Simpson beautifully explores the sacrifices that keep a family together even when it's coming apart.
Simpson is an artist of the family saga, the multigenerational narrative.
In her seventh novel, she doesn’t revisit this territory so much as animate it anew. Beginning in 1972 and continuing into the 1980s, the book tells the story of the Aziz family of Los Angeles: Diane, a single mother, and her three children, Walter, Lina, and Donnie. Each in his or her own way is a central character. That’s because this novel finds its heart not with any one figure but rather with the collective as Simpson moves from life to life, point of view to point of view, offering a kaleidoscopic portrait of a clan of outsiders remaking itself again and again. Diane suffers from debilitating depression, which kicks in after she drops Walter off for his freshman year at UC Berkeley; back in Southern California, she must be institutionalized. All of a sudden, her children are left to fend for themselves, with mixed results. The truth, however, is that they’ve been on their own for quite some time. Essentially abandoned by their father—“I think of him as our biological father,” Walter reflects, “No savior”—they must figure out how to pay their bills and keep themselves in school. But although their lives are often fraught with turmoil, Simpson has something more than degradation on her mind. Instead, she means to explore perseverance, the ability to survive. And not just to survive, but also to thrive, as the three siblings grow into their adult selves. “An autumn night,” she writes on the final page, quoting the haiku writer Basho, “Don’t think your life / Didn’t matter.” It may as well be the novel’s epigraph.
Simpson beautifully explores the sacrifices that keep a family together even when it's coming apart.Pub Date: March 21, 2023
ISBN: 9780593319277
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Feb. 7, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2023
PERSPECTIVES
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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