An admirable if upsetting account of childhood abuse and resilience.
Simonye dramatizes her grandmother’s harrowing childhood in this debut historical novel.
Columbus, Ohio, 1920: Stella Miller’s mother Clara is prone to unpredictable behavior, on one occasion pulling a pistol on the local druggist when he refuses to offer his products to her “on loan.” Clara abandons the family without explanation when Stella is only 4 years old, though Stella has a faint memory of her mother being forcibly driven off by her father and one of his friends. Stella’s father then sells the family home and moves the children into a dreary boarding house on Southwood Avenue. “The pillars were dirty,” notes Stella. “The house was a dingy gray color with peeling white trim. It looked unwelcoming. When we walked up the steps for the first time, I felt like we were trespassing on someone else’s property.” While their father works, the children are placed in the care of their landlady, Mrs. Spangler, whose cruelty and negligence leads to Stella’s sexual abuse at the hands of the woman’s teenage son. To survive, Stella clings to her siblings—who are sometimes helpful, sometimes not—and tries to grow into a woman more equipped to deal with the world than the tortured Clara was. At its best, the author’s observant prose contains brilliant, psychologically revealing details, as here when Stella’s father stops by to visit them at the boarding house: “I studied his melancholy face while Mrs. Spangler prepared supper. He suddenly looked different to me. He looked smaller. He looked weak for the first time. I wrapped my arms around his neck and kissed the back of it. He smelled like fresh soap.” The author reveals in the preface that the novel is based on the experiences of her grandmother, and the book sits uncomfortably between biography and fiction, with much of the meandering story related in summary form rather than as dramatized scenes. Simonye includes a section that delves into Clara’s backstory, highlighting some parallels between mother and daughter, but the intense focus on the tragedies in Stella’s life makes for a somewhat grueling reading experience.
An admirable if upsetting account of childhood abuse and resilience.Pub Date: Oct. 20, 2024
ISBN: 9798990534100
Page Count: 270
Publisher: Snowy Mountain Press
Review Posted Online: Oct. 10, 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
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