Historical verisimilitude worthy of a Ken Burns documentary but oh so much more lurid.
A saga of the Civil War gathers all the usual suspects—enslaved people, slave owners, abolitionists, soldiers, and nurses—but the result is far from clichéd.
Kelly’s ambitious tale begs to be called “sweeping,” but its chief virtue is the way it homes in on the microcosms, some horrific, inhabited by its three narrators. Georgy, from New York, one of seven daughters of the abolitionist Woolsey family, is determined to become a nurse. She studies with Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell, America’s first female medical school graduate, and strives to batter down prejudice not just against women doctors, but women nurses. Despite her proven ability, she’s often replaced at battlefield hospitals by incompetent, drunken male nurses. Jemma’s family is enslaved on the Peeler tobacco plantation in the border state of Maryland, where the White population seems equally divided between Union and Rebel sympathies. Firmly in the second camp is Anne-May, who inherited the Peeler plantation from her elderly Aunt Tandy Rose, flouting her late aunt’s testamentary directive to free Peeler’s slaves. Anne-May is bad to the bone, whips Jemma regularly, employs a brutal overseer, spends her family’s dwindling funds on fripperies, is addicted to snuff, and takes advantage of her husband’s absence at the front to flagrantly carry on an affair with a local merchant. The affair turns into a spying mission for the Confederacy, involuntarily abetted by Jemma, who, more literate than Anne-May, is forced to write down Union secrets in Anne-May’s little red book. And that’s only the beginning of Anne-May’s moral bankruptcy. These alternating, intimate vantage points situate readers in the chaotic political, military, and social hellscapes of Civil War America, from Gettysburg to the draft riots. Cliffhangers closing each chapter keep the plot moving at a satisfying clip.
Historical verisimilitude worthy of a Ken Burns documentary but oh so much more lurid.Pub Date: March 30, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-5247-9640-2
Page Count: 528
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: March 2, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2021
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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