An ambitious novel about the possibility of redemption within families.
A patriarch’s death causes a reckoning for his troubled children in Lipinski’s debut literary novel.
Dawn Udell is back in her hometown of Tulsa to attend the funeral of her semiestranged father, a prominent local pastor. A struggling LA screenwriter, she happens to be in the middle of writing a television pilot about the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre—an event to which her White family has a murky connection. Tension with her father over an interracial crush in high school is what sent her west in the first place. Now, her father’s death reunites her with her two siblings whose lives are no simpler for having remained in town. Her sister, Sheila, is a hospice worker who has become reliant on pills. She’s also been carrying on an affair with the married son of one of her dying patients. Her brother, Andrew, followed their father to the pulpit…and also into infidelity. His marriage is on the rocks since his wife discovered his most recent affair, and he’s unsure how to repair his image in the eyes of the gossips in his congregation. To distract himself, Andrew has been researching his great aunt Kitty Harrison, a 1930s communist and labor activist. The story is told by each of the four in turn, Kitty included, in flashbacks—revealing how each of them is haunted in different ways. “You don’t know what it’s like being stuck here, ghosts all around you,” Sheila says to Dawn at one point. “Of course, I know what it’s like,” she responds. “That’s why I left.” Can this funeral serve to exorcise the ghosts not only of the siblings’ childhood, but of their family’s sins going back to the dark beginnings of Tulsa’s racial history? It’s a tall order, but it may be the only way to survive the weekend.
Lipinski’s prose is smooth and surprising, insightfully probing uncomfortable images and emotions: “It was startling how much his face resembled a finely sculpted wax effigy more than the father she’d seen last about two years ago at Christmas….This was what death looked like. Flesh left behind, like a tree cut down. She took a deep breath, relieved to find the room smelled antiseptic and clean.” The siblings are compellingly messy. Each starts out truly unlikable and slowly wins the reader over (mostly) as the origins of their dysfunctions are revealed. The dysfunction carries over into the larger portrait of Tulsa—a city that Lipinski summons with unexpected vibrancy—and its fraught history. Dawn expresses some ambivalence about whether or not the Tulsa Race Massacre is a story she should be telling, and it’s clear the author has considered such topics as well. To the extent that the book is about racism, it is about White people attempting to grapple with racism within their own families—as well as a host of other unsavory tendencies that seem to spill over from one generation to another. The novel succeeds in dramatizing the attempt, at least, and does so with a cast of flawed and vivid characters.
An ambitious novel about the possibility of redemption within families.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: -
Publisher: Manuscript
Review Posted Online: April 13, 2022
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
A dark and twisty look at just how far one woman is willing to go to find inspiration.
A struggling writer finds an unexpected muse when a mysterious man shows up at her cabin.
Petra Rose used to pump out a bestselling book every six months, but then the adaptation happened—that is, the disastrous film adaptation of her most famous book. The movie changed the book’s storyline so egregiously that fans couldn’t forgive her, and the ensuing harassment sent Petra into hiding and gave her a serious case of writer’s block. Petra’s one hope is her solo writing retreat at a remote cabin, where she can escape the distractions of real life and focus on her next book, a story about a woman having an affair with a cop. When officer Nathaniel Saint shows up at her cabin door, inspiration comes flooding back. Much like the character from Petra’s book, Saint is married, and he’s willing to be Petra’s muse, helping her get into her characters’ heads. Petra’s book is practically writing itself, but is the game she’s playing a little too dangerous? Does she know when to stop—and, more importantly, is Saint willing to stop? Hoover is no stranger to controversial movie adaptations and internet backlash, but she clarifies in a note to readers that she’s “just a writer writing about a writer” and that no further connections to her own life are contained in these pages—which is a good thing, because the book takes some horrifying twists and turns. Petra finds herself inexplicably attracted to Saint, even as she describes him as “such an asshole,” and her feelings for him veer between love and hate. The novel serves as a meta commentary on the dark romance genre—as Petra puts it, “Even though, as readers, we wouldn’t want to live out some of the fantasies we read about, it doesn’t mean we don’t enjoy reading those things.”
A dark and twisty look at just how far one woman is willing to go to find inspiration.Pub Date: Jan. 13, 2026
ISBN: 9781662539374
Page Count: -
Publisher: Montlake
Review Posted Online: Sept. 27, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2025
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