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
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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