Ultimately, the novel suffers from its split focus.
A London bookshop serves as backdrop to the lives and loves of two women from different centuries.
The novel toggles back and forth between the story of (real-life) struggling author Nancy Mitford’s life during World War II and present-day (fictional) struggling author Katharine Cabot’s transformative visit to London. When the novel opens on Nancy’s story, the war is in full effect, London is being bombed nightly, and Nancy has just taken a job working at the Heywood Hill bookshop. Nancy and her seven siblings are something of a legend: Of her five sisters, one is a Hitler sympathizer, one a fascist, one a communist, and one a duchess. Nancy takes up spying for the British government by befriending a French colonel who becomes both her lover and her most eager audience for stories of her life, inspiring her to finally write her first successful novel loosely based on her own dramatic family and upbringing. Katie, meanwhile, after a truly spectacular meltdown during a family celebration in Virginia, mostly driven by her frustration with writer’s block, travels to London. Visiting the same Heywood Hill bookshop, she meets a handsome stranger who believes Nancy Mitford wrote a memoir during World War II that was never published; he would love to get his hands on that manuscript because of a family connection to the story. Katie is quickly absorbed by both the mystery of the manuscript and the charms of the man himself, and their literary investigations also inspire her to break free of the constrictions of her life and writer’s block. Despite the complexity of the narrative structure, the novel seems somewhat one-note. The mysteries of the past are not overly gripping, though Nancy is an enjoyable character, as is the delightfully snooty Evelyn Waugh. But Katie elicits little deep interest, coming across as whiny and self-pitying.
Ultimately, the novel suffers from its split focus.Pub Date: Aug. 17, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-5258-1155-5
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Graydon House
Review Posted Online: June 1, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2021
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
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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