While wordy at times, this tale of dangerous liaisons comes packed with raucous emotions.
A modern epistolary novel focuses on love and manipulation in the Bay Area.
It is August when Cécile Volanges writes to her friend Sophie Carnay. Cécile is in San Francisco staying with her cousin after completing most of her undergraduate degree at a private Christian college in Illinois. Cécile comes from a conservative family (her father calls San Francisco “San Sodom”), and she is engaged to a budding young conservative blogger named Jeremy Gercourt. Little does Cécile realize, Jeremy has a past in California. He was once the love interest of a cunning, wealthy young local named Oliver Merteuil. An acquaintance describes Oliver as “a terrible creature behind a gentle face and intense eyes.” Oliver would love nothing more than to see Cécile’s innocence shattered. As he flatly explains to his friend Nathan Valmont, “I need you to ruin her.” But Nathan already has someone in his sights. He wants to conquer Stefan Tourvel, the husband of a controversial alt-right personality. All such plans are merely the beginning. The sordid (and later violent) events that follow play out in electronic messages (and some handwritten letters) exchanged between characters. The story draws inspiration from the French epistolary novel Les Liaisons Dangereuses by Pierre Choderlos de Laclos and that book’s film adaptations. From the start, many of the messages in James’ tale prove drawn out. Rather than being concise, one individual rants: “Everything’s gone to shit and I don’t know what to do!! I’ve lost the first real thing that ever mattered to me! It’s all gone. It’s so fucked!!” Though verbose, the sentiments are nevertheless intense. They range from the erotic (one character reflects how he filled someone’s “ear with compliments and continued to kiss his skin and caress his thighs and cock gingerly”) to the earnest. At one point, Oliver presents a detailed explanation about the difficulties he faces as an effeminate gay man. People do not understand growing up with “the fear of speaking in class, hearing the waspy-inflection of your words—curled with the delicate-to-extreme lisp that you may have.” Such passionate words give these young connivers a human touch. Though they lack the mystique of someone from, say, Bret Easton Ellis’ Less Than Zero, underneath all their planning and trickery, they, too, have feelings worth sharing.
While wordy at times, this tale of dangerous liaisons comes packed with raucous emotions.Pub Date: Nov. 9, 2021
ISBN: 979-8-50-171755-8
Page Count: -
Publisher: Candiano Books
Review Posted Online: Aug. 12, 2021
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
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