An intricate but uneven romance.
A writer enters therapy but struggles to confront her past in this novel.
Forty-four-year-old Jillian Barrister is a divorced woman who has recently remarried. Her new husband, Clay, a trial lawyer, is passionate and appears to adore her, but there is an unspoken rift between them. As Jillian’s closest confidante, Hope, concedes, “It was impossible to mate a hawk to a dragonfly and have things turn out well.” Meanwhile, David, Jillian’s ex-husband, remains attached to her, despite having been unfaithful, which in turn affects his own relationships. Jillian is attempting to come to terms with the breakup along with pain in her more distant past. Writing is part of her therapy, and she decides that her second novel with be based on her experiences with Clay, David, and her psychoanalyst, Dr. Gordon Allison. Jillian has started seeing Allison four times a week and their sessions prove far from conventional. The spirited novelist is keen on learning more about her therapist and presses him with awkward questions while deflecting opportunities to open up about her own childhood. Finally, a breakthrough is made, which leads to startling revelations. Clay’s own insecurities are also beginning to surface, as he grows increasingly suspicious of David. A crisis leads Jillian to flee to India, where she seeks to gain a deeper sense of self-understanding and reflect on the actions of those closest to her.
Robinson’s novel is ambitiously multifaceted in its aim to consider Jillian and her actions from a variety of perspectives. Clay’s brother remarks: “She’s untamed like a child, little brother. Restless like a child.” But the inclusion of Jillian’s correspondence with Hope paints the protagonist as strong and determined yet fragile. The result is that Jillian is shaped into a psychologically believable and complex principal character. Still, although the novel is intended to have a mildly erotic undertow, the author often crafts peculiarly unsexy turns of phrase, including this description of Clay and Jillian: “He’ll make love to her until everything is emptied out of her but sleep.” The dialogue is also frequently pretentious and contrived (Jillian: “Does the hunter complain of the hunt? The hunt is what you live for.” Clay: “You’re dissembling. Beating around the bush. Not telling me what I want to know”). Robinson includes quotes from Goethe and Nietzsche, among others, and Jillian speaks of her hopes of writing the “great American novel.” There is a sense that Robinson wishes to catapult this romance novel to the heights of highbrow literature. Yet despite some imaginative deviations, this book never reaches that level, often falling into romantic clichés, as when David declares to Jillian in a letter: “I think of you. I love you. I hold no one above you”—words dully reminiscent of Van Morrison’s ballad “Have I Told You Lately.” The portrayal of India as a space where Westerners go to heal is a stereotype, and is suggestive of an author struggling to tie up the complexities of a story at its denouement. Lovers of romantic fiction will enjoy this turbulent tale, but the book does not quite fulfill its intentions to deliver something more.
An intricate but uneven romance.Pub Date: Dec. 15, 2009
ISBN: 978-1-883911-91-1
Page Count: 218
Publisher: Brandylane Publishers, Inc.
Review Posted Online: April 25, 2022
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
SEEN & HEARD
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
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