A perplexing but intriguing addition to the library of proto-postmodernism.
A pioneering work of metafiction by a little-known but masterful Belgian writer.
Begun in German-occupied Belgium in 1943, this multilayered story by Boon (1912–1979) was first published 10 years later—but in any event, surely before its time. It’s set in a backwater town in a backwater part of Flanders, not especially far from Brussels but far enough away for the capital to be a kind of dreamland, a place to which only an adventurous few villagers escape. One is ondine (Boon’s proper nouns are lowercased), introduced at the start of the novel, whose narrator promises that it will concern not just that blond-ringleted 19th-century social climber but also her wayward brother valeer, “with his monstrous head wobbling through life this way and that,” who manages to infuriate ondine for a cardinal sin: “in his tiredness and shabbiness he looked happy.” Ondine is the Candide of the tale, if Voltaire were Céline and ondine lived in the worst of all possible worlds: She steals from the chapel’s offertory box, affects saintliness (“She couldn’t bear it that anyone was holier than she”), despises her working-class but aspirational father and his illiterate fellow millworkers, and tries not to realize that “the root of her wretchedness…was her own nature.” Atop and throughout all this, Boon layers a satirical history of European politics and its “nazi, marxist and encyclicalist regimes,” weaves in a lively retelling of the medieval tale of the randy and larcenous reynard the fox, and plays with the conceit that this is a novel within a novel that’s certainly no holiday in Bruges to read: “who the devil almighty can make sense of this book? Nobody, except me, boon, and maybe I’m only pretending to myself that I can.” And that’s just so.
A perplexing but intriguing addition to the library of proto-postmodernism.Pub Date: Oct. 21, 2025
ISBN: 9781628975192
Page Count: 340
Publisher: Dalkey Archive
Review Posted Online: Sept. 13, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2025
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
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
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