Elegant, often haunting evocations of a lost world at the end of life.
Vignettes recounting the author’s ethereal dreams of old age, many centering on death and roads not taken.
Translator Matar, a Libyan novelist, met Mahfouz not long after a would-be killer attacked the Nobel Prize–winning author in a Cairo alley, nearly stabbing him to death. Mahfouz recovered, but he seldom ventured out in public again, at least not alone. Before his death in 2006, he recorded dreams that, writes Matar, “are an insight into Mahfouz’s twilight concerns.” In one, Mahfouz dreams that he has been walking along a road when an open window reveals a woman whom he immediately recognizes, though 50 years had robbed her of her beauty. “In the morning,” he writes, “I was deeply unsettled when, reading the newspaper, I came upon her obituary. I was profoundly saddened and wondered which of us had visited the other at that hour of death?” In another dream—and almost all of these vignettes begin “I found myself” or “I saw myself”—he encounters his long-dead mother, who “received [him] with perplexing indifference and then left the room.” Let the oneirologists make of that what they will, but it all makes eminent sense: One door is closing, another is opening. Other of Mahfouz’s dreams point to his political opposition to numerous Egyptian regimes: In one he finds himself in a train station with two areas, one quiet and conducive to work, the other noisy and full of sights and smells. When Mahfouz prefers the first, his companion says, “Yes, but I spotted some of our opponents in the other section,” to which Mahfouz replies, “I am ready for a confrontation.” So, as ever, he is, though always with humane intent, honoring what a different companion tells him in another dream: “One must, as long as we are alive, retain some good faith.”
Elegant, often haunting evocations of a lost world at the end of life.Pub Date: June 3, 2025
ISBN: 9780811231022
Page Count: 160
Publisher: New Directions
Review Posted Online: March 22, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2025
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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