A well-written tale brings to life the twilight years of a captivating historical figure.
This historical novel focuses on Napoleon’s last years, awash in intrigue and poignant with loss.
After the defeat at Waterloo, Napoleon is exiled to St. Helena in the South Atlantic, about as far away from France as possible. He comes with a small entourage, among them his faithful valet, Marchand; Albine, Countess de Montholon, and her husband, Charles; and Napoleon’s childhood friend Francesco Cipriani. Napoleon’s nemesis on the island is the governor, Gen. Sir Hudson Lowe, a petty and vindictive bureaucrat. The five years on St. Helena are filled with Napoleon’s longings, chiefly that he will likely never again see his young son, “the Eaglet,” who was spirited off to Vienna by his mother, Marie Louise. These are years of treachery—an underlying theme is Napoleon’s lifelong realization that he can never completely trust anyone—and plots to escape or seek medical release that, as readers know, will come to naught. The narrative consists of those parts focusing on Napoleon, those sections related by Albine, and excerpts from the novella Clisson et Eugénie that the former leader worked on his whole life. The novella is fleshed out by Rodenberg, who deserves kudos as a rigorous researcher and gifted writer. Two characters really stand out in this intricate tapestry: Napoleon (no surprise) and Albine. Napoleon comes across as imperious when need be but also kind and unpretentious, reflecting his humble beginnings on Corsica. And Albine is a true wonder. Good at heart, she is the classic survivor. She always has a crust of bread in her pocket—a very nice touch—and is not above petty thievery and the useful lie. She is also Napoleon’s mistress and bears him a daughter, Joséphine, who, alas, dies some months after Albine makes it back to Europe. And then there’s Tobyson, the little boy who adores Napoleon and is a stand-in, in a way, for the Eaglet. The little acolyte brings out the best in the fallen emperor. An afterword helpfully separates fact from fiction.
A well-written tale brings to life the twilight years of a captivating historical figure. (acknowledgements, author bio)Pub Date: April 6, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-64742-016-1
Page Count: 393
Publisher: She Writes Press
Review Posted Online: Jan. 4, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2021
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Even when it stress-tests your senses, this sprawling depiction of gay life in Jamaica is galvanizing.
Equal parts detective story and sociocultural history, James’ new novel takes a deep, harrowing dive into the tragic consequences of violent homophobia.
The “disappearers” of the title are Orrin Turner and Matt Chin, who dominate this decades-spanning saga without being seen or heard through most of it. They are two of the gay men—“battymen” in Jamaican idiom—who show up at a Kingston house on a June night in 1988 to rehearse for a production of Fortune and Men’s Eyes, a play set in a prison. The group is savagely attacked by a mob, leaving one of the actors dead, one blinded for life, and the rest bloodied and injured. Survivors of the attack spend most of the succeeding years recovering from both physical and psychic wounds, among them Jordan Brown, who describes himself as “full-time battyman, sometime prostitute. Occasional thorn in somebody’s backside,” and Eddy Porteous, who arrived too late at that fateful rehearsal to become a casualty but nonetheless is haunted, like Jordan, by the inexplicable disappearance of both Turner and Chin since the attack. Despite constant carping between them, Jordan and Eddy team up roughly six years after the attack in search of clues to their friends’ whereabouts. While the process yields few hints, their inquiries on the streets, in bars, and at other gathering places for Kingston’s battymen contribute to a grim but illuminating collective portrait of the country’s gay community at a time when the AIDS crisis was in its early, often frightening stages and of the alarmingly widespread homophobia leading to that brutal attack. As in his Booker Prize–winning A Brief History of Seven Killings (2014), James brings multilayered life to a troubling era in his homeland’s recent history. He engages with his landscapes and the diverse characters populating them with intensity, passion, and bountiful, often graphic detail. With the same affinity for Dickensian storytelling he’s shown in his sword-and-sorcery epics, James tells this searingly realistic tale through interview fragments, journal entries, letters, and, in recreating the horrific attack, with random, frantic voices that leave unsettling echoes.
Even when it stress-tests your senses, this sprawling depiction of gay life in Jamaica is galvanizing.Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2026
ISBN: 9780593717202
Page Count: 640
Publisher: Riverhead
Review Posted Online: June 15, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2026
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
PERSPECTIVES
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
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