A compelling portrayal of turmoil both personal and global.
Two former Allied spies reunite following World War II in a mission against ongoing Nazi activity in Europe and French Guiana.
During the war, American Josie Anderson and Frenchwoman Arlette LaRue lived together in Paris—along with Arlette’s young son, Willie—and worked as spies. They sent information on Nazi communications to the Allied forces in London and were so successful that they were known across Europe as the Golden Doves. Then they were caught and sent to the Ravensbrück concentration camp. Now, seven years after the end of the war, they are each immersed in new work: Josie is working for U.S. Army intelligence in Fort Bliss, Texas, as part of Operation Paperclip, interviewing former Nazi scientists to determine if their work would be useful in the knowledge race against the Soviet Union, and Arlette is working at a cafe in Paris and searching for Willie, from whom she was separated at Ravensbrück. The friends cross paths on an unexpected joint mission when Josie is sent to Europe to track down the notorious Dr. Snow, who led experiments on women—including Josie’s mother—at the camp, and Arlette travels to French Guiana to visit an organization caring for war orphans on a tip that her son might be there. Kelly’s latest work of historical fiction revisits Ravensbrück, the German concentration camp for women that featured in her bestselling debut novel, Lilac Girls, and explores the long-term effects of the war and the ethical consequences of Operation Paperclip. In alternating first-person sections that move over a seven-year-period, Josie and Arlette narrate their experiences in detailed and evocative prose, though the story takes a while to get going given its efforts to develop a detailed backstory as well as a complicated plot.
A compelling portrayal of turmoil both personal and global.Pub Date: April 18, 2023
ISBN: 9780593354889
Page Count: 528
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: Feb. 23, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2023
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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