A lyrical fever dream of a novel.
A debut novel about generational trauma, grief, and the enduring violence of White supremacy.
Magnolia Brown is 19 years old. She hasn’t seen her mother since she was 15. Her father’s been dead a long time. When her grandmother Mama Brown dies, Magnolia is essentially alone. The only regular figures in her life are Sugar Foot—her landlord, who prefers sex to rent money—and the man who digs through the trash cans at the gas station where she works. Her luck seems to change when a stranger with “milk skin” and freshly manicured nails tells her that she looks like Josephine Baker and offers her a modeling job. A mix of curiosity and desperation leads her to a “plantation-style” house that is half funeral parlor, half family home. Cotton—the man who told her she looks like Josephine Baker even though she doesn’t—lives and works there with his Aunt Eden. And this is where Magnolia lives once she accepts Cotton’s offer to impersonate the dead for people who are willing to pay for the chance to connect. At first, Magnolia’s job involves Skyping for clients. Eventually, she will lie still in a coffin for mourners who never had a chance to bury their loved one and masquerade as a lost—certainly dead—woman at a party for her family and friends. While Magnolia is posing as a series of dead women, Mama Brown haunts her and begs Magnolia to see the baby she’s aborted so that both Mama Brown and the baby can rest. And, throughout the narrative, we see the little fairy tales Magnolia tells herself to escape from her real life. This is a messy text with a weird flow, and much of the detail that Brashears provides makes it more difficult—rather than easier—to suspend disbelief unless we understand at the very beginning that this is closer to horror than realist fiction. Perhaps the best way to read this is as a gothic novel in which a surfeit of symbolism offers up a superabundance of meaning.
A lyrical fever dream of a novel.Pub Date: April 4, 2023
ISBN: 9781250851918
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Flatiron Books
Review Posted Online: Feb. 7, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2023
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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