A dark, powerful novel traces the trajectory of a murder victim’s life.
A moving but disturbing novel tells the story of a young woman’s descent into addiction and sexual violence.
This impressive debut novel opens with a gruesome murder, then moves back in time to recount how the lives of a “throwaway” young woman and a serial killer intersected. Chadburn builds her story around a real case, that of Vancouver pig farmer Willie Pickton, who confessed to having killed 49 women, many of them Indigenous and/or sex workers, over two decades before his arrest in 2002. The novel’s fictional main character is Marina Salles, who, at age 18 becomes both Pickton's last victim and his avenger thanks to an aswang, a supernatural creature from the folklore of the Philippines (who’s also an occasional narrator). Marina’s grandmother is Filipina, and she provides a warm household in central California during the girl’s childhood in the 1980s. But when Mutya, Marina’s restless, self-centered mother, moves to Los Angeles with a boyfriend, Marina in tow, their lives begin to unravel. The boyfriend bails, and Mutya’s addictions lead her to sex work; one night when Marina is 13, she brings the girl with her to a party, with disastrous results. Marina finds herself in foster care, cut off from both mother and grandmother and trying to figure out the harsh rules of her new environment. The foster facility she’s in turns out to be a training ground for drug use and sex work. While there, she falls in love with Alex, another girl, but their relationship is a short moment of sweetness in Marina’s journey to her fate. Chadburn’s prose is sometimes lovely, always compelling, and she handles multiple storylines skillfully. Marina is engaging and heartbreaking, and other characters are vividly portrayed as well—including Pickton. The novel is a relentless revelation of the everyday exploitation of girls and women, but readers should be aware that it describes rape and other forms of violence in horrific detail, over and over.
A dark, powerful novel traces the trajectory of a murder victim’s life.Pub Date: April 12, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-3742-7775-8
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: Feb. 4, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 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
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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