A captivating tale.
A mysterious man becomes the object of a young woman's quest.
As the newest hire at a Berkeley bookshop, Gabriele is assigned to what the staff calls “the Vietri Project,” fulfilling orders from one Giordano Vietri, in Rome. Over the course of two and a half years, sending him more than 1,000 books on assorted esoteric topics—including mysticism, Native American medicine, shamanism, animism, and alchemy— Gabriele construes an image of Vietri as “an old man alone in a crumbling Roman apartment building, surrounded by hundreds of books not in his native language, frantically researching his own mortality.” Making an accomplished literary debut, notable for its delicate prose and sharply delineated characters, DeRobertis-Theye enmeshes Gabriele in her own frantic search, impelled, at first, by her curiosity about Vietri and the wisdom she imagines he may impart to her. An only child whose mother has been long institutionalized with schizophrenia, Gabriele, on the cusp of turning 25, decides to leave her job, the boyfriend who hopes to marry her, and a life that has become claustrophobic and aimless. Desultory travels finally end in Rome, where her mother was born, where Gabriele had spent summers as a teenager, and where she tries—but fails—to find Vietri at his apartment. Fearful of being caught in the “traumas and histories” of her many Italian relatives, at first she devotes herself solely to investigating Vietri and, as she discovers records and documents, becomes drawn into a larger trauma: Italy’s wartime past. DeRobertis-Theye unfolds Gabriele’s quest like a mystery, revealing clues both to Vietri’s life and Gabriele’s: her fear of inheriting schizophrenia, her overwhelming feelings of grief, her conflicted longing for family, and her obsession with Vietri. “Usually,” a friend tells her, “it’s that you need something about the world explained to you. You want to understand the order of things and you think that if you trace the life of this man it will do that for you.”
A captivating tale.Pub Date: March 23, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-06-301770-2
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Jan. 14, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2021
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 debut novel with bright spots, but unbalanced and lacking in finesse.
A high school senior pursues an affair with her teacher.
Seventeen-year-old Waldo, the narrator of McCurdy’s fiction debut, lives in Anchorage, Alaska, with her mother, though she’s long been the parent in their relationship. She heats her own frozen meals and pays the bills on time while her mom chases man after man and makes well-meaning promises she never keeps. Waldo blows her Victoria’s Secret wages on online shopping sprees and binges on junk food, inevitably crashing after the fleeting highs of her indulgences. Mr. Korgy, her creative writing teacher, has “thinning hair and nose pores”; he’s 40 years old and married with a child. Nevertheless—or possibly as a result?—Waldo’s attraction to him is “instant. So sudden it’s alarming. So palpable it’s confusing.” Mr. Korgy professes to want to keep their friendship aboveboard, but after a sexual encounter at the school’s winter formal that she initiates, an affair begins. Will this reckless pursuit be the one that actually satisfies Waldo, and is she as mature as she thinks she is? Waldo is a keen observer of people and provides sharp commentary on the punishing work of female beauty. Readers of McCurdy’s bestselling memoir, I’m Glad My Mom Died (2022), will surely be curious about the tumultuous mother-daughter relationship, and it is one of the novel’s highlights, full of realistic pity and anger and need. (“I want to scream at her. I want her to hug me.”) Unfortunately, the prose is often unwieldy and sometimes downright cringeworthy: When Waldo tells Mr. Korgy she loves him, “The words hang in the air in that constipated way they do when you know that you shouldn’t have said them.” Waldo frequently lists emotions and adjectives in triplicate, and events that could be significant aren’t sufficiently explored or given enough space to breathe before the novel races on to the next thing.
A debut novel with bright spots, but unbalanced and lacking in finesse.Pub Date: Jan. 20, 2026
ISBN: 9780593723739
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: Nov. 22, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2026
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
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