A compelling story of how men who revel in misogyny and privilege can create a brutal darkness.
In Bogotá, Colombia, where the light-skinned, smartly dressed men of the upper class hunt the streets, a group of former schoolmates will discover how far they can fall into a depravity born of their unquestioned privilege.
The self-named Tutti Frutti quintet is led by charismatic Tarabeo and manic, handsome Muñeco, who are followed by the rich, spoiled Duque and eager-to-assist Píldora. Hobbit, or Hobbo, who lives on the edges of the group in class and privilege, is their "interpreter," narrating their history in a blur of disbelief and horror. He begins when they were schoolboys, ruthlessly ruling the hallways, and continues into their adulthood, when they indulge in every manner of excess. All the men feel familiar, and they can skirt the edges of caricature when it comes to their misogyny—for example, Hobbo has a distant relationship with his mother despite his closeness to his sister, and Muñeco has an overindulgent mother, whom we only glimpse in stifling childhood descriptions. The only semideveloped female character is Duque’s girlfriend, Alicia, whom Hobbo calls Malicia, a "playful" nickname imbued with evil—he considers her a friend though he's secretly in love with her. Hobbit is the most self-perceptive of the group by far, but he falls prey to his own brand of narcissism, paying little attention to the ever growing perversion that ultimately leads Muñeco to stalk, rape, and kill a 7-year-old girl from the mountains on the outskirts of the city. The murder of the girl, whom even Hobbit refuses to name as he dissects her body in his mind, leads to an unusual public furor by her family and manhunt for Muñeco, testing the very souls of each Tutti Frutti member.
A compelling story of how men who revel in misogyny and privilege can create a brutal darkness.Pub Date: July 21, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-5420-4312-0
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Amazon Crossing
Review Posted Online: June 16, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2020
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 tart meditation on narrative and integrity.
A writer’s meeting with his mentor goes complicatedly awry.
Lerner’s slim fourth novel opens with an unnamed narrator arriving in Providence, Rhode Island, on a magazine assignment to interview Thomas, a professor who’s “among the world’s most renowned thinkers about art and technology.” Just before leaving his hotel, though, he accidentally knocks his phone in a sink, bricking it. His sole means of recording the interview gone, he triages, suggesting that he and Thomas conduct a pre-interview that evening and do a full-dress conversation the next day, after he can get the device fixed. The setup seems thin, but, this being a Lerner novel, rich ethical and philosophical questions fly off it: He’s concerned with the ways that an interview poisons authentic conversation, with our over-reliance on technology, and the moral dilemmas of talking to an unreliable source. (Thomas, 90, seems distracted and sometimes dotty.) Lerner’s true subject isn’t an interview so much as it is misapprehension and miscommunication; after the meeting with Thomas in the first section, the second and third parts are concerned with characters’ failures to understand something about each other, be it a romantic partner’s wishes or a child’s eating disorder. That last challenge makes for some of the most vivid, offbeat, and affecting writing Lerner has delivered—a surprise, given his fiction is typically marked by DeLillo-esque sangfroid. Another surprise is the relative embrace of a conventional story arc, as the narrator faces a reckoning about living in a “deepfake” world. This is slighter fare for Lerner but surprisingly potent given its length, interested in the ways that we manufacture our identities and how technology speeds the process along.
A tart meditation on narrative and integrity.Pub Date: April 7, 2026
ISBN: 9780374618599
Page Count: 144
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: Dec. 20, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2026
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