A fascinating portrait of a woman torn between her single-minded artistic ambition and her yearning for love.
In a novel inspired by the life of the artist Agnes Martin, Foley invents a fictional scenario while capturing Martin’s emotional essence.
The outer contours of Agatha Smithson’s life resemble Martin’s—early artistic success in New York City, a stay at Bellevue Hospital after a psychotic break, a university teaching stint in Albuquerque, a secluded hand-built cabin, complicated friendships with Georgia O’Keeffe and others, a return to painting, an uncloseted lesbian identity. When the novel begins in 1971, 68-year-old Agatha is living, as Martin did, in Mesa Portales, New Mexico, but fiction takes over as Agatha narrates a romantic drama involving her with a variety of local characters, some imagined, others amalgams of real figures in Martin’s life. Agatha’s attention is currently consumed by the intense love affair she has been carrying on with local widow Alice for four years. She indignantly, perhaps defensively, claims that Alice remains “whole in her mind,” despite what others consider Alice’s increasing dementia. Rejecting the decision of Alice’s son to put her in a facility, Agatha acts to relocate Alice from her small house in town to Agatha’s unplumbed, unelectrified cabin. Agatha even digs up the grave of Alice’s daughter, who was tragically murdered at age 21, to keep her body near Alice. But readers will notice early on that whenever anyone comes looking for Alice, Agatha explains that she is “on a walk,” and so conveniently unavailable. That Agatha is not merely an unreliable narrator but an irrational one becomes increasingly clear. Then, midway through the book, Agatha begins to grapple with difficult truths that begin to reveal themselves both to her and the reader. Despite exaggerated, almost silly plotting, a rich portrayal emerges on multiple layers: the self-centered, prickly but gifted artist, the woman fighting the realities both of mental illness and aging, the derider of sentiment who desperately wants, and often makes, deep and lasting connections with others.
A fascinating portrait of a woman torn between her single-minded artistic ambition and her yearning for love.Pub Date: March 17, 2026
ISBN: 9781668098578
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Avid Reader Press
Review Posted Online: Dec. 26, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2026
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 welcome literary resurrection that deserves a place alongside Wright’s best-known work.
A falsely accused Black man goes into hiding in this masterful novella by Wright (1908-1960), finally published in full.
Written in 1941 and '42, between Wright’s classics Native Son and Black Boy, this short novel concerns Fred Daniels, a modest laborer who’s arrested by police officers and bullied into signing a false confession that he killed the residents of a house near where he was working. In a brief unsupervised moment, he escapes through a manhole and goes into hiding in a sewer. A series of allegorical, surrealistic set pieces ensues as Fred explores the nether reaches of a church, a real estate firm, and a jewelry store. Each stop is an opportunity for Wright to explore themes of hope, greed, and exploitation; the real estate firm, Wright notes, “collected hundreds of thousands of dollars in rent from poor colored folks.” But Fred’s deepening existential crisis and growing distance from society keep the scenes from feeling like potted commentaries. As he wallpapers his underground warren with cash, mocking and invalidating the currency, he registers a surrealistic but engrossing protest against divisive social norms. The novel, rejected by Wright’s publisher, has only appeared as a substantially truncated short story until now, without the opening setup and with a different ending. Wright's take on racial injustice seems to have unsettled his publisher: A note reveals that an editor found reading about Fred’s treatment by the police “unbearable.” That may explain why Wright, in an essay included here, says its focus on race is “rather muted,” emphasizing broader existential themes. Regardless, as an afterword by Wright’s grandson Malcolm attests, the story now serves as an allegory both of Wright (he moved to France, an “exile beyond the reach of Jim Crow and American bigotry”) and American life. Today, it resonates deeply as a story about race and the struggle to envision a different, better world.
A welcome literary resurrection that deserves a place alongside Wright’s best-known work.Pub Date: April 20, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-59853-676-8
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Library of America
Review Posted Online: March 16, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2021
BOOK TO SCREEN
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