A searing narrative that starkly reveals the full tragedy of the refugee crisis.
Wentling’s novel offers an intimate depiction of the migrant crisis that sheds light on hidden suffering.
In 2003, Alya Tsehay Adal,an Ethiopian woman, leaves her home country, her grandmother, and her daughter to find work abroad: “Her survival and the lives of her child and family depended on the money she would send them from working in another country. For her, it was a matter of life or death.” Determined to support her family, she navigates a shadowy bureaucracy before finally landing a job as a domestic worker for a wealthy family in Dubai. Her life there is precarious as she struggles to balance her child care and cleaning duties. After the family fires her for falling ill, Alya perseveres and finds work with others in the city. Her position is still far from secure; she must leave more than one job to avoid sexual advances from male family members. Even when she finds better employers, they’re not always welcome in the United Arab Emirates, since they themselves are religious and ethnic minorities. After barely surviving a mysterious illness, Alya takes even riskier chances and gets caught up in the pitiless world of human trafficking. After a lonely stint as a maid in Iraq, her desperation increases, and she risks her life once again. Throughout, Wentling paints a thorough and horrifying portrait of people caught up in a brutal system, illuminating the complex trials and humiliating experiences that migrant workers endure. The straightforward depictions of Alya’s relationships with her employers underscore how the latter treat workers as disposable human beings. Detailed portraits of Ethiopian and Emirati life and customs provide informative context. Against this vivid background, Alya herself sometimes seems more like an underdeveloped cipher than a full-fledged protagonist. Still, the overall picture of a growing crisis is damning in its texture and detail.
A searing narrative that starkly reveals the full tragedy of the refugee crisis.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: 193
Publisher: Manuscript
Review Posted Online: Jan. 23, 2024
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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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