A capably written, if rather leisurely, novel of a vacation relationship.
In Dahl’s novel, an American tourist in need of a reset seeks answers in Southeast Asia.
Lidia DeCampos has allowed her old friends, the Vondervilles, to talk her into taking part in a group tour of Namyan. The Southeast Asian country has recently reopened to the world after years of isolation, boasting beautiful colonial architecture, Buddhist temples, and other picturesque sights. The tour group, led by Namyanese guide Thila, consists of 18 Americans from various walks of life, and together they travel the country in an air-conditioned bus. Lidia, a textbook illustrator in her 60s, is trying to get back to enjoying life after a long, difficult period that she’d rather not discuss. She starts the trip with a bang by consuming a psychoactive betel nut and making a fool out of herself on the very first day. The other Americans turn out to be an intense group, each with a history of personal and professional dissatisfaction; they include a retired colonel; a right-wing, retired oilman; an insect researcher; and a video blogger. Lidia finds herself gravitating toward fellow traveler Klaus Haynes, a self-described “extreme political adventure travel blogger.” But will she find anything in Namyan that she can take back home to her lonely life in New York City? Dahl’s prose is measured and often lyrical, particularly in her descriptions of the fictional Namyan, which is modeled on Myanmar: “The equivalent of most of the world’s cathedrals was spread out as far as they could see—walled ruins of a palace stretching for acres, temples placed like giant chess pieces waiting to be played under the blazing sun.” The characters are well constructed, but not a lot happens to them over the course of the story; the most exciting event involves the police enforcing Namyan’s severe laws involving footwear. The shaggy story structure is perhaps appropriate for a travel novel, however. For maximum enjoyment, the reader is advised to not worry too much and simply go along for the ride.
A capably written, if rather leisurely, novel of a vacation relationship.Pub Date: April 19, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-64742-329-2
Page Count: 232
Publisher: She Writes Press
Review Posted Online: Dec. 27, 2021
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Fans of Stockett’s bestselling debut will love this engaging follow-up.
Stockett heads to Mississippi for another historical novel about feisty women.
This time, perhaps recalling criticisms of cultural appropriation in The Help (2009), she sticks to feisty white women, with one exception. The setting is Oxford in 1933. For two miserable years, 11-year-old Meg has lived in “the Orphan,” a county asylum for parentless girls. Chairlady Garnett—a villain so one-note she’d twirl a mustache if she had one—makes it her mission to ostracize the older girls she deems unadoptable, stigmatizing them as offspring of the “feebleminded” mothers who abandoned them. She particularly has it in for smart, sassy Meg, who refuses to believe her mother’s mysterious disappearance was deliberate. Elsewhere in Oxford, Birdie Calhoun comes to visit her sister Frances, who married a wealthy banker, to ask for money on behalf of their mother and grandmother back in Footely. Frances isn’t thrilled by this reminder of her impoverished small-town origins. But she’s trying to climb up in Oxford society by volunteering at the Orphan, the asylum’s books need to be done before the state inspector shows up in a few weeks, and Birdie is a bookkeeper. Having neatly arranged to keep Birdie in town and draw these two storylines together, Stockett goes on to spin a compulsively readable yarn with enough plot for a half-dozen novels. Birdie and Meg become friends, Meg is adopted despite Garnett’s best efforts, Meg’s mother turns up at the Orphan demanding to know where her child is—and that’s less than a quarter of the way through a long, winding narrative that keeps piling on more dramatic developments until all loose ends are neatly, if hastily, wrapped up in the final pages. Stockett might be making a point about Southern women facing facts and standing up for themselves, but mostly this is just a satisfyingly twisty tale that should make a great miniseries.
Fans of Stockett’s bestselling debut will love this engaging follow-up.Pub Date: May 5, 2026
ISBN: 9781954118812
Page Count: 656
Publisher: Spiegel & Grau
Review Posted Online: Feb. 2, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2026
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
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