A thoughtful and suspenseful tale draws upon past and contemporary fears with aplomb.
In Johnson’s novel, a grandmother and granddaughter with extrasensory perception try to protect themselves and other “changing ones.”
This speculative story, set mostly in Baltimore, follows Linda Russell, a Black woman whose evolving powers of ESP draw her into a quiet but intense struggle. She works as an analyst at the private research initiative Genesis alongside John Bates, with whom she’s in a relationship, where she works to understand what’s happening to gifted people like herself. Her teenage granddaughter, Celeste, who’s calm and perceptive, becomes the focus of her growing concern, as the child has “the ability to sense when the body or mind is in distress due to illness, pain, or fear.” The government shuts down an organization called Health Services Inc. after discovering that it had been targeting minorities like Celeste through genetic testing and unethical procedures. Meanwhile, a U.S. senator considers holding a public symposium for people with similar sensitivities, and Celeste is bullied at school. Linda’s relationship with Reggie, an older gym worker whom she instinctively trusts without knowing why, takes on new weight when she learns he, too, has unusual sensory abilities. As Linda and Celeste’s network of allies grows to include former intelligence officers and medical professionals, Genesis continues to collect data—and the government is watching. Johnson tells this story in short, episodic chapters, rarely more than five pages in length, which keeps the narrative moving at a nice clip—and with a slow accumulation of dread. Some of the dialogue leans a bit too heavily on small talk, with the hellos and how-are-yous of ordinary conversation cluttering up exchanges more often than not, but the interactions still effectively carry emotional weight. The novel treads some of the same thematic ground as Octavia E. Butler’s 1993 novel, Parable of the Sower, as well as Marvel Comics’ X-Men stories, particularly in its interest in social fear and the difficulties that face gifted outsiders. However, Johnson also focuses on other distinct concerns—privacy, family, medical consent—as the story builds steadily toward a tense and fast-moving final third.
A thoughtful and suspenseful tale draws upon past and contemporary fears with aplomb.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: 9798992555318
Page Count: -
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: Sept. 2, 2025
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
An evocative and moving tribute to the death-defying, heart-opening, infinitely redemptive power of storytelling.
A chance meeting in a museum unlocks a long-closed door in a family’s past.
Of a piece with her last three novels—Commonwealth (2016), The Dutch House (2019), and Tom Lake (2023)—Patchett’s latest explores the evolution of families over time, romantic secrets, and step-relationships, again giving these topics the wry and tender treatment that is distinctively hers. As it begins, Daphne Fuller’s attentive husband, Jonathan, notices that a man has been following them through the Metropolitan Museum of Art. At first they chalk it up to the fact that “old guys love [Daphne],” as she told Jonathan decades ago, a notion he has held onto "like a souvenir postcard from another era." But it turns out that, though Daphne doesn’t recognize him, Eddie Triplett is her former stepfather. Like the author herself, as recalled in her 2020 essay “Three Fathers,” Daphne has had three dads. Her biological father, a deep-sea fisherman named Buddy Zabriskie, left the family early; her current stepfather, Lucas Ekker, lives with her mother in retirement in Massachusetts. Ekker is an unprepossessing sort Abby met working as the publicist for his self-help books, Positivity!, Positively Positive!, The Positivity Workbook!, Positive Every Day!, ad infinitum. The man in the museum, Eddie Triplett, was also someone her mother met through her job in publishing, and once Daphne realizes who he is, she remembers that “[their] hearts were forever stitched together.” This is because Daphne and Eddie were in a serious car accident when she was 9 years old, after which her mother immediately divorced him and evicted him from their lives. The details of that accident—among them lies the reason the novel is named after a horse called Whistler—are gradually wheedled out of Daphne by her younger sister, Leda, a clinical psychologist in New York and a reliable source of insight on the narrative’s key issues. “‘You make it sound like I’ve been keeping all this from you, but I’m not,’ [Daphne] said. ‘Who goes through life thinking about what happened when they were nine?’ ‘It’s all people think about,’ Leda said.”
An evocative and moving tribute to the death-defying, heart-opening, infinitely redemptive power of storytelling.Pub Date: June 2, 2026
ISBN: 9780063511637
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: April 6, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2026
PERSPECTIVES
PERSPECTIVES
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
© Copyright 2026 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
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