A dark, original work.
Ecuadorian writer Cárdenas contemplates a dystopian future for Latin Americans in the U.S.
Ada, an architect, carries the childhood trauma of her father Antonio’s unexpected deportation. A U.S. citizen born in Colombia, he was abducted while driving her and her younger sister to school in San Francisco; in the grim and eerily familiar near future of the novel, immigration status is meaningless. The Racist in Chief demonizes all Latin Americans; they’re surveilled and in constant danger of abduction, incarceration in governmental detention centers, and deportation. As Antonio explains, “Americans can’t imagine the conditions, and if they can’t imagine the conditions, they can’t imagine themselves as refugees, and if they can’t imagine themselves as refugees, they will conclude that refugees are different from them, a different species....” Ada’s sister, Eva, an installation artist, has moved to Bogotá to join their father. When he’s hospitalized, the sisters continue his work interviewing Latin American abductees around the globe. These interviews and the voices of participants in a dream forum serve as a sort of Greek chorus: “I imagined being part of a collective mind, the mind of all of us who have been deported and whose family members have been abducted, a mind like a sea struck by a meteor, a sea that ceases to be blue or green as it overtakes the continents, the fish turning into lizards and the lizards into birds with gills, a sea that is no longer the sea but a carnival of destruction and a cemetery and a neighborhood where I might run into you, Antonio....” Cárdenas writes with both playfulness and erudition. The long, looping sentences brim with references to writers and surrealists, as well as with rage and dark humor. His concern is less with individual stories, and more with the effects of fear and trauma on an entire population.
A dark, original work.Pub Date: May 7, 2024
ISBN: 9781628975185
Page Count: 350
Publisher: Dalkey Archive
Review Posted Online: April 5, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
A delightfully nostalgic novel about how the things we loved in the past have the power to shape our future.
A boy band cruise is the site of one woman’s post-divorce healing.
Annie never meant to end up alone on a Boy Talk cruise, but that’s exactly what happens when her sister breaks a leg and has to bow out of their vacation. Now Annie is sharing a cabin with a stranger, stuck on the cruise ship American Fantasy with the 1990s band—and thousands of their biggest fans, known as Talkers. Annie doesn’t consider herself a Talker, even if she was a fan back in the day. But reeling from a recent divorce and dealing with complex feelings about turning 50, Annie throws herself into the distraction of the trip. What she doesn’t expect is to truly connect with the music, the band, the other fans, and herself. As Annie observes, “This was why people turned to religion or watched the Super Bowl at a sports bar instead of alone in their living room. It felt good to be a part of something where your passion was celebrated instead of mocked.” All the Talkers dream of having a special bond with “the guys,” but when Annie actually does meet Keith, a Boy Talk member who’s clearly going through a hard time, she wonders if their connection is real or if she’s just as delusional as the other (mostly) women on the ship. Straub depicts a wonderfully immersive world aboard the American Fantasy, one where each woman assigns herself a favorite guy and everyone is bedecked in Boy Talk merch. For five days, the Talkers live in a fantasy world where the only thing that matters is their connection with a band that meant everything to them so many years ago. As Annie puts it, “Inside her head, which is where she heard the music, it had touched some lever so deep that it couldn’t be reversed…the music was a direct vein to her own childhood, the least complicated part of her life.”
A delightfully nostalgic novel about how the things we loved in the past have the power to shape our future.Pub Date: April 7, 2026
ISBN: 9798217046850
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Riverhead
Review Posted Online: Jan. 19, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2026
PERSPECTIVES
PERSPECTIVES
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