A dark and complex exploration of the vagaries of parental and romantic love.
In a letter to the chosen mother of her newborn child, a woman with a rare disorder looks back at her lifetime search for love after the early loss of her father and her wild last year.
In Daviau’s second novel, Nina Simone Blaine addresses Dr. Tabitha Chen, who diagnosed Nina with A12 Fibrillin Deficiency Syndrome when Nina was 11 years old, and whom Nina has chosen to be the adoptive mother of the newborn she calls Sigrid Alma. Forty years and six weeks old, Nina expects to die within hours of giving birth to the child she never expected to have. Like “Marfan on steroids,” A12 endows its carriers—most of them the children of men older than 60—with missing fingers, bulging eyes, loose skin, crooked bodies, troubled hearts, and early deaths. For Nina, A12 meant rejection by her mother, Tracy, a former beauty queen who took her second husband’s side rather than her daughter’s in a sexual assault court case; when she was a girl, only Nina’s father, Eddie Blaine, who died when she was 7, called her beautiful. Once known as Sandy Blattner, Eddie gave up crooning on the Catskills circuit to attempt stardom in Hollywood and left behind a few mostly forgotten albums and Nina’s memory of his love. Seeking affection as devoted as her father’s sends Nina from her home in Connecticut back to Los Angeles and into the arms of Cole Courchaine, one of the “Good Thumbs,” a small circle of people with A12 supporting each other through their last days. Cole is grandiose, manipulative, and violent; given his grotesquely abusive behavior, Nina’s entanglement with him can be hard to take. The novel’s conclusion is both celebratory and satisfying in its ambiguities, as most of its large cast of characters are revealed to be complicated, capable of a flawed kind of love, and, with few exceptions, also somewhat mean.
A dark and complex exploration of the vagaries of parental and romantic love.Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2025
ISBN: 9781959000624
Page Count: 272
Publisher: West Virginia Univ. Press
Review Posted Online: July 17, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2025
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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