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
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles...
Sisters in and out of love.
Meghann Dontess is a high-powered matrimonial lawyer in Seattle who prefers sex with strangers to emotional intimacy: a strategy bound to backfire sooner or later, warns her tough-talking shrink. It’s advice Meghann decides to ignore, along with the memories of her difficult childhood, neglectful mother, and younger sister. Though she managed to reunite Claire with Sam Cavenaugh (her father but not Meghann’s) when her mother abandoned both girls long ago, Meghann still feels guilty that her sister’s life doesn’t measure up, at least on her terms. Never married, Claire ekes out a living running a country campground with her dad and is raising her six-year-old daughter on her own. When she falls in love for the first time with an up-and-coming country musician, Meghann is appalled: Bobby Austin is a three-time loser at marriage—how on earth can Claire be so blind? Bobby’s blunt explanation doesn’t exactly satisfy the concerned big sister, who busies herself planning Claire’s dream wedding anyway. And, to relieve the stress, she beds various guys she picks up in bars, including Dr. Joe Wyatt, a neurosurgeon turned homeless drifter after the demise of his beloved wife Diane (whom he euthanized). When Claire’s awful headache turns out to be a kind of brain tumor known among neurologists as a “terminator,” Joe rallies. Turns out that Claire had befriended his wife on her deathbed, and now in turn he must try to save her. Is it too late? Will Meghann find true love at last?
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles (Distant Shores, 2002, etc.). Kudos for skipping the snifflefest this time around.Pub Date: May 1, 2003
ISBN: 0-345-45073-6
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2003
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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