An unsettling tale, often depressing, but nonetheless an addictive read.
A teenage girl impulsively decides to run away with a smooth-talking carnival barker in Cox’s novel.
In the April of 1932, 8-year-old Leonora (Nora) DeLorenzo and her younger sister, Patricia (Patsy), have just been taken away from their mother, Gertie DeLorenzo, and placed in The Park Ridge School for Girls outside Chicago. Gertie has been deemed an unfit mother, accused by a neighbor of being a prostitute and leaving her young children alone in their small apartment. Every other Sunday, the girls wait for Gertie to show up on visiting day, hoping she will bring them back home—but they are bitterly disappointed each time. The narrative jumps back to 1923: Gertie Gufftason is a restless teenager, one of her parents’ 11 children living in the ramshackle southern Iowan mining town of Keystone. The carnival has come to town, and the star performer is country singer Patsy Montana, who Gertie idolizes. As her parents and siblings go off in different directions, Gertie begins roaming the campgrounds on her own. She is approached by the exotic carnival barker “Lorenzo,” who offers to introduce her to Patsy Montana. Dazzled by the excitement of the carnival and Lorenzo’s carefully designed seduction, Gertie takes off with him when the carnival leaves town. Cox has woven a complex emotional melodrama filled with passion, betrayal, heartbreak, and, ultimately, forgiveness. She deftly captures the poverty and social signals of the Depression (“Keystone wasn’t even a real town, just a ramshackle collection of buildings surrounding a dirty hole in the ground, no different than any other of the many mining camps scattered across southern Iowa”), along with the psychological damage sustained by Nora and Patsy resulting from Gertie’s choices. Nora is the story’s hero, the strongest of the three female protagonists, always protecting the traumatized Patsy from the consequences of Gertie’s misbehavior during the decade they spend at Park Ridge, where punishments are frequent and cruel. A satisfying surprise revelation close to the novel’s end almost compensates for the rolling cascade of tragedies.
An unsettling tale, often depressing, but nonetheless an addictive read.Pub Date: March 5, 2024
ISBN: 979-8988009702
Page Count: 379
Publisher: Woolton Press
Review Posted Online: Sept. 22, 2023
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
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
SEEN & HEARD
A pleasant if not entirely convincing tribute to the power of art.
A French art historian’s English-language fiction debut combines the story of a loving relationship between a grandfather and granddaughter with an enlightening discussion of art.
One day, when 10-year-old Mona removes the necklace given to her by her now-dead grandmother, she experiences a frightening, hour-long bout of blindness. Her parents take her to the doctor, who gives her a variety of tests and also advises that she see a psychiatrist. Her grandfather Henry tells her parents that he will take care of that assignment, but instead, he takes Mona on weekly visits to either the Louvre, the Musée d’Orsay, or the Centre Pompidou, where each week they study a single work of art, gazing at it deeply and then discussing its impact and history and the biography of its maker. For the reader’s benefit, Schlesser also describes each of the works in scrupulous detail. As the year goes on, Mona faces the usual challenges of elementary school life and the experiences of being an only child, and slowly begins to understand the causes of her temporary blindness. Primarily an amble through a few dozen of Schlesser’s favorite works of art—some well known and others less so, from Botticelli and da Vinci through Basquiat and Bourgeois—the novel would probably benefit from being read at a leisurely pace. While the dialogue between Henry and the preternaturally patient and precocious Mona sometimes strains credulity, readers who don’t have easy access to the museums of Paris may enjoy this vicarious trip in the company of a guide who focuses equally on that which can be seen and the context that can’t be. Come for the novel, stay for the introductory art history course.
A pleasant if not entirely convincing tribute to the power of art.Pub Date: Aug. 26, 2025
ISBN: 9798889661115
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Europa Editions
Review Posted Online: June 7, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2025
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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