A prismatic rendering of the sit-in movement and its context, with memorable characters at its center.
A pregnant Black teenager spends a weekend in Atlanta during the thick of the Civil Rights Movement.
Doris Steele is only 17 in 1960, but she left her rural Georgia high school—and the instruction of her favorite teacher, Mrs. Lucas—after 10th grade to take care of her ailing mother and younger siblings. When she becomes pregnant, she finds it impossible to face a future as a mother, and she turns to Mrs. Lucas for help. Mrs. Lucas calls upon her childhood best friend, Sylvia Broussard, a wealthy and well-connected Black woman with luminaries in her orbit like Martin Luther King, Coretta Scott King, and prominent figures in the arts, and a stepnephew with a key role in the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. When Doris spends a weekend at the Broussard home waiting for the Atlanta doctor Sylvia has procured to perform the abortion, she’s brought into contact with people whose views on religion, segregation, class, politics and—especially—homosexuality make her question everything she’s been taught. (“I’m confused, Lord,” Doris prays. “Please help me to see your purpose for bringing me among these heathens.”) As the weekend unfolds and secrets spill out, Doris doubts that she will ever be the same again. McKenzie’s novel crackles with energy, and her depiction of Black high society during a pivotal moment in American history has depth and vivacity. Although the plot strains to place Doris in as many historical scenarios as possible over the course of a few dozen hours, à la Forrest Gump, watching Doris awaken to the wider possibilities of politics, social justice, and human experience is undeniably satisfying. As Doris says, “Here, in Atlanta, in Mrs. Broussard’s house? That God [I prayed to] seemed, not just petty, but suddenly very small.”
A prismatic rendering of the sit-in movement and its context, with memorable characters at its center.Pub Date: June 17, 2025
ISBN: 9780593596944
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: April 19, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 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
A debut novel with bright spots, but unbalanced and lacking in finesse.
A high school senior pursues an affair with her teacher.
Seventeen-year-old Waldo, the narrator of McCurdy’s fiction debut, lives in Anchorage, Alaska, with her mother, though she’s long been the parent in their relationship. She heats her own frozen meals and pays the bills on time while her mom chases man after man and makes well-meaning promises she never keeps. Waldo blows her Victoria’s Secret wages on online shopping sprees and binges on junk food, inevitably crashing after the fleeting highs of her indulgences. Mr. Korgy, her creative writing teacher, has “thinning hair and nose pores”; he’s 40 years old and married with a child. Nevertheless—or possibly as a result?—Waldo’s attraction to him is “instant. So sudden it’s alarming. So palpable it’s confusing.” Mr. Korgy professes to want to keep their friendship aboveboard, but after a sexual encounter at the school’s winter formal that she initiates, an affair begins. Will this reckless pursuit be the one that actually satisfies Waldo, and is she as mature as she thinks she is? Waldo is a keen observer of people and provides sharp commentary on the punishing work of female beauty. Readers of McCurdy’s bestselling memoir, I’m Glad My Mom Died (2022), will surely be curious about the tumultuous mother-daughter relationship, and it is one of the novel’s highlights, full of realistic pity and anger and need. (“I want to scream at her. I want her to hug me.”) Unfortunately, the prose is often unwieldy and sometimes downright cringeworthy: When Waldo tells Mr. Korgy she loves him, “The words hang in the air in that constipated way they do when you know that you shouldn’t have said them.” Waldo frequently lists emotions and adjectives in triplicate, and events that could be significant aren’t sufficiently explored or given enough space to breathe before the novel races on to the next thing.
A debut novel with bright spots, but unbalanced and lacking in finesse.Pub Date: Jan. 20, 2026
ISBN: 9780593723739
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: Nov. 22, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2026
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
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