An inspiring novel about the liberating paths blazed by Irish women.
An exciting and tender coming-of-age story about friendship, family, and the forces that shaped Irish women’s reproductive rights.
It’s 2023, and Saoirse has left the house after an argument with her boyfriend about whether or not to have children. Wandering the streets of Dublin, she ducks into the train station when it starts to rain. While sitting on a bench, she notices a photograph dropped by a stylish elderly woman as she hurries to catch her train. Intrigued, Saoirse picks up the photo and follows the woman onto the train, which is headed to Belfast. By the time she returns the picture, the train has started moving, and Saoirse winds up staying on it, listening to the woman, Maura Flynn, tell the story of her friend Bernie and the events leading up to the photo that was taken of them exactly 52 years ago. Maura worked as a shopgirl in Dublin in the late 1960s, and was thrilled when the dashing Dr. Christopher Davenport showed up to her counter at Switzers department store and asked to take her to the pictures. Soon after they married, however, his charming demeanor gave way to an uncontrollable temper and the perfect life she had imagined for herself quickly turned into a nightmare. Maura’s only lifeline was the other woman in the photograph Saoirse found on the platform: Bernie, a butcher’s wife and devoted yet harried mother of three. Together the two friends navigated marriage, family, and the struggles of being women in Ireland in the 1960s and ’70s. Bernie and Maura’s lives became intertwined with those of other women, including a dressmaker who altered dresses by day and secretly assisted women who didn’t want to be pregnant in the off hours. They grew both closer to each other and to the dangers that threatened them in their society. Inspired by Maura and Bernie’s story, Saoirse returns to her life in the present day with determination to change it for the better.
An inspiring novel about the liberating paths blazed by Irish women.Pub Date: March 11, 2025
ISBN: 9781668047385
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Gallery Books/Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Jan. 18, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2025
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
SEEN & HEARD
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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