Hard but hopeful tales of middle America, addiction, and the human condition.
Residents of a Rust Belt town dream, scheme, get high, get sober, and start over in Gardner’s gritty collection of linked short stories.
“I asked my characters what they wanted and they answered: Oxycontin, Xanax, blunts, and booze.” So begins the first, titular story in Gardner’s collection; its unnamed narrator, an aspiring writer, hopes to pen a novel about the opioid epidemic, with his own addiction thinly veiled as “immersive research.” Gardner’s characters, too, desire drugs, but they want more than that: escape, a new direction, to make peace with the past and build anew. They pursue these similar ends in myriad ways. For example, the cast of “Delinquents” pins their hopes for deliverance on a homemade rocket ship; the protagonist of “Lifers, Locals, and Hangers-on,” suffocated by the monotony of her life, sees in a visiting cowboy the possibility of far-off adventure. In “Digging,” a character seeks comfort in a relationship with a younger man who’s troubled by self-loathing and fixated on a violent episode in local history. The collection’s longest story, a novella titled “Captain Failure,” focuses on a recurring character named Dunk, unveiling his traumatic past as an ex-cult member. He seeks a peace that eludes him, even in sobriety, until he’s hired to consult on a movie about the cult, forcing him to confront his childhood. It’s notable that few of Gardner’s characters ever actually leave their town of Westinghouse, Ohio; instead, they seek relief in each other, themselves, intoxication, or sobriety. The author masterfully switches up the pace with writing that’s alternately blunt, frenzied, and meditative to evoke the grinding conditions of his characters’ lives, the elasticity of time in Westinghouse, and the unique manifestations of shared desperation for something more. Gardner seems uninterested in a traditional sort of redemption for his characters, instead forcing readers to meet them on their terms. The result is a propulsive and startlingly moving collection.
Hard but hopeful tales of middle America, addiction, and the human condition.Pub Date: Aug. 13, 2024
ISBN: 9781960593030
Page Count: 182
Publisher: Madrona Books
Review Posted Online: July 25, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2024
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
An existential crisis that steps on its own final moments.
With only a month left until the world ends due to a swiftly approaching black hole, Don and Rodney, a retired gay couple, road-trip from Maine to Washington to spend their final days with their son.
After reports that a planet-swallowing black hole is making its way toward Earth, Rodney and Don—who have been together for 40 years and survived everything from homophobia to the HIV crisis—decide to pack their belongings into an RV, say goodbye to their neighbors, and travel from Camden, Maine, to Washington to uphold a promise to spend their final days with their son. They can’t wait any longer, since there’s already chaos around the country: “Military vehicles in the streets of most cities and towns. Looting, rioting, the burning of cars and buildings and people, all of it had already happened.” As they make their way west across the country, they encounter fellow travelers ranging from close-knit families to free-spirited hippies, some of whom have come to terms with the impending end of the world and others who haven’t. While the story seems to be asking readers what they would do if they had 30 days left to live, and reflects on what different kinds of acceptance might look like in the face of unavoidable tragedy, it loses some of its poignancy in a series of thinly padded monologues about the meaning of life. Clearly intended to pack an emotional punch, it’s failed by an abrupt ending, and the way the journey’s mystery—which will be obvious to many readers—is revealed by an info dump in the last chapter.
An existential crisis that steps on its own final moments.Pub Date: April 28, 2026
ISBN: 9781250881236
Page Count: 176
Publisher: Tor
Review Posted Online: March 9, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2026
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