A difficult suburban story with well-developed characters.
A small-town gossip riles up her neighbors in MacBride’s novel.
In the late 1980s, Esther Fuhrman is the chief tattler of tiny Opole, Michigan. To her, gossip is “currency that she peddled around town to anyone who would listen (and some who wouldn’t)”; for instance, she tells many townspeople that a local boy has leukemia, but in fact he was simply out of town with his family on vacation. Then Esther finds a cryptic note that reads “Mock Raid” and features a map of the school where she volunteers; before long, the false rumor around town is that Esther foiled an attack on school kids. She also becomes convinced, wrongly, that a local cheese shop is a front for the Mafia, but she also reports a new man in town, correctly, for possessing child pornography. This increases her influence in Opole, and later, Esther finds some documents on a school computer and gets parents in the community riled up about independent-study policies that haven’t been implemented yet, causing unnecessary chaos. Later, when White boys in town play an April Fool’s Day prank, Esther, who’s also White, quickly suggests that the new Black family in town might be at fault. Later, the book shifts forward to 2015, as Esther is up to her old tricks, but on social media instead of in person. MacBride presents a well-sketched portrait of the town of Opole and its residents, who all feel authentic, including Esther, who’s clearly depicted as having an inability to comprehend social cues. However, many readers may find it hard to get through the portions of the story seen through Esther’s eyes, as she does some unforgivably cruel things. Indeed, she’s revealed to be such a destructive force in her community that many readers will likely expect her to get a comeuppance, but although she does get some punishment in the end, it’s unsatisfyingly mild in proportion to her offenses. Readers should also be aware of a disturbing scene in which Esther’s 10-year-old son tries to buy a gun, although this plan is eventually thwarted.
A difficult suburban story with well-developed characters.Pub Date: Aug. 24, 2021
ISBN: 979-8454144715
Page Count: 285
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: Oct. 18, 2021
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
BOOK REVIEW
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
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