An unruly addition to the literature of passion that might have worked better as a novella.
An erotic obsession becomes all-consuming for a female Israeli filmmaker.
Kessler's debut is an X-rated deep dive into the overwhelming fascination of a 36-year-old narrator named Noa Simon with a "fat man dressed in a white shirt—or, on second glance, pink—one button excessively undone, exposing a hint of his tanned chest." This is Teddy Rosenfeld, whom Noa meets at a wedding. He and his business partner, Richard Harrington, are so impressed with a video Noa has made as part of the entertainment that they suggest she come work for them at their marine biotech firm. As the wedding reception progresses, Noa and Teddy smoke cigarettes together, go to the bathroom and pee together, and flirt with each other almost violently, though Teddy stops Noa's game far short of what she's hoping for. As they part, Noa sends a final salvo: "There's no woman in this world, in your entire life, who's wanted you as much as I want you." Over the next almost-400 pages, the force of Noa's desire will generate a ferocious sexual affair, conducted as she becomes an employee of Delmar Bio Solutions and gradually overcomes Teddy's resistance, increasingly involving herself in his complicated personal life, which includes multiple children and ex-wives. Noa is a wild, angry, difficult woman; Teddy is a big, sexy mensch women are crazy for; and Kessler portrays their relationship, their conversations, their sex, and their arguments with abandon—behind Noa's obsession with Teddy is Kessler's obsession with both of them. As the drama goes on and on, digging toward the aspects of their lives that the couple are withholding from each other—in Noa's case, her estrangement from her mother; in Teddy's, a "situation" with his second wife—the experience of reading it is a bit like sex that goes on too long. (Beige. I should paint the ceiling beige.) But obsession is as obsession does.
An unruly addition to the literature of passion that might have worked better as a novella.Pub Date: Nov. 19, 2024
ISBN: 9781668053454
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Avid Reader Press
Review Posted Online: Aug. 17, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2024
Fans of Stockett’s bestselling debut will love this engaging follow-up.
Stockett heads to Mississippi for another historical novel about feisty women.
This time, perhaps recalling criticisms of cultural appropriation in The Help (2009), she sticks to feisty white women, with one exception. The setting is Oxford in 1933. For two miserable years, 11-year-old Meg has lived in “the Orphan,” a county asylum for parentless girls. Chairlady Garnett—a villain so one-note she’d twirl a mustache if she had one—makes it her mission to ostracize the older girls she deems unadoptable, stigmatizing them as offspring of the “feebleminded” mothers who abandoned them. She particularly has it in for smart, sassy Meg, who refuses to believe her mother’s mysterious disappearance was deliberate. Elsewhere in Oxford, Birdie Calhoun comes to visit her sister Frances, who married a wealthy banker, to ask for money on behalf of their mother and grandmother back in Footely. Frances isn’t thrilled by this reminder of her impoverished small-town origins. But she’s trying to climb up in Oxford society by volunteering at the Orphan, the asylum’s books need to be done before the state inspector shows up in a few weeks, and Birdie is a bookkeeper. Having neatly arranged to keep Birdie in town and draw these two storylines together, Stockett goes on to spin a compulsively readable yarn with enough plot for a half-dozen novels. Birdie and Meg become friends, Meg is adopted despite Garnett’s best efforts, Meg’s mother turns up at the Orphan demanding to know where her child is—and that’s less than a quarter of the way through a long, winding narrative that keeps piling on more dramatic developments until all loose ends are neatly, if hastily, wrapped up in the final pages. Stockett might be making a point about Southern women facing facts and standing up for themselves, but mostly this is just a satisfyingly twisty tale that should make a great miniseries.
Fans of Stockett’s bestselling debut will love this engaging follow-up.Pub Date: May 5, 2026
ISBN: 9781954118812
Page Count: 656
Publisher: Spiegel & Grau
Review Posted Online: Feb. 2, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2026
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
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