A quietly elegant debut from a writer with great promise.
An author upends her book tour to confront the man who changed her life.
Pham’s astute debut novel follows first-time author Christine on her book tour. When she receives an anonymous email (“That’s not how I remember it”), she immediately knows it’s her former art professor, Richard. After a decade of no contact, the email sends her spiraling. She can’t believe he’s read her autofictional, if exaggerated, novel, in which he was the inspiration for the villain. Cleaved into two parts, the novel’s first half follows Christine as she connects with strangers and estranged people from her past on tour stops. In a particularly beautiful and evocative chapter, Christine reunites with her former classmate and friend Frances. Upon discovering that she’s given up painting, Frances asks Christine: “Isn’t it painful?....To abandon a medium. There are so many things I can’t say any other way.” This conversation—imbued with their charged history of intimacy and competitiveness—allows Christine to begin to grapple with her own art: what she created in the past, what she creates now, and what she may create in the future. The novel’s second half takes her to a remote island off the coast of Maine when she accepts Richard’s invitation to come to his home. When she arrives, Christine finds herself shocked by Richard’s rapid aging (“the decade that seems to have collapsed in an instant”). The pain of the past hangs heavy in the air around both of them. Despite herself, Christine feels an uncomfortable mix of fury and pity toward him as they begin to slowly and painfully address the wound at the center of their relationship. The novel simmers with tension and tenderness as Christine ponders the past and comes to terms with the present. Pham’s lithe prose is especially on display in her musings about love, intimacy, power, art, writing, survival, and agency.
A quietly elegant debut from a writer with great promise.Pub Date: Jan. 20, 2026
ISBN: 9780593979648
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: Oct. 9, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2025
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
A pleasant if not entirely convincing tribute to the power of art.
A French art historian’s English-language fiction debut combines the story of a loving relationship between a grandfather and granddaughter with an enlightening discussion of art.
One day, when 10-year-old Mona removes the necklace given to her by her now-dead grandmother, she experiences a frightening, hour-long bout of blindness. Her parents take her to the doctor, who gives her a variety of tests and also advises that she see a psychiatrist. Her grandfather Henry tells her parents that he will take care of that assignment, but instead, he takes Mona on weekly visits to either the Louvre, the Musée d’Orsay, or the Centre Pompidou, where each week they study a single work of art, gazing at it deeply and then discussing its impact and history and the biography of its maker. For the reader’s benefit, Schlesser also describes each of the works in scrupulous detail. As the year goes on, Mona faces the usual challenges of elementary school life and the experiences of being an only child, and slowly begins to understand the causes of her temporary blindness. Primarily an amble through a few dozen of Schlesser’s favorite works of art—some well known and others less so, from Botticelli and da Vinci through Basquiat and Bourgeois—the novel would probably benefit from being read at a leisurely pace. While the dialogue between Henry and the preternaturally patient and precocious Mona sometimes strains credulity, readers who don’t have easy access to the museums of Paris may enjoy this vicarious trip in the company of a guide who focuses equally on that which can be seen and the context that can’t be. Come for the novel, stay for the introductory art history course.
A pleasant if not entirely convincing tribute to the power of art.Pub Date: Aug. 26, 2025
ISBN: 9798889661115
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Europa Editions
Review Posted Online: June 7, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2025
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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