Original, honest, and surprisingly funny.
An award-winning Australian author explores family dysfunction and the legacy of colonial oppression in her American debut.
When Kerry Salter returns to her hometown in New South Wales, the first conversation she has is with a trio of crows. The fact that they critique her command of the Bundjalung language is exasperating. The fact that, in Durrongo, even the birds are up in her business is a grating reminder of why she left in the first place. But her ex-girlfriend is in prison for robbery, and Kerry is hoping to avoid the same fate. Also, her grandfather is dying, so…home it is—at least for a bit. Lucashenko is an Indigenous Australian author, and her writing is suffused with language that will be unfamiliar to most American readers, which makes settling into the narrative a bit of a challenge. This is not a criticism. Indeed, while Lucashenko was almost certainly not writing with the aim of alienating an audience half a world away, there’s something fitting in making interlopers feel a bit disoriented as they enter a world of generational trauma that is largely the result of colonialism. Readers willing to accept that they are outsiders in Durrongo will have the chance to explore a world that few of us know—and a landscape that is sacred to the people who live within it. Kerry left home to escape a family plagued by addiction and violence, but the place itself will always be her spiritual home. A developer’s plan to transform the resting place of her ancestors recapitulates the long history of settler-colonials taking and transforming the land on which Indigenous people live. It also gives shape to this novel’s plot as it gives Kerry a mission and her whole family a chance at a future that contains the best parts of the past.
Original, honest, and surprisingly funny.Pub Date: Nov. 3, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-06-303253-8
Page Count: 336
Publisher: HarperVia
Review Posted Online: Sept. 15, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2020
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 touching portrait of courage and friendship.
A lifetime of friendship endures many upheavals.
Ellie and Homa, two young girls growing up in Tehran, meet at school in the early 1950s. Though their families are very different, they become close friends. After the death of Ellie’s father, she and her difficult mother must adapt to their reduced circumstances. Homa’s more warm and loving family lives a more financially constrained life, and her father, a communist, is politically active—to his own detriment and that of his family’s welfare. When Ellie’s mother remarries and she and Ellie relocate to a more exclusive part of the city, the girls become separated. They reunite years later when Homa is admitted to Ellie’s elite high school. Now a political firebrand with aspirations to become a judge and improve the rights of women in her factionalized homeland, Homa works toward scholastic success and begins practicing political activism. Ellie follows a course, plotted originally by her mother, toward marriage. The tortuous path of the girls’ adult friendship over the following decades is played out against regime change, political persecution, and devastating loss. Ellie’s well-intentioned but naïve approach stands in stark contrast to Homa’s commitment to human rights, particularly for women, and her willingness to risk personal safety to secure those rights. As narrated by Ellie, the girls’ story incorporates frequent references to Iranian food, customs, and beliefs common in the years of tumult and reforms accompanying the Iranian Revolution. Themes of jealousy—even in close friendships—and the role of the shir zan, the courageous “lion women” of Iran who effect change, recur through the narrative. The heartaches associated with emigration are explored along with issues of personal sacrifice for the sake of the greater good (no matter how remote it may seem).
A touching portrait of courage and friendship.Pub Date: July 2, 2024
ISBN: 9781668036587
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Gallery Books/Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: April 19, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2024
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