Funny, original, worldly, and very cool. A standout.
A 21-year-old Polish woman wins the immigration lottery, then keeps getting lucky.
As this unusual caper novel opens, our narrator, Viva—new to Los Angeles after a failed attempt to start her American life in Chicago—picks up a woman hitchhiking in a green cocktail dress on the 101. Bobby Sleeper turns out to be from Poland, too, though from a much wealthier and more cosmopolitan background. “At any given moment, half the population of LA is giving therapy to the other half,” Bobby informs Viva when she takes her out to lunch in gratitude for the ride. “Fifty percent of LA is depressed. Only five percent of Bhutan is. You ever been here?…The hamachi salad’s yummy.” Later that day, Viva takes a position as live-in personal assistant to Bobby and her rich, hot husband, Sebastian Sleeper, a retired film director. Along with the couple’s acerbic gay housemate, Lance, the group will engage in the daily custom of “spritzatura”—a Spritz Veneziano in the hot tub at dusk. One of many amusing aspects of Zyzak’s tale is its perspective; though the action occurs in 2018, it’s narrated from 2079, when Viva is 84, allowing for clever asides about how things “used to be” in our current time. Zyzak does an amazing job with Viva’s narration—because her English is not perfect, her understanding of the hyperarticulate Bobby runs a little behind the reader’s, though Viva has some insights she withholds until the very end (and a fine ending it is). The caper that sends the plot into overdrive involves The Lady Waiting, a (fictional) Vermeer painting stolen in a 2009 Berlin museum heist. Two of Bobby’s ex-husbands and Bobby herself have become involved in a scheme to return it for the huge reward, $50,000 of which can be Viva’s if she helps out. With its madcap plot, fantastic central characters, and White Lotus–style wealth porn (the kind where a character eats caviar off the kitchen floor after the jar falls out of the fridge), screenwriter Zyzak’s second novel seems like catnip for Hollywood.
Funny, original, worldly, and very cool. A standout.Pub Date: May 7, 2024
ISBN: 9780593542941
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Riverhead
Review Posted Online: Feb. 17, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
PERSPECTIVES
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles...
Sisters in and out of love.
Meghann Dontess is a high-powered matrimonial lawyer in Seattle who prefers sex with strangers to emotional intimacy: a strategy bound to backfire sooner or later, warns her tough-talking shrink. It’s advice Meghann decides to ignore, along with the memories of her difficult childhood, neglectful mother, and younger sister. Though she managed to reunite Claire with Sam Cavenaugh (her father but not Meghann’s) when her mother abandoned both girls long ago, Meghann still feels guilty that her sister’s life doesn’t measure up, at least on her terms. Never married, Claire ekes out a living running a country campground with her dad and is raising her six-year-old daughter on her own. When she falls in love for the first time with an up-and-coming country musician, Meghann is appalled: Bobby Austin is a three-time loser at marriage—how on earth can Claire be so blind? Bobby’s blunt explanation doesn’t exactly satisfy the concerned big sister, who busies herself planning Claire’s dream wedding anyway. And, to relieve the stress, she beds various guys she picks up in bars, including Dr. Joe Wyatt, a neurosurgeon turned homeless drifter after the demise of his beloved wife Diane (whom he euthanized). When Claire’s awful headache turns out to be a kind of brain tumor known among neurologists as a “terminator,” Joe rallies. Turns out that Claire had befriended his wife on her deathbed, and now in turn he must try to save her. Is it too late? Will Meghann find true love at last?
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles (Distant Shores, 2002, etc.). Kudos for skipping the snifflefest this time around.Pub Date: May 1, 2003
ISBN: 0-345-45073-6
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2003
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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