Unapologetically confrontational, grimly poignant; a gritty depiction of LA vice and vicissitude.
A collection of short stories explores the dark corners of city life.
Los Angeles is both the setting and the unifying force behind these 11 tales of crime, false hope, and down-and-out disillusionment. Knight writes primarily in the third person, past tense, usually from multiple viewpoints within each story. This narrative omniscience allows readers to experience events from different perspectives and heightens the effect when lives and choices inexorably come together in an ill-fated concatenation. Such interconnectedness is most evident in “Tip the Barkeep” and “White Horse,” tales in which a murderer and drug dealer take refuge from pursuers who have links to the bars they hole up in, and “Night Windows,” about a patsy framed for a homicide who happens to be known to the investigating officer. Two stories are told in the first person, present tense: “Mouth Bay,” in which a self-centered woman fails to make the life changes that would render her a fit parent, and “That Dreaded Undertow,” in which a fisherman turns his life around but is dragged back down by his past. These notions—the power of children to inspire rehabilitation and the difficulty of escaping one’s history—form common, contrasting threads throughout the volume, clashing most notably in “Bleeders Abound,” in which a taxi driver trying to make good picks up a fare linked to his gangland past. Knight employs realistic dialogue and an immersive, staccato-style prose that deals directly with life in all its seedy, sordid details. The characters who emerge may be unlikable but are very real and distinctly memorable, from the reclusive, would-be good Samaritan of “Vin Scully Eyes” to the aging party girl of “Full Bloom” and the rehabbed bartender (“I don’t drink”) of “Angels Live Here.” The last two are wistful vignettes of lives gone astray early and never corrected. The first tale is more plot-driven and emphasizes how wrong it is to shut out the world yet how letting it in can end badly. Indeed, few of these stories have happy endings. The collection’s tales work well together, and Knight’s writing will pull readers in—a kind of literary mugging that will leave them wiser and sadder. Noir enthusiasts will grant their somber approval.
Unapologetically confrontational, grimly poignant; a gritty depiction of LA vice and vicissitude.Pub Date: Sept. 26, 2022
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: 241
Publisher: Down & Out Books
Review Posted Online: Aug. 29, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2022
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
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
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