With comic energy and wild plot twists to spare, a thoroughly charming debut.
The problems of a very modern family in a slightly surreal world.
Meet the Flynns. With their marriage on the rocks, Catherine and Bud don’t have much time or energy to supervise their three daughters: beautiful, uncooperative Abigail, in love with a young man known as War Crimes Wes; brilliant, deranged Harper, who speaks seven languages but is suspended from school more often than not; between them, Louise, a classic middle child, to whom nobody is paying attention as she gets herself in serious trouble in an online chat room. Cash’s debut novel has fun with everything it touches, rocketing through the points of view of the family members and other townspeople, delighting in wordplay and absurd details. Introduced early on is a gnat problem—gnats have infested the church of Our Lady of Suffering as well as a sculpture on the town green, and they have also infested every word in the text that has the syllable “nat”—extermignate, gnatural, dognate, siggnature, and so forth. Though the town itself is never named, its principal feature, Alabaster Harbor™, is always trademarked: “Bud was the accounts and systems manager at Alabaster Harbor™—not some backwater artery of commerce but the primary port for the entire western coastline, the premier gateway for domestic and intergnational trade.” Corruption at the harbor is one of many storylines; another follows Bud’s attempt to find solace for his wife’s disdain by joining a support group called Lost Lambs, based at Our Lady of Suffering and run by the cheerful Miss Winkle. Also based at the church is Father Andrew, whose background is not in theology but in French cinema: “Father Andrew loved the world of French film, where a girl’s sexuality gave her agency, where there were fewer restrictions and more topless chain-smoking on the beach.” Between the crowd of quirky characters and drastic situations, the high-flying sentences and prose style, and Cash’s relentless joke-cracking, the novel is, like Harper, almost too clever for its own good—but the Flynns stay just real enough to win our hearts.
With comic energy and wild plot twists to spare, a thoroughly charming debut.Pub Date: Jan. 13, 2026
ISBN: 9780374619237
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: Sept. 27, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 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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