A compassionate story about one of the most consequential Americans of the 20th century.
A historical novel inspired by the public and private lives of Franklin D. Roosevelt.
FDR’s arc across the 20th century is broadly known: marriage and estrangement, polio and paralysis, election four times to the White House. The narrator, Bill Hassett, is a journalist who joins Roosevelt’s administration in 1935. For ten years he keeps a daily account of the public and private actions of the man he calls the Boss in an “effort to pierce the lifelong veil of secrecy FDR had drawn around himself.” Hassett wants to understand what makes FDR tick—he differs so completely from his predecessors—and he comes closer than most because the two men like and trust each other. The nickname “Sphinx” comes from FDR’s ability to keep his intentions to himself. Will he run for a third term in 1940? The press keeps asking, and like a sphinx, he refuses to answer. He doesn’t really want to, but if his Party insists…Then, in 1941, the United States goes to war. Once FDR makes a difficult decision, advisor Harry Hopkins says, he’s “serene as a goddamn Buddha.…He’s the damn Yankee Sphinx.” Hassett observes the emotional and physical separation between Franklin and Eleanor and offers a fascinating reason why they didn’t divorce so Franklin could marry Lucy Mercer Rutherford. Franklin is a complex man with frailties both moral and physical: He uses a wheelchair beginning in 1921 following a bout with polio and is eventually diagnosed with congestive heart failure, yet he claims to be in “exemplary health” while doctors beg him to cut down on smoking. But Hassett learned in his youth that life is “about as eternal as a lit match,” a theme that gains ever more relevance as the president’s health declines. This is closer to nonfiction wrapped in skilled storytelling in the manner of Jeff Shaara’s novel The Old Lion (2023), about FDR’s fifth cousin, Teddy Roosevelt. Readers won’t be able to distinguish the diarist’s remembrance from the author’s fiction, save the dialogue.
A compassionate story about one of the most consequential Americans of the 20th century.Pub Date: May 5, 2026
ISBN: 9781250876898
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Flatiron Books
Review Posted Online: Feb. 2, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 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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