A thoughtful, complex exploration of art and womanhood.
In this debut novel, a walk through an art exhibition slowly reveals the history of the artist.
Seven years after Alice Snyder’s death, her daughter Violet is back in Washington, D.C., for a posthumous exhibition of her brilliant but complicated mother’s work as put together by her beloved younger sister, Marigold, who’s also an artist. As Violet wanders through her mercurial mother’s artworks, exhibited mostly chronologically, author Mitchell Donahue inserts museum labels describing each one, and follows them with snapshots of Alice’s life. The chapters set in the first room, with Alice’s paintings of her young daughters in classical style, focus on the girls’ memories of that time, as they carefully tiptoe around their mother’s moods, doing their best to keep the peace with their ever-patient father as Alice struggles to juggle being an artist and a mother. The second room, with the three-dimensional fabric pieces that defined Alice’s later work, shifts to a time before the girls’ birth, as college-aged Alice; her future husband, Arthur, an astronomer; and Gabriel Grant, her then-boyfriend, a rich artist, dance around each other in a precarious web of relationships that create the off-balance family the girls inherit. As the novel moves ahead, even as it goes backward in time, each character becomes more human. Mitchell Donahue weaves a tale that will make the reader want to flip back and reread, as details later in the book clarify earlier moments in new and interesting ways. Despite knowing from the very first pages how Alice’s story will end, it’s almost impossible not to be drawn into the complicated, slowly unfolding chaos of Alice’s life as each artwork—each chapter—adds another dimension to her character. Still, her many faces—muse, artist, wife, and mother—can’t encompass all of her. Her daughters can never fully know her and neither can the reader.
A thoughtful, complex exploration of art and womanhood.Pub Date: March 3, 2026
ISBN: 9798998954764
Page Count: -
Publisher: Galiot Press
Review Posted Online: Feb. 16, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2026
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
An existential crisis that steps on its own final moments.
With only a month left until the world ends due to a swiftly approaching black hole, Don and Rodney, a retired gay couple, road-trip from Maine to Washington to spend their final days with their son.
After reports that a planet-swallowing black hole is making its way toward Earth, Rodney and Don—who have been together for 40 years and survived everything from homophobia to the HIV crisis—decide to pack their belongings into an RV, say goodbye to their neighbors, and travel from Camden, Maine, to Washington to uphold a promise to spend their final days with their son. They can’t wait any longer, since there’s already chaos around the country: “Military vehicles in the streets of most cities and towns. Looting, rioting, the burning of cars and buildings and people, all of it had already happened.” As they make their way west across the country, they encounter fellow travelers ranging from close-knit families to free-spirited hippies, some of whom have come to terms with the impending end of the world and others who haven’t. While the story seems to be asking readers what they would do if they had 30 days left to live, and reflects on what different kinds of acceptance might look like in the face of unavoidable tragedy, it loses some of its poignancy in a series of thinly padded monologues about the meaning of life. Clearly intended to pack an emotional punch, it’s failed by an abrupt ending, and the way the journey’s mystery—which will be obvious to many readers—is revealed by an info dump in the last chapter.
An existential crisis that steps on its own final moments.Pub Date: April 28, 2026
ISBN: 9781250881236
Page Count: 176
Publisher: Tor
Review Posted Online: March 9, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2026
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