If truth is stranger than fiction, this makes a strong case that it’s also a better read. Stick with the news.
When you’re the Big Guy, life is good. Sharp wife, devoted daughter, friends in high places, and (obvs) lots of money, he inhabits his privilege and prestige with presumption and ease. But when Obama is elected president, his comfortable perch at the top of the pecking order suddenly feels more precarious than preordained. A nation’s progress is the Big Guy’s existential crisis—and call to action.
Set entirely during the weeks between Election Day 2008 and Inauguration Day 2009, Homes' new novel chronicles the Big Guy’s dual missions: to right the courses of both his country and his marriage. (One of these tasks will be easier than the other.) In the early morning hours of Nov. 5, 2008, stricken, enraged, and reeling from the “Hindenburg” election results, the Big Guy decides to put together an A-Team, a cabal of haves—“members of the good fortune club”—that convenes to shoot guns and go ballooning and plot a deep elite countermine to “reclaim our America.” While this happy plan is coming together, the Big Guy’s personal life is unraveling, and his tightly wound wife, Charlotte, is having a crisis of her own: “I forgot to have my life,” she tells him. “I’ve been having your life for a quarter of a century.” Set in relief to the jejune and tedious primary storyline, this complicated relationship is devastatingly articulated, far more nuanced and engaging. “Nine p.m. is prime time for bed, to be alone, to have themselves to themselves, to have finished the business of being a couple,” Homes writes, deftly explaining their early dinner habit and so much more. Alas, the blowhards in the how-we-got-here wannabe satire prequel keep bigfooting the B side: “Someone needs to grab this country by the balls and wake it the hell up,” the Big Guy tells his uninspired co-conspirators. Big words, but not nearly big enough to out-outrageous the footage, quotes, testimony, and exposés that have dominated American life since 2015. It must be noted: The reality of how we got here has already been extensively reported elsewhere to eye-popping effect and is far more shocking than anything here.
If truth is stranger than fiction, this makes a strong case that it’s also a better read. Stick with the news.Pub Date: Sept. 6, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-73-522535-0
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: July 26, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2022
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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