A memorable setting—while lacking in mystery, the finely tuned details impress.
In Lessard’s debut novel, a young man in prison seeks out a local legend.
In 2022, Tommy McConnell is 24 years old and serving a three-year sentence at the Providence State Penitentiary. Tommy is a “semi-habitual drug user” who was raised by abusive foster parents. A bar fight landed him in his current location, and he navigates prison life as best he can. He is also an avid reader who has taken up writing—most of his work tends toward ultra-violent fiction (such as the “tentatively titled ‘Attack of the Killer Zombie Rats from Hell’ ”), yet he is intrigued by a story of a man who has been locked up since the 1910s. The man’s name is Henry Heck. Supposedly Henry, the “Forever Young Prisoner,” can be found somewhere deep within the confines of the facility in a place known simply as “The Pit.” Tommy takes up an investigation; along the way he hears of other prison lore (like the “resident phantom,” Ol’ Morgan) and learns more about his own family history, including what happened to his biological parents. The narrative gives a nuanced version of prison life: For a prisoner, the wrong word to the wrong person will result in violence; on the other hand, two cellmates that get along may be able to watch TV and enjoy “Jack Mack, and burritos” during a lockdown. The novel proliferates with such fine points, some of which, as the author states in the epilogue, are based on his own real-life experiences. The search for Henry progresses, albeit not always in a thrilling way: The reader learns from flashbacks that Henry does exist, so Tommy tracking down his full story feels like a foregone conclusion. Though the payoff is not immensely rewarding, it is ultimately Tommy’s journey that counts.
A memorable setting—while lacking in mystery, the finely tuned details impress.Pub Date: March 27, 2023
ISBN: 979-8218168452
Page Count: 350
Publisher: Putnam Heights
Review Posted Online: June 6, 2023
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Fans of Stockett’s bestselling debut will love this engaging follow-up.
Stockett heads to Mississippi for another historical novel about feisty women.
This time, perhaps recalling criticisms of cultural appropriation in The Help (2009), she sticks to feisty white women, with one exception. The setting is Oxford in 1933. For two miserable years, 11-year-old Meg has lived in “the Orphan,” a county asylum for parentless girls. Chairlady Garnett—a villain so one-note she’d twirl a mustache if she had one—makes it her mission to ostracize the older girls she deems unadoptable, stigmatizing them as offspring of the “feebleminded” mothers who abandoned them. She particularly has it in for smart, sassy Meg, who refuses to believe her mother’s mysterious disappearance was deliberate. Elsewhere in Oxford, Birdie Calhoun comes to visit her sister Frances, who married a wealthy banker, to ask for money on behalf of their mother and grandmother back in Footely. Frances isn’t thrilled by this reminder of her impoverished small-town origins. But she’s trying to climb up in Oxford society by volunteering at the Orphan, the asylum’s books need to be done before the state inspector shows up in a few weeks, and Birdie is a bookkeeper. Having neatly arranged to keep Birdie in town and draw these two storylines together, Stockett goes on to spin a compulsively readable yarn with enough plot for a half-dozen novels. Birdie and Meg become friends, Meg is adopted despite Garnett’s best efforts, Meg’s mother turns up at the Orphan demanding to know where her child is—and that’s less than a quarter of the way through a long, winding narrative that keeps piling on more dramatic developments until all loose ends are neatly, if hastily, wrapped up in the final pages. Stockett might be making a point about Southern women facing facts and standing up for themselves, but mostly this is just a satisfyingly twisty tale that should make a great miniseries.
Fans of Stockett’s bestselling debut will love this engaging follow-up.Pub Date: May 5, 2026
ISBN: 9781954118812
Page Count: 656
Publisher: Spiegel & Grau
Review Posted Online: Feb. 2, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2026
BOOK REVIEW
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
© Copyright 2026 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
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