A powerful and memorable set of tales that fuse fantasy and reality into women’s struggles.
Bobe’s collection of sometimes-fantastical short stories features women in situations that highlight the perils and the beauty of existence.
In a Ray Bradbury–inspired framing story, “The Illustrated Woman: Part One,” a young woman visits a carnival with some friends, eventually wandering into the tent of a woman covered head-to-toe in tattoos. As the visitor gazes at different images, she sees different stories: “And they moved, and changed, and showed me. And I found that I could see.” Each of the tales features a female protagonist, and they collectively cover a wide range of themes. In the story “Through Water, Through Glass,” the unhappily engaged Rori yearns for a position at the elite Ocean Study Center in an unspecified city; during a tour of the place, she sees a narwhal. When she later briefly visits her unnamed hometown in the Arctic, the unusual sight of a different narwhal coincides with a near-death experience. In the tale “These Dark Deeds,” Eliza reminisces about the summer she was 13,when she and her younger brother, Josh, went to live with their older brother, Tim, after their parents’ deaths. After Josh goes missing, Eliza uncovers a secret cult that’s been operating in the town for generations. In perhaps the eeriest story, “Indelible,” a young nanny watches her two charges on an “art train” featuring traveling exhibits, but is continually haunted by memories of her sister’s suicide and a “hellish garden of tormented bodies and women who no longer were.”
Some stories rely more heavily than others on fantasy or supernatural elements, such as the demon Moloch in “Come the End, She will Be Light.” Although the tales offer a mix of happy and horrifying conclusions, many are simply open-ended. Bobe breathes life into each one of these miniature works, and each imaginary world she builds is distinctive, whether it’s a college campus or a parallel dimension full of beasts. The frame story is short and sweet, allowing the focus to remain on the winding journeys of the intriguing women in other works. Recurring themes of abuse, resilience, trauma, and choice effectively permeate the narratives; on occasion, though, the symbolism and messaging can be a tad heavy-handed (Rori internally muses that her engagement ring is “so damned heavy” while planning a wedding to a man she doesn’t love, for instance). One tale, “A Taste of Memory,” stands out as much shorter and more esoteric than the others, with an intense focus on the memories and feelings that various tastes and textures can evoke, and some readers may find its experiment to be unsuccessful. By and large, however, Bobe creates consistently absorbing fictional worlds, using smooth prose and dialogue that effectively transport audiences into each expertly crafted milieu. Genuinely funny moments—as when a character describes an influx of demons in a small town as “cosmic menstruation”—appear unexpectedly, as do heartbreaking ones. The author also conjures real moments of fear, which sometimes have a ghostly cast.
A powerful and memorable set of tales that fuse fantasy and reality into women’s struggles.Pub Date: Dec. 17, 2024
ISBN: 9798991379908
Page Count: 346
Publisher: The Hive Press
Review Posted Online: Dec. 20, 2024
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
© Copyright 2026 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
