Like the Venetian candies in the last story, these intense little gems evaporate “like racy air.”
Nine stories take us into the world of people cooler and more attractive than we are.
Trendy bars, awards shows, political fundraisers, the right type of butter (Kerrygold), wedding table centerpiece (wildflowers in McCann's oatmeal tins), even the better side of the street (“the fine side of Bleecker, with the awnings and dachshunds”)—all the aspirational pleasures you could ever want are on offer in Taddeo's first story collection following her big nonfiction debut (Three Women, 2019) and a novel (Animal, 2021). People magazine may offer pictures of movie stars, but here we actually get to experience sex with one. In “Beautiful People,” a downtrodden prop master on a big movie set ends up, to her amazement, with the hottest man alive in her apartment, where he makes her veal osso buco and takes her to bed. “The first five hundred times it went in, it felt like the first time. There was no drug on earth, Jane knew, no man on earth, like this.” The dominant focus of the stories, however, is less relationships between men and women than the triangulation (or even quadrilateralization) of women around men. “American Girl” is about three women eyeing each other around the hot young senatorial candidate they all adore; “Maid Marian” is about the jealousy of an ex for her older lover’s wife. That former story contains a sentence that seems to crystallize the mood: “Noni was holding court with a few lesser-thans, in a corner with some Fernet and twinge.” Always the women are comparing bodies: “Fern was skinnier than Liv, but Liv was blond and tall and her breasts were enormous and thrillingly spaced.” “Back then, I think I had the better body. My butt and legs were more exciting.” This aggressively shallow approach is no accident—look what’s coming: “We would turn twenty-four and twenty-six and thirty. We would be leaving an acquaintance’s funeral—heroin, Cape Cod—and the dead boy’s father would turn to look at us, our rears. We've still got it, Sara would say. I laughed out loud, because I’d been thinking the very same thing.”
Like the Venetian candies in the last story, these intense little gems evaporate “like racy air.”Pub Date: June 14, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-982122-18-8
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Avid Reader Press
Review Posted Online: March 15, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2022
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
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