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
A welcome literary resurrection that deserves a place alongside Wright’s best-known work.
A falsely accused Black man goes into hiding in this masterful novella by Wright (1908-1960), finally published in full.
Written in 1941 and '42, between Wright’s classics Native Son and Black Boy, this short novel concerns Fred Daniels, a modest laborer who’s arrested by police officers and bullied into signing a false confession that he killed the residents of a house near where he was working. In a brief unsupervised moment, he escapes through a manhole and goes into hiding in a sewer. A series of allegorical, surrealistic set pieces ensues as Fred explores the nether reaches of a church, a real estate firm, and a jewelry store. Each stop is an opportunity for Wright to explore themes of hope, greed, and exploitation; the real estate firm, Wright notes, “collected hundreds of thousands of dollars in rent from poor colored folks.” But Fred’s deepening existential crisis and growing distance from society keep the scenes from feeling like potted commentaries. As he wallpapers his underground warren with cash, mocking and invalidating the currency, he registers a surrealistic but engrossing protest against divisive social norms. The novel, rejected by Wright’s publisher, has only appeared as a substantially truncated short story until now, without the opening setup and with a different ending. Wright's take on racial injustice seems to have unsettled his publisher: A note reveals that an editor found reading about Fred’s treatment by the police “unbearable.” That may explain why Wright, in an essay included here, says its focus on race is “rather muted,” emphasizing broader existential themes. Regardless, as an afterword by Wright’s grandson Malcolm attests, the story now serves as an allegory both of Wright (he moved to France, an “exile beyond the reach of Jim Crow and American bigotry”) and American life. Today, it resonates deeply as a story about race and the struggle to envision a different, better world.
A welcome literary resurrection that deserves a place alongside Wright’s best-known work.Pub Date: April 20, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-59853-676-8
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Library of America
Review Posted Online: March 16, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2021
BOOK TO SCREEN
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
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