An eclectic if uneven collection of short stories.
Ranging from Nepal to Tijuana to Rome and beyond, Newman’s second collection explores how people from disparate countries, cultures, and circumstances come together.
The title story is about a girl who grows up in an orphanage in New Orleans that isn’t quite what it seems, and while it isn’t the book's strongest, it does demonstrate many of the author’s strengths. Newman excels at succinctly providing her characters with rich histories and pacing the surprising, well-executed turns in some of the stories. She can be inventive with form and creative with plotting. The story “Swisher Sweets,” for example, plays with chronology and point of view to show how complicated grief is as a woman mourns the death of her ex-husband while managing his affairs on behalf of their grown children and her former mother-in-law. There are also moments of tenderness and insight. In “The House of Naan and Saffron,” the first-person narrator, reflecting on his Norwegian family’s time in India as missionaries, says of his parents, “If my father was a stingy moralist and my mother an occasional drunk, they covered for each other, and under that cover I was safe.” Later he says, “It is easier to play the rebel of your own life than to actually lead it.” Other stories show off a dark sense of humor. But there are moments when the writing feels heartless rather than funny or clever. “Sweet Nothings,” a story about a friendship between two men living in Tijuana, is clumsy in its use of Spanish and stereotypical imagery like mariachis and jumping beans. It includes a callous quip about “an alien (outer space, not illegal).” In "The Little Ice Girl," also set in Tijuana, Newman writes, “On this day Ana wore the dress her grandmother hand-stitched out of flour sacks; she looked like a faded, walking billboard for tortillas. A triangle of calico pulled her black hair back from her churro-brown face.” These insensitivities distract from otherwise skillful storytelling.
An eclectic if uneven collection of short stories.Pub Date: Jan. 19, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-883285-96-8
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Delphinium
Review Posted Online: Oct. 26, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2020
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
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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