Impossible to classify, this novel raises big questions about memory and identity.
A surreal story bridges historical trauma with existential nightmares.
Olsen’s latest novel begins in recognizable terrain before branching into increasingly expansive, experimental spaces. It opens in Berlin in 1933, when a girl named Edie Metzger—not quite 3 years old—is taken by her parents in the night to a massive book burning. Olsen opts for a fragmentary approach here, juxtaposing the innocence of young Edie, who doesn’t understand what’s happening—“those men over there are grilling books, which means everyone will get to sample some soon”—with other onlookers who embrace or shun fascism. There are echoes of Olsen’s My Red Heaven (2020), set in Berlin a few years before this, but soon, the setting leaps forward in time and across an ocean to New York City. In a series of fragmentary passages, a narrator who is revealed to be Edith Metzger chronicles her (real-life) friendship with Ruth Kligman and their encounters with Jackson Pollock, all leading up to the fateful car accident that killed both Metzger and Pollock. The novel’s second half takes things into an increasingly stranger realm, following other versions of Edie/Edith, including a man named Eddy, a woman named Edda, and a child onboard the Lusitania as it sinks. Olsen juxtaposes the miraculous and uncanny with moments that emphasize more mundane concerns. This is a world where, in the face of the potentially supernatural, “the event slowly bleached away into the informational background, superseded by what seemed more pressing quotidian concerns from school shootings to the price of milk.” It’s not always an easy read, but Olsen depicts the horrors of history and more speculative anxieties with equal power.
Impossible to classify, this novel raises big questions about memory and identity.Pub Date: April 16, 2024
ISBN: 9781950539956
Page Count: 226
Publisher: Dzanc
Review Posted Online: Feb. 3, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2024
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
Great crime fiction.
An apparent suicide threatens to destroy an Irish farm town in the final volume of French’s Cal Hooper trilogy.
In the fictional western Ireland townland of Ardnakelty, “there’s a girl going after missing.” Soon young Rachel Holohan is found dead in the river. Shortly before, she had stopped at Lena Dunne’s home, and nothing had seemed amiss. The medical examiner determines she’d swallowed antifreeze, and he presumes she then fell from a bridge into the water. The medical examiner and the town agree she’d died by suicide. But there is far more to the plot: 16-year-old Trey Reddy thinks Tommy Moynihan murdered Rachel. Moynihan doles out favors and punishments to the local townsfolk, who know it’s best not to cross him. Now rumors spread that Moynihan wants land and has a secret plan to forcibly buy up parcels from the locals. A factory will be built, or a great big data center, or who knows what. If Tommy’s son, Eugene, can get elected to the local council, then compulsory purchase orders for land will follow, and the farms will disappear. Eugene, who’d been romantically involved with Rachel, is wonderfully described as “on the weedy edge of good-looking” and just fine as long as you “don’t have high expectations in the way of chins.” Lena is engaged to the American Cal Hooper, an ex-cop turned woodworker. They are “more or less raising” Trey, and these three core characters are drawn into the mystery of Rachel’s death and may have to face the looming clouds of civilizational change for Ardnakelty. Lena is chastised for “asking your wee questions all round the townland,” and Trey wants to quit school, against Cal’s advice. Finally, the story’s best line: “You can’t go killing people just because they deserve it.”
Great crime fiction.Pub Date: March 31, 2026
ISBN: 9780593493465
Page Count: 496
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: Dec. 26, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2026
© Copyright 2026 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
