This electrifying depiction of dignity and morality under siege reveals the horror hidden by the bland term “climate change.”
In near-future Kolkata, the fates of two families become disastrously intertwined.
With gorgeous writing and the pacing of a thriller, Majumdar’s second novel—after A Burning (2020)—transports the reader to a world ravaged by drought, burning heat, and severe food scarcity. As the story begins, it’s Day 1 of the week before Ma will take her 2-year-old daughter, Mishti, and her father, Dadu, to join her scientist husband in Ann Arbor, Michigan, on laboriously procured climate visas, which she regards as “treasure beyond her greatest hope.” Ma just left her job managing a shelter, an organization supported by the single remaining local billionaire, whose food donations she has been lightly skimming to keep her family fed. A teenage resident of the shelter, Boomba, devises a desperate plan to follow Ma home and recapture some of the booty for resale on the street, as he’s frantic to raise money to rescue his own parents and beloved younger sibling, languishing in dire straits outside the city. Among the items he grabs are Ma’s purse, containing the three passports, setting in motion a series of escalating catastrophes, crimes, and ironies, each darker than the last, all of it concealed by both Ma and Boomba in their hopeful phone conversations with husband and parents, respectively. Fully inhabiting both characters over the ensuing seven days, Majumdar reveals her unsettling message: A guardian and a thief lives in each of us. Her evocation of the lost world that lives in the characters’ memories makes the situation not just terrifying but almost criminally poignant, and the way she manages to connect all the storylines with a resolution that unfolds both globally and in one small living room is genius.
This electrifying depiction of dignity and morality under siege reveals the horror hidden by the bland term “climate change.”Pub Date: Oct. 14, 2025
ISBN: 9780593804872
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: July 17, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
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
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
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