A wildly creative, fictionalized look at city life sometimes marred by boggy backstories.
A surreal literary novel set in 1970s New York from debut author Gross.
It’s 1976, and “unfinished buildings marring the skyline” plague New York City, along with overflowing garbage, boarded-up storefronts, and constant crime. The good news? After years of poor performance, the Yankees have a good shot at winning the World Series. Hope rides on young star pitcher Nick “The Swan” Spillage, who is a sensation with fans not just for his prowess on the mound, but also for his killer looks. In fact, Manhattanite Joan TK finds herself infatuated with him, despite the fact she lives with her geeky boyfriend, Eliot. Eliot would like the two to get married, but Joan’s not interested. She has lived through the horror of her parents’ marriage and wants no part of the institution. If Joan can’t have Spillage, she’ll settle for a tryst with a Shakespearean actor who calls himself Choice. Elsewhere in Gotham, a radical group known as the Satanic Vanguard plans to assassinate New York City’s mayor. Along from graffiti and social disorder, the city is also awash with sinister, magical figures; one baddie was gunned down by the police only to reappear and work for Satan. This mixture of a rough city, demonic elements, 1970s politics, and, of course, baseball is certainly unique. This is a world where, as one character put it, “You can’t end God’s oppressive rule by being cute. Half measures won’t do.” Such passions fuel the entire cast, whether they are striking out batters or entering strange worlds. At times, however, the reader gets more background than is needed. For instance, a lengthy portion concerning Joan’s upbringing, with things like how phony her parents were, proves to be unnecessary. But Gross provides such a juicy, unusual plot that readers will be riveted despite the tangents.
A wildly creative, fictionalized look at city life sometimes marred by boggy backstories.Pub Date: Feb. 14, 2024
ISBN: 9798865879305
Page Count: 286
Publisher: Self
Review Posted Online: Feb. 15, 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
Fans of Stockett’s bestselling debut will love this engaging follow-up.
Stockett heads to Mississippi for another historical novel about feisty women.
This time, perhaps recalling criticisms of cultural appropriation in The Help (2009), she sticks to feisty white women, with one exception. The setting is Oxford in 1933. For two miserable years, 11-year-old Meg has lived in “the Orphan,” a county asylum for parentless girls. Chairlady Garnett—a villain so one-note she’d twirl a mustache if she had one—makes it her mission to ostracize the older girls she deems unadoptable, stigmatizing them as offspring of the “feebleminded” mothers who abandoned them. She particularly has it in for smart, sassy Meg, who refuses to believe her mother’s mysterious disappearance was deliberate. Elsewhere in Oxford, Birdie Calhoun comes to visit her sister Frances, who married a wealthy banker, to ask for money on behalf of their mother and grandmother back in Footely. Frances isn’t thrilled by this reminder of her impoverished small-town origins. But she’s trying to climb up in Oxford society by volunteering at the Orphan, the asylum’s books need to be done before the state inspector shows up in a few weeks, and Birdie is a bookkeeper. Having neatly arranged to keep Birdie in town and draw these two storylines together, Stockett goes on to spin a compulsively readable yarn with enough plot for a half-dozen novels. Birdie and Meg become friends, Meg is adopted despite Garnett’s best efforts, Meg’s mother turns up at the Orphan demanding to know where her child is—and that’s less than a quarter of the way through a long, winding narrative that keeps piling on more dramatic developments until all loose ends are neatly, if hastily, wrapped up in the final pages. Stockett might be making a point about Southern women facing facts and standing up for themselves, but mostly this is just a satisfyingly twisty tale that should make a great miniseries.
Fans of Stockett’s bestselling debut will love this engaging follow-up.Pub Date: May 5, 2026
ISBN: 9781954118812
Page Count: 656
Publisher: Spiegel & Grau
Review Posted Online: Feb. 2, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2026
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