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AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SKIN

Name: AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SKIN
Author: Lakiesha Carr
ISBN: 978-0-593-31653-5

by Lakiesha Carr ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 28, 2023

With vivid writing and characters, Carr's debut is sometimes brutal or sentimental, always passionate, never boring.

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A deep plunge into the depths of violence, faith, and love experienced by several Black Texan women at various stages of life as they consider how they have both wounded and been wounded by those they’ve loved.

Whether seen as a novel or three novellas linked by overlapping characters, Carr’s debut is by turns eloquent and raw, fantastical and realistic. Part I focuses on the unhappiness and regrets of middle-aged Nettie as she mourns the anniversary of her mother’s death many years earlier. Nettie describes herself as a member of the “generation of integrators” whose parents fought for civil rights and whose kids are disillusioned by the results. Long married to a man with whom she can no longer communicate, Nettie tries to escape loss and regret through gambling and drinking. Her only real solace is her friend Peaches, with whom she shares a nightly cigarette over the phone. Peaches’ daughter, Ketinah, is the link to Part II, concerning Ketinah’s friend Maya. Raised in comfort and well educated, she has never confronted the in-your-face violence her husband, Troy, knows all too well and hopes to escape by “assimilation” into a White, middle-class Houston neighborhood. Struggling with postpartum depression, Maya grows distraught over the barrage of news about Black people killed by police until her panic-stricken desire to protect her children slips toward madness. Ketinah herself narrates Part III, a tour de force that shifts from gritty realism to gothic otherworldliness (though it's sometimes overwritten). Ketinah, her mother, Peaches, grandmother Eloise, and two great aunts weather a storm together in a San Antonio house eating, bickering, drinking, and mourning loves lost until Eloise and Ketinah’s gift of "the sight,” an ability to see the dead, leads to dramatic revelations. Carr uses the eerie setup to express Eloise’s emotional wisdom based on faith in “Love. Ghosts. God.”

With vivid writing and characters, Carr's debut is sometimes brutal or sentimental, always passionate, never boring.

Pub Date: Feb. 28, 2023

ISBN: 978-0-593-31653-5

Page Count: 256

Publisher: Pantheon

Review Posted Online: Dec. 13, 2022

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2023

Categories:

LITERARY FICTION | GENERAL FICTION

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BETWEEN SISTERS

by Kristin Hannah ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 1, 2003

Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles...

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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

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

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THE CORRESPONDENT

by Virginia Evans ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 6, 2025

An affecting portrait of a prickly woman.

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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.