A memorable batch of unnerving tales.
Migliore’s short story collection dishes out dread, violence, and gallows humor in equal measure.
In “Museum of the Dead,” a man inherits his mortician father’s funeral home. There isn’t much he can do with it, as a miracle drug has all but eliminated natural death; that is, until he meets someone who may be able to help him “drum up some business.” Other tales herein are equally somber: In “The MacGuffin,” a woman trails a dizzying string of text messages from an anonymous person claiming to have kidnapped her daughter. “Popular Genocide” unfolds at a therapeutic boarding school that feels more like a prison camp. Nevertheless, particular moments or even entire stories are funny, though the comedy is decidedly dark. “Fandomon” is an amusing play on Akira Kurosawa’s Rashomon: Several characters involved in an incident at an anime convention relay their versions of something that happened in a hotel room. Each person’s bizarre account, despite similarities, is drastically different from the rest. Two of the best stories are the interlinked “The Running of the Dead Horse” and “Ancestry,” which bookend this collection. In the former, university professor Rita is shaken by her younger sister’s violent murder, especially as the recording of the event is readily available online. Her Italian grandfather, who helped raise the sisters, takes her on a journey to Rome to see family and later enact a bit of vengeance. The latter story finds Rita and a police captain looking into a shocking suicide and a mysterious organization tied to her late parents.
The author’s tales navigate through such bleak territories as homicide, nuclear strikes, and other assorted crimes. It’s hardly surprising that violence marks many of the stories, from bites and stabbings to meticulously detailed head shots. But Migliore deftly leavens the heaviness with satire: The dialogue-only “Suicide Hotline” features a crisis counselor whose prepared script implacably renders their responses mechanical and hollow. The author displays a knack for direct, concise sentences that stoke the narrative pace: “Trinice wiggled around. Her damp suit made the seat slippery. She couldn’t lean back because her arms were cuffed behind her. She was forced to press the side of her head up against the bulletproof glass divider.” While well-drawn characters (including Rita and her grandfather) pop up throughout this collection, the cast is largely aloof or hateful. They spew homophobic, xenophobic, and generally offensive slurs and sentiments that complement the savage acts they perpetrate. Readers won’t sympathize with most of them, particularly the nasty American soldier stationed in Japan who seems to detest everything and everyone (“The Tattoo”). Stories such as these aren’t prone to happy endings, but that doesn’t make the book predictable. “Anticks,” which follows a ventriloquist and his maybe-alive doll, alludes to the 1978 film Magic that seemingly inspired it; despite that grounding, the story spins off into an unexpected and deliriously entertaining direction.
A memorable batch of unnerving tales.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: 9798890272515
Page Count: 338
Publisher: Dorrance
Review Posted Online: June 26, 2023
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
A dark and twisty look at just how far one woman is willing to go to find inspiration.
A struggling writer finds an unexpected muse when a mysterious man shows up at her cabin.
Petra Rose used to pump out a bestselling book every six months, but then the adaptation happened—that is, the disastrous film adaptation of her most famous book. The movie changed the book’s storyline so egregiously that fans couldn’t forgive her, and the ensuing harassment sent Petra into hiding and gave her a serious case of writer’s block. Petra’s one hope is her solo writing retreat at a remote cabin, where she can escape the distractions of real life and focus on her next book, a story about a woman having an affair with a cop. When officer Nathaniel Saint shows up at her cabin door, inspiration comes flooding back. Much like the character from Petra’s book, Saint is married, and he’s willing to be Petra’s muse, helping her get into her characters’ heads. Petra’s book is practically writing itself, but is the game she’s playing a little too dangerous? Does she know when to stop—and, more importantly, is Saint willing to stop? Hoover is no stranger to controversial movie adaptations and internet backlash, but she clarifies in a note to readers that she’s “just a writer writing about a writer” and that no further connections to her own life are contained in these pages—which is a good thing, because the book takes some horrifying twists and turns. Petra finds herself inexplicably attracted to Saint, even as she describes him as “such an asshole,” and her feelings for him veer between love and hate. The novel serves as a meta commentary on the dark romance genre—as Petra puts it, “Even though, as readers, we wouldn’t want to live out some of the fantasies we read about, it doesn’t mean we don’t enjoy reading those things.”
A dark and twisty look at just how far one woman is willing to go to find inspiration.Pub Date: Jan. 13, 2026
ISBN: 9781662539374
Page Count: -
Publisher: Montlake
Review Posted Online: Sept. 27, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2025
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