An unsuccessful hybrid hampered by unengaging writing.
Beer, the author of The Hampshire Project(2017), combines fictional tales with personal recollections to explore themes of marriage and infidelity.
The book opens with 16 short stories that describe relationships gone stale and tackle themes of temptation and betrayal. The opening work, “The Old Lies Are the Truth,” is about Harry, an elderly man whose wife is sent to a nursing home while he continues an affair with his mistress, Grace. When his daughter returns home, they’re both forced to confront old emotional scars as well as new wounds. In “Amy’s Arm,” two savagely competitive sisters lead very different lives but unexpectedly come together when one is injured in combat. In the timely “The Voyage,” a couple whose marriage is struggling take a cruise only for their ship to come under quarantine because of the Covid-19 outbreak. The stories are followed by Beer’s short memoir, which describes her growing up in New England as the privileged child of a Harvard academic, her time spent studying at Harvard and Cornell, her marriages and heartbreaks, and her finding a vocation as a writer. Readers may be surprised to find a collection of stories and a memoir in the same volume, but this bold decision may be an attempt by the author to show how her life shaped her work. And, indeed, it’s an interesting exercise to identify echoes of Beer’s past in her fiction. However, the two genres don’t sit well together; the memoir reads as an afterthought, characterized by hurried reflection: “My mom dies in 1987. Packing for the airport, my knees don’t work—I have to walk around with bent legs.” Overall, the emotional impact of key life events feels unnecessarily condensed. Similarly, Beer’s short stories, with few exceptions, flatly narrate their events: “they spent a lot of it in bed, at least at first. Luckily he was able to take Viagra, so that was great, but sometimes they just skipped it and invented new substitutes.” There are a few unpredictable plot twists and provocative love triangles, but they’re insufficient for truly compelling reading.
An unsuccessful hybrid hampered by unengaging writing.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: 978-1-63210-096-2
Page Count: -
Publisher: Plain View Press
Review Posted Online: Jan. 5, 2024
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
A shaky balance between saccharine and sage will nevertheless appeal to the author’s fans and readers seeking balm.
An elderly man’s posthumous journey back through his life has unexpected consequences for several people, and lessons for everyone.
It is a truth universally acknowledged that readers adore any novel set in a reading group, bookshop, or library, from the terribly sad (The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, 2008) to the puzzle-heavy (Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore, 2012) to the downright clever (The Uncommon Reader by Alan Bennett, 2007). Haig, who’s already written The Midnight Library (2020), mines a similar vein in this novel centered on a bookseller named Wilbur Budd; place this one in the seriously sentimental category. Wilbur dies at 81 just after receiving a call from his ex-wife, Maggie. He finds himself on a classic steam-train carriage, accompanied by a younger version of the woman who founded the bookstore he turned into a global conglomerate. As Mrs. Agnes Bagdale explains, he’s on a trip to significant places and events from his life, but he’s forbidden from interfering in them, thus possibly changing the course of other people’s lives. True to his maverick tendencies, Wilbur struggles with the three rules of the train (“You get on and off the train as required. You never try and speak to yourself. And you must never be there when you fall asleep”) and struggles even more mightily as he realizes that Maggie was his true love and lifelong lodestar. While some moments verge on maudlin, as when Wilbur and Maggie goggle at Venice during their honeymoon, these are tempered by quieter observations, as when Wilbur’s oldest friend, Charlie, tells him frankly during lunch at a trendy restaurant that his constant ambition is a failing. This isn’t a subtle book and it’s not trying to be; it’s urging readers to think about their own choices, wherever they find themselves.
A shaky balance between saccharine and sage will nevertheless appeal to the author’s fans and readers seeking balm.Pub Date: May 26, 2026
ISBN: 9780593833377
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: Feb. 16, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2026
© Copyright 2026 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
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