at building elaborately described worlds populated by psychologically believable characters. With stunning attention to detail, the novel transports the reader directly to the grubby parole office: “The desk was gray metal, rusty scratches, the paint worn at the corners from ages of passing hips.” A shrewd description of Buster, the parole officer, is an intentionally uncomfortable close-up, serving to emphasize the character’s suffocating demeanor: “Buster’s pate was as pink as undercooked chicken, his prickly face slick with some kind of lotion.” In his afterword, Robinson acknowledges that “there could be much to offer offense” in this novel. Certainly, Blaize’s blatant racism regarding President Barack Obama’s leaving office would verify the author’s statement: “At least we got that nigger out of there.” Robinson argues that “some offensive material” was necessary “to set the tone,” stating that “the world of the rural poor is not a pretty place.” Some readers will find such elements of the novel uncomfortable, whereas others may feel that Robinson is unfairly stereotyping a specific strata of rural society. In Timewall, Robinson has created a character that the reader hopes will find a better life—which makes for mildly compelling reading. But the book is snail-paced, and despite being beautifully descriptive, many will grow bored waiting for something significant to happen.
An evocative, sometimes-shocking novel that’s slow to unfold.Pub Date: July 18, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-9996042-5-0
Page Count: 298
Publisher: HighlandHome Publishing
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2020
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Fans of Stockett’s bestselling debut will love this engaging follow-up.
Stockett heads to Mississippi for another historical novel about feisty women.
This time, perhaps recalling criticisms of cultural appropriation in The Help (2009), she sticks to feisty white women, with one exception. The setting is Oxford in 1933. For two miserable years, 11-year-old Meg has lived in “the Orphan,” a county asylum for parentless girls. Chairlady Garnett—a villain so one-note she’d twirl a mustache if she had one—makes it her mission to ostracize the older girls she deems unadoptable, stigmatizing them as offspring of the “feebleminded” mothers who abandoned them. She particularly has it in for smart, sassy Meg, who refuses to believe her mother’s mysterious disappearance was deliberate. Elsewhere in Oxford, Birdie Calhoun comes to visit her sister Frances, who married a wealthy banker, to ask for money on behalf of their mother and grandmother back in Footely. Frances isn’t thrilled by this reminder of her impoverished small-town origins. But she’s trying to climb up in Oxford society by volunteering at the Orphan, the asylum’s books need to be done before the state inspector shows up in a few weeks, and Birdie is a bookkeeper. Having neatly arranged to keep Birdie in town and draw these two storylines together, Stockett goes on to spin a compulsively readable yarn with enough plot for a half-dozen novels. Birdie and Meg become friends, Meg is adopted despite Garnett’s best efforts, Meg’s mother turns up at the Orphan demanding to know where her child is—and that’s less than a quarter of the way through a long, winding narrative that keeps piling on more dramatic developments until all loose ends are neatly, if hastily, wrapped up in the final pages. Stockett might be making a point about Southern women facing facts and standing up for themselves, but mostly this is just a satisfyingly twisty tale that should make a great miniseries.
Fans of Stockett’s bestselling debut will love this engaging follow-up.Pub Date: May 5, 2026
ISBN: 9781954118812
Page Count: 656
Publisher: Spiegel & Grau
Review Posted Online: Feb. 2, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2026
BOOK REVIEW
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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