A worthy if overlong introduction to a unique and atmospheric African writer’s work.
A career-spanning collection from the Mozambican writer, seeking an intersection between his country’s folklore and its colonial past.
Many of the stories here appear in English (from the Portuguese) for the first time, drawing from works first published in 1986 to a clutch of new material. Despite that breadth, Couto’s concerns, and much of his style, have remained consistent: He focuses on the inner lives of everyday people, usually with a twist involving mysticism or superstition. “The Tale of the Two Who Returned From the Dead” is about just that, about two apparitions caught up in the local bureaucracy. In “The Flagpoles of Beyondwards,” an allegory about the impossibility of isolation from outside forces, a man tries to protect his daughter from a visitor’s attention. Shape-shifting abounds: A heart gives birth to a child in “The Child’s Heart and the Heart’s Child” while a man’s wife takes the form of multiple women in “Ezequiela, Humanity,” much to the husband’s pleasure and, eventually, fear. Stories drawn from the collection Rain: And Other Stories(2019) deal more explicitly with Mozambican history, specifically its civil war that ran from the 1970s through the '90s, but he’s more interested in conjuring a melancholy mood. That’s not always to his credit; stories often don’t end so much as drift to lyrical conclusions; his recent Sands of the Emperor Trilogy (Woman of the Ashes, 2018, etc.) is on sturdier historical footing. But his most potent stories here merge the humane and surrealistic, often with nautical premises. A whale is believed capable of providing whatever a man might wish; a mute girl who finds her voice at the seashore and the neighbors in the closing title story speak in bittersweet tones about their (and our) connection to the sea: “A tear is the sea caressing your soul. That little speck of water is us as we return to the womb we came from.”
A worthy if overlong introduction to a unique and atmospheric African writer’s work.Pub Date: Feb. 9, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-7796-388-6
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Biblioasis
Review Posted Online: Nov. 17, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
PERSPECTIVES
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
Have tissues ready as you read this. A small package will do.
A love story about a life of second chances.
In Nassau, in the Bahamas, casino detective Vincent LaPorta grills Alfie Logan, who’d come up a winner three times in a row at the roulette table and walked away with $2 million. “How did you do it?” asks the detective. Alfie calmly denies cheating. You wired all the money to a Gianna Rule, LaPorta says. Why? To explain, Alfie produces a composition book with the words “For the Boss, to Be Read Upon My Death” written on the cover. Read this for answers, Alfie suggests, calling it a love story. His mother had passed along to him a strange trait: He can say “Twice!” and go back to a specific time and place to have a do-over. But it only works once for any particular moment, and then he must live with the new consequences. He can only do this for himself and can’t prevent anyone from dying. Alfie regularly uses his power—failing to impress a girl the first time, he finds out more about her, goes back in time, and presto! She likes him. The premise is of course not credible—LaPorta doesn’t buy it either—but it’s intriguing. Most people would probably love to go back and unsay something. The story’s focus is on Alfie’s love for Gianna and whether it’s requited, unrequited, or both. In any case, he’s obsessed with her. He’s a good man, though, an intelligent person with ordinary human failings and a solid moral compass. Albom writes in a warm, easy style that transports the reader to a world of second chances and what-ifs, where spirituality lies close to the surface but never intrudes on the story. Though a cynic will call it sappy, anyone who is sick to their core from the daily news will enjoy this escape from reality.
Have tissues ready as you read this. A small package will do.Pub Date: Oct. 7, 2025
ISBN: 9780062406682
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: July 18, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2025
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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