A vivid, visceral portrait of family farm life.
A captivating poetry collection inspired by the author’s family farm and orchard in Rhode Island.
Though Sasso pursued writing and publishing as an adult, the natural surroundings of his youth clearly made their marks on him. These poems take readers back to Avellino, Italy, from which the author’s great-grandfather set sail for the United States. The grandfather planted apple trees as “faith fruit,” because they don’t bear apples for eight to nine years. Over the course of 60-plus poems, Sasso explores all the challenges of farm life, from tractor troubles to a 68-day drought and underground fires. The themes of faith and death recur as the family struggles to survive working the land. Eventually, the farmers’ bodies give out, and their lifestyle is abandoned. A vacant home, an empty shed, a rusty tractor, and an overgrown orchard are all that remain. Sasso deeply grounds his work in the land he knows so well. From the “dark, wet / fertile” earth and “the knife of wind” to the “soot-stained snow” and the sunset like “a drawstring closing a black satin bag,” the poet evokes rural Rhode Island. He also pays as much attention to the people who populate the farm, orchard, and surrounding community. You can practically smell the “beer swollen, sweat-sour men” working the field with scythes and see a father eating “watery egg, / weak tea, gray toast” in a dark kitchen at 2 a.m. Some of the poems feel superfluous and barely qualify as poetry, such as “Farm Inventory,” which is a list of tools used by the grandfather farmer. Sasso also sticks to free verse throughout the entire book, which can wear on the reader; greater variety of form would have made this a more dynamic read.
A vivid, visceral portrait of family farm life. (dedication, acknowledgments, attributions)Pub Date: Oct. 8, 2020
ISBN: 979-8-66-898029-1
Page Count: 146
Publisher: Self
Review Posted Online: Feb. 24, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2021
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
PERSPECTIVES
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles...
Sisters in and out of love.
Meghann Dontess is a high-powered matrimonial lawyer in Seattle who prefers sex with strangers to emotional intimacy: a strategy bound to backfire sooner or later, warns her tough-talking shrink. It’s advice Meghann decides to ignore, along with the memories of her difficult childhood, neglectful mother, and younger sister. Though she managed to reunite Claire with Sam Cavenaugh (her father but not Meghann’s) when her mother abandoned both girls long ago, Meghann still feels guilty that her sister’s life doesn’t measure up, at least on her terms. Never married, Claire ekes out a living running a country campground with her dad and is raising her six-year-old daughter on her own. When she falls in love for the first time with an up-and-coming country musician, Meghann is appalled: Bobby Austin is a three-time loser at marriage—how on earth can Claire be so blind? Bobby’s blunt explanation doesn’t exactly satisfy the concerned big sister, who busies herself planning Claire’s dream wedding anyway. And, to relieve the stress, she beds various guys she picks up in bars, including Dr. Joe Wyatt, a neurosurgeon turned homeless drifter after the demise of his beloved wife Diane (whom he euthanized). When Claire’s awful headache turns out to be a kind of brain tumor known among neurologists as a “terminator,” Joe rallies. Turns out that Claire had befriended his wife on her deathbed, and now in turn he must try to save her. Is it too late? Will Meghann find true love at last?
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles (Distant Shores, 2002, etc.). Kudos for skipping the snifflefest this time around.Pub Date: May 1, 2003
ISBN: 0-345-45073-6
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2003
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
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