This fresh perspective is valuable even if the swashbuckling style of the prose lands a little heavily on the page.
A retelling of the Iliad featuring an Achilles who's a trans woman.
Finding an elasticity in the story of the Iliad, Deane pits Achilles against Helen of Troy in the Trojan War. The book begins with Achilles hiding in Skyros with the princess Deidamia. Under Deidamia’s tutelage, and using special herbs, Achilles is transitioning from a male body to her true female self. Athena intervenes and transforms Achilles completely into her ideal female body so she can feel fulfilled in her real identity. Athena also grants Achilles' greatest desire—to have a child—by forging a womb in her center. The book holds close to the story of the Iliad in broad strokes but attempts to deliver a parallel journey for Achilles as she transitions and then explores the world of war while questioning what it means to be a woman and a man. Achilles thinks, “Once, her violent impulses had horrified her, evidence of a manhood that would inevitably consume everything she loved about herself. But on her journey to Skyros and here on the island, she had met her share of violent women and knew better.” Despite knowing better, when Achilles arrives at the battlefield and attempts to rescue Helen, she's caught off guard by the realization that Helen is not a damsel in distress but a megalomaniac, thrilled by her effect on the armies who fight one another with her name on their lips. Helen does not desire a quick end to war. She is also vicious about Achilles’ identity, saying, “Here’s an idea: when you die, I will erase you from history. I will make it so you were never a woman. Everyone will remember you as a man.” This book is Achilles’ fevered journey from womanhood to childbirth to death. The premise of the parallel journeys is effectively handled and integrated into the Homeric epic.
This fresh perspective is valuable even if the swashbuckling style of the prose lands a little heavily on the page.Pub Date: June 7, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-06-316118-4
Page Count: 464
Publisher: Morrow/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 24, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2022
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 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
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