A thoughtful, engrossing tale about sowing order in the midst of chaos.
A woman takes a job as a housekeeper at a monastery in rural New Zealand only to discover surprising levels of crime and drama in this debut literary novel.
The Hokianga, New Zealand. When a nun comes to offer Jill Strachan work as a housekeeper at the local Anglican monastery, she isn’t sure what to think. Sister Isobel, the founder and head of Saint Clement’s Hermitage—as the former goat farm is known—is an odd woman with bad teeth who insists that religious life is a battlefield. Jill’s husband, Martin, who has been wheelchair-bound since an accident, thinks the job can be a necessary source of income for the family, though Jill knows she will have to bring her “precocious” 4-year-old daughter, Melissa, along. Jill and her family move onto the grounds of Saint Clement’s, where Sisterbel (as Melissa calls her) cheerfully demands they follow her rather strict monastic rules. Jill soon finds herself spending a lot of time with Gary Barter, a former rock star-turned-handyman who has been tasked with reforesting the area with eucalyptus and other trees. Martin continues to spend time with his creepy friend Liam “Spook” O’Donnell, who encourages his darker moods and self-destructive behavior. Before long, Jill and Gary discover that the monastery’s grounds are being used to grow illegal marijuana and criminals are machine-gunning wild goats in the area. It turns out the quiet life at the monastery may be a battlefield after all. Campbell’s prose is measured but vivid, capturing both the idiosyncratic culture and landscape of the setting: “Melissa’s kauri looked quite naked in the grove. Mute and lonely, it stuck up from the patch of trampled clay. It had no more presence than a weed. We are joined again to the earth, Jill thought, which our feet have never ceased to tread.” The novel proceeds at a ruminative pace through each of its 400-plus pages, and there are several spots where readers will be in danger of becoming bored. While it certainly could have been shorter, the book’s meditation on its characters and their struggles—as well as its romantic setting—will mostly manage to please.
A thoughtful, engrossing tale about sowing order in the midst of chaos.Pub Date: Nov. 9, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-70693-001-3
Page Count: 424
Publisher: Self
Review Posted Online: March 10, 2020
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
Though uneven, this is still a pleasurable, comforting read.
Infertility, family secrets, and alpacas all figure in Quindlen’s latest meditation on mothering and domesticity.
Polly’s life looks enviable. Happily married to the adoring Mark—a vet at the Bronx Zoo—she teaches English at a private Manhattan girls’ school and loves her work. She has a protective older brother and close girlfriends, who’ve formed a book club where no one is expected to read the book. But Polly desperately wants a child and, at 42, knows time is running out. She and Mark have gone through endless fertility treatments, to no avail. Meantime, Polly’s friends have given her a DNA kit as a jokey birthday gift, and something mysterious shows up in the test results. Then, out of nowhere, a young woman contacts her, suggesting they may be related. That’s not all: Polly feels estranged from her mother, a revered judge who’s insufficiently maternal in her daughter’s view. Her father has always cherished her, but he’s in a nursing home now with a rapidly failing mind. And something is amiss with her best pal, Sarah. Quindlen’s trademark empathy is evident throughout, and her wry humor leavens some of the serious goings-on. Early on, Mark and Polly visit a fertility clinic with photos of babies in the waiting room; for Polly, “it felt…like a Weight Watchers facility with hot fudge sundae pictures on the wall.” Then we meet these charming alpacas, humming and pronking, on a farm run by an earth mother, whose wisdom will help Polly get on with her life. The plot swerves around a bit, there may be one surplus narrative thread (e.g., Polly’s star student Josephine running aground after graduation), and at the end, the author ties things up too neatly, pushing the “circle of life” theme too hard.
Though uneven, this is still a pleasurable, comforting read.Pub Date: Feb. 24, 2026
ISBN: 9780593734605
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: Nov. 22, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2026
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