Subtle, incandescent, and luminous—a true master’s work.
An art critic chases the identity of a legendary forger through the testimonies of the aging counterculture denizens who knew her.
In 1960s Buenos Aires, a group of “tatty bohemians” take up residence in a decaying mansion they’ve dubbed the Hotel Melancholical. Among the poets, painters, photographers, translators, and philosophers that make up the heady menagerie is a hypnotically charismatic, flinty-eyed woman named Renée who is an accomplished art forger, specializing in the works of (real-life) Austrian Argentine portraitist Mariette Lydis. The hotel’s residents all have a role in the scheme—from forging the labels on the backs of paintings to publicizing the pieces to Buenos Aires galleries—and they all split the resulting profits, but they need somebody on the inside to provide the final touch: a certificate of authenticity from the art valuations department of the Ciudad Bank. This is managed by Enriqueta, Renée’s friend and fellow student at Argentinean Fine Arts Academy, who uses her position to pass along Renée’s forgeries for years until Renée, always a mercurial figure, drops out of the art scene and then out of sight entirely. Or at least this is what Enriqueta tells her new assistant, our narrator, who opens the novel many years later holed up in the Hotel Étoile, where she has retreated to write the story of the indomitable Enriqueta, known at the end of her long career at the bank simply as “Herself”; the fabled Renée, whose life the narrator pieces together through the contradictory accounts of her now-octogenarian cohort; and Mariette Lydis, whose actual story rivals anything that could be invented for her. Gainza’s expertise in the world of art criticism, with its cultivated language and capricious moods, and her loving eye for the history, architecture, and people of Buenos Aires are on display in this book, as they were in her debut, Optic Nerve (2019). As fine as that novel was, however, the nuance in the way this story develops, wending its way through its layers of plot, history, and biography even as it spotlights the unflinching women who stalk through them all, is the work of an author in full command of her talents. The result is an exploration of identity and authenticity that asks what it means to be “real,” as the term is applied either to a work of art or to a life.
Subtle, incandescent, and luminous—a true master’s work.Pub Date: March 22, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-64622-032-8
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Catapult
Review Posted Online: Jan. 11, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2022
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
A debut novel with bright spots, but unbalanced and lacking in finesse.
A high school senior pursues an affair with her teacher.
Seventeen-year-old Waldo, the narrator of McCurdy’s fiction debut, lives in Anchorage, Alaska, with her mother, though she’s long been the parent in their relationship. She heats her own frozen meals and pays the bills on time while her mom chases man after man and makes well-meaning promises she never keeps. Waldo blows her Victoria’s Secret wages on online shopping sprees and binges on junk food, inevitably crashing after the fleeting highs of her indulgences. Mr. Korgy, her creative writing teacher, has “thinning hair and nose pores”; he’s 40 years old and married with a child. Nevertheless—or possibly as a result?—Waldo’s attraction to him is “instant. So sudden it’s alarming. So palpable it’s confusing.” Mr. Korgy professes to want to keep their friendship aboveboard, but after a sexual encounter at the school’s winter formal that she initiates, an affair begins. Will this reckless pursuit be the one that actually satisfies Waldo, and is she as mature as she thinks she is? Waldo is a keen observer of people and provides sharp commentary on the punishing work of female beauty. Readers of McCurdy’s bestselling memoir, I’m Glad My Mom Died (2022), will surely be curious about the tumultuous mother-daughter relationship, and it is one of the novel’s highlights, full of realistic pity and anger and need. (“I want to scream at her. I want her to hug me.”) Unfortunately, the prose is often unwieldy and sometimes downright cringeworthy: When Waldo tells Mr. Korgy she loves him, “The words hang in the air in that constipated way they do when you know that you shouldn’t have said them.” Waldo frequently lists emotions and adjectives in triplicate, and events that could be significant aren’t sufficiently explored or given enough space to breathe before the novel races on to the next thing.
A debut novel with bright spots, but unbalanced and lacking in finesse.Pub Date: Jan. 20, 2026
ISBN: 9780593723739
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: Nov. 22, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2026
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
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