A distinctive, fragmentary story of an artist’s painful coming of age.
A troubled screenwriter reflects on his origins in Gaiter’s literary novel.
Louisiana-born, Harvard-educated Jessie Vincent Grandier III comes to Los Angeles to break into screenwriting. It’s something of an adjustment; Jessie has been raised mostly among the white people on his Black father’s military bases and the upper-class, light-skinned Blacks of his Creole mother’s New Orleans family. Staying with relatives in South LA, he’s exposed to an entirely new Black community—and the culture shock is profound. Just as discombobulating is the realization that Hollywood is not filled with the semioticians of his Ivy League film classes but with businessmen who place little value on art or imagination. When he loses his job as a script reader at a television network, Jessie begins a slide into alcoholism and bitterness. As he does, his memory travels to his childhood as a military brat, the lone boy in a family of five; his failures to live up to his violent father’s standards of masculinity; his attempts, in high school and college, to excel beyond other people’s racist expectations; his relationship with his now-deceased mother, Lulene; his love of music; and the complex emotions he has regarding his own identity as a gay man. Is it too late to become the person Jessie has always wanted to be? Perhaps he is destined to become as embittered and uptight as the man he’s never wanted to emulate: his father. Gaiter’s lively prose presses against the confines of every sentence: “In case you hadn’t noticed,” he addresses the reader midway through, “somewhere along the line, between the vicious, whip-wielding nuns, and Grandier’s military fist, Jessie had developed an aversion to authority, being told what to do, and having others’ assumptions thrust upon him.” The book’s real pleasure is in this dynamic voice rather than the plot, which doesn’t develop so much as accumulate through a series of flashbacks. The text includes occasional news articles, poems, and photographs; together, these shards memorably tell the story of a man attempting to assemble the ill-fitting pieces of a life.
A distinctive, fragmentary story of an artist’s painful coming of age.Pub Date: June 24, 2024
ISBN: 9798990289901
Page Count: 337
Publisher: Legba Books
Review Posted Online: Aug. 2, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2024
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
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
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
