A contemplative study of colonialism’s collapse, and its enduring legacy.
A writer returns to his native Mozambique to reckon with his father’s history there.
The latest novel by veteran Mozambican author Couto is inspired by his own father, a journalist and poet who witnessed the abuses of Portugal’s colonial regime before the country gained independence in 1975. Here, the lead narrator is Diogo, who in 2019 is visiting the country as an honored poet. The host, Liana, takes the opportunity to share with him a cache of files belonging to her grandfather Óscar, an agent of the colonial state police. Óscar detailed Diogo’s father, Adriano, under the pretext of collaborating with the anticolonial movement. But the story Couto unspools is more complicated than trumped-up accusations of plotting against the state. It is a story of racist state violence, centered on the 1973 massacre of Blacks in the town of Inhaminga by security forces. It is a story of the event’s consequences, particularly the death of Liana’s mother, alternately deemed a murder or suicide. It’s a story of Diogo sorting through the complexities of his father’s history, from poorly disclosed infidelities to attempts to counter the racist colonial forces. And as Liana and Diogo find their own relationship deepening, it’s an exploration of the possibilities for reconciliation. Couto’s narrative alternates between scenes in 2019, as Diogo revisits locations of his family’s past, and documents from Óscar’s archives that slowly reveal the truth about Inhaminga, Liana’s background, and his own conflicted feelings about state power. The formality of the documentation gives the novel a certain stiffness, and an approaching cyclone is a heavy-handed metaphor. But Couto’s storytelling is rich, while delivering a straightforward message: “When a regime starts arresting poets it is because that regime has lost its way.”
A contemplative study of colonialism’s collapse, and its enduring legacy.Pub Date: Sept. 30, 2025
ISBN: 9780374616311
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: June 7, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2025
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
Great crime fiction.
An apparent suicide threatens to destroy an Irish farm town in the final volume of French’s Cal Hooper trilogy.
In the fictional western Ireland townland of Ardnakelty, “there’s a girl going after missing.” Soon young Rachel Holohan is found dead in the river. Shortly before, she had stopped at Lena Dunne’s home, and nothing had seemed amiss. The medical examiner determines she’d swallowed antifreeze, and he presumes she then fell from a bridge into the water. The medical examiner and the town agree she’d died by suicide. But there is far more to the plot: 16-year-old Trey Reddy thinks Tommy Moynihan murdered Rachel. Moynihan doles out favors and punishments to the local townsfolk, who know it’s best not to cross him. Now rumors spread that Moynihan wants land and has a secret plan to forcibly buy up parcels from the locals. A factory will be built, or a great big data center, or who knows what. If Tommy’s son, Eugene, can get elected to the local council, then compulsory purchase orders for land will follow, and the farms will disappear. Eugene, who’d been romantically involved with Rachel, is wonderfully described as “on the weedy edge of good-looking” and just fine as long as you “don’t have high expectations in the way of chins.” Lena is engaged to the American Cal Hooper, an ex-cop turned woodworker. They are “more or less raising” Trey, and these three core characters are drawn into the mystery of Rachel’s death and may have to face the looming clouds of civilizational change for Ardnakelty. Lena is chastised for “asking your wee questions all round the townland,” and Trey wants to quit school, against Cal’s advice. Finally, the story’s best line: “You can’t go killing people just because they deserve it.”
Great crime fiction.Pub Date: March 31, 2026
ISBN: 9780593493465
Page Count: 496
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: Dec. 26, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2026
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