A novel that’s at its strongest when it’s most philosophical and digressive.
Loskutoff tells the story of a violent radical living within a rural community.
For the decades that he sent bombs around the country, Ted Kaczynski lived in a small Montana town. This novel uses that piece of history as a starting point, focusing largely on the Unabomber’s neighbors over the course of several years as they go about their business, unaware that their reclusive neighbor is leaving a trail of violence and death across the nation. Loskutoff opts to tell this story as an ensemble piece, beginning with a man named Duane Oshun, who drives to Montana in the wake of his marriage falling apart and eventually encounters a tattooed pastor named Kim Younger. Duane settles there, finding work as a logger and meeting some of the other townspeople, including Hutch, who keeps wounded animals, including a bear, on his property. The most interesting parts of the novel focus on its more morally conflicted characters, including Duane and a Forest Service agent, Mason, who struggle with the transformation of the region and their own place in it. The work of the Wilderness Society and anti-logging activists looms in the background of much of the novel’s action. As for Kaczynski, he’s portrayed unsympathetically throughout the novel—a man who poisons his neighbor’s dogs and dreams about “cities on fire, dams bursting, and planes falling from the sky.” Nep, the postal inspector who spends years tracking Kaczynski, is a far more compelling character—an agent whose inherent curiosity often leads his interviews into unexpected places. The details of small-town life and communion with the outdoors are neatly rendered, but this novel’s real-life terrorist is its least interesting aspect. Which may be the point.
A novel that’s at its strongest when it’s most philosophical and digressive.Pub Date: June 4, 2024
ISBN: 9780393868197
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Norton
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
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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