Intriguing, poignant, and well-written, but sexually overloaded.
A work of autofiction that revisits Zimmerman’s complicated, doomed-from-the-beginning first marriage.
Mel, the author’s stand-in protagonist, is 22 years old when readers meet him in 1961 on his way from San Francisco to visit his friend Jack in the latter’s Berkeley apartment. An aspiring writer, Mel has just secured his creative writing bachelor’s degree. Without a summer job and nursing the pain of several short-lived relationships, he is once again looking for love. Marlena enters his life; a striking sexual adventurer of Italian heritage, she is six years older than Mel. He is immediately smitten, but Marlena is the girlfriend of another resident in Jack’s building, and she is more attracted to women than to men, anyway. For a time, Mel tries to keep his distance, but the intensity of their mutual attraction is not to be denied. So begins a lengthy, tumultuous, angst-filled love affair that displays elements of a physical and emotional sadomasochistic relationship, with Marlena in control. Mel struggles with his attempts at playwriting while studying for his graduate degree. He accepts an out-of-state university’s offer to be a creative writing instructor, which leads to the couple’s continual separations, during which Marlena takes up with a variety of female lovers. Still, they marry, and as the narrative meanders through the social and musical signifiers of the late 1960s, it takes readers through the couple’s five troubled years of matrimony. Zimmerman lays out the defining parameters of their relationship early in the saga: During one of their breakups, in a moment of painful clarity, Mel tells Marlena, “The truth is, you’re my enemy. You get inside me and destroy me from within. And the worst of it is, I let you do it.” In lengthy passages, Zimmerman dwells on the details of their sexual relationship, which he describes repeatedly and graphically. Occasional copy-editing oversights notwithstanding, his prose is steady and engaging, skillfully communicating Mel’s emotion-laden obsession with Marlena and her wanderings while maintaining a narrator’s distance. Though Mel finally leaves his nemesis/inamorata behind, this erotic tale is exhausting for protagonist and reader alike.
Intriguing, poignant, and well-written, but sexually overloaded.Pub Date: May 26, 2024
ISBN: 9798330345175
Page Count: 298
Publisher: Self
Review Posted Online: Jan. 13, 2025
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
