A welcome introduction to the short fiction of an essential writer.
Centrifugal, pensive, often elusive stories by the one of the greatest living Russian writers (and leading anti-Putinist).
“After breaking up with her latest lover, Martha committed suicide in an indecently literary manner: having gone to the hairdresser and manicurist, she threw herself under a train.” So Ulitskaya, hitherto known in English for her novels, dispenses with the high-living mother of a pensioner who’s determined to take a quieter route out of the mortal world than her mother took decades earlier; instead, Alisa determines that she’s going to stock up on pills and depart on her own terms. The trouble is, she needs a doctor to write a prescription, something easier said than done, and a proposition packed with tragedy all on its own. In another story, lesbian lovers marry in Amsterdam, “the most tolerant city in the world,” though when their family comes from Azerbaijan and Armenia to find two women at the altar, they intolerantly turn around and fly home, “having thereby refused to participate in the forthcoming blasphemy.” The couple is happy all the same—until, that is, death intervenes, as it so often does in Ulitskaya’s stories. Punctuated with a handful of portentous intervening poems (“I’m entering the final episode, / and whether it’s sweet or sour matters not, / so long as it formulates the ultimate meaning”), the stories have a sometimes surreal edge, as with an evocative ghost story in which a pathologist is visited by the spirit of a young man on whom he has just performed an autopsy. The stories are, beg pardon, haunting, though marked by occasional odd turns of phrase that would seem to be direct renderings of idiomatic expressions that don’t quite travel well in English: “Normal men with appropriate sexual attributes never struck root in this family.” “ ‘He’s a student of mathematics, not a dog’s prick!’ ” Even so, the stories are marvels of economy and the unexpected twist, each a memorable tour de force.
A welcome introduction to the short fiction of an essential writer.Pub Date: Oct. 31, 2023
ISBN: 9780300270938
Page Count: 168
Publisher: Yale Univ.
Review Posted Online: Aug. 26, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2023
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
Though uneven, this is still a pleasurable, comforting read.
Infertility, family secrets, and alpacas all figure in Quindlen’s latest meditation on mothering and domesticity.
Polly’s life looks enviable. Happily married to the adoring Mark—a vet at the Bronx Zoo—she teaches English at a private Manhattan girls’ school and loves her work. She has a protective older brother and close girlfriends, who’ve formed a book club where no one is expected to read the book. But Polly desperately wants a child and, at 42, knows time is running out. She and Mark have gone through endless fertility treatments, to no avail. Meantime, Polly’s friends have given her a DNA kit as a jokey birthday gift, and something mysterious shows up in the test results. Then, out of nowhere, a young woman contacts her, suggesting they may be related. That’s not all: Polly feels estranged from her mother, a revered judge who’s insufficiently maternal in her daughter’s view. Her father has always cherished her, but he’s in a nursing home now with a rapidly failing mind. And something is amiss with her best pal, Sarah. Quindlen’s trademark empathy is evident throughout, and her wry humor leavens some of the serious goings-on. Early on, Mark and Polly visit a fertility clinic with photos of babies in the waiting room; for Polly, “it felt…like a Weight Watchers facility with hot fudge sundae pictures on the wall.” Then we meet these charming alpacas, humming and pronking, on a farm run by an earth mother, whose wisdom will help Polly get on with her life. The plot swerves around a bit, there may be one surplus narrative thread (e.g., Polly’s star student Josephine running aground after graduation), and at the end, the author ties things up too neatly, pushing the “circle of life” theme too hard.
Though uneven, this is still a pleasurable, comforting read.Pub Date: Feb. 24, 2026
ISBN: 9780593734605
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: Nov. 22, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2026
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