A mesmerizing, contemplative, and haunting work of historical fiction.
Erotic romance, moviemaking audacity, and looming dread co-exist in this arresting fact-based novel set in Italy’s hazardous 1970s.
In the autumn of 1974, Nicholas Wade, a 22-year-old art student, needs to bolt his London digs hurriedly enough to ensure that he can be safely removed from “possible questions, speculation.” (About what isn’t said.) Nicholas crosses the English Channel and ends up in Venice, where he arouses the erotic interest of Danilo Donati, the celebrated costumer and production designer best known for his work with superstar directors Federico Fellini and Pier Paolo Pasolini. As it happens, Danilo is now working with both these eccentric and willful filmmakers on separate but equally incendiary projects: Fellini’s opulent biopic of Casanova and Pasolini’s graphic account of fascist sadism during World War II, Salò, or the 120 Days of Sodom. Almost immediately after taking Nicholas as a lover, Danilo designates him as “my apprentice” and together they head for Rome and the fabled Cinecittà studios, where Nicholas meets the volatile, luminous Fellini and wins over the maestro and veteran craft workers with his drawings and designs. When the Casanova project stalls, Nicholas and Danilo travel to Mantua where Pasolini is working on Salò. In contrast with the boisterous, effusive Fellini, the way Pasolini speaks “is hypnotic: both his soft, whispery voice and the apocalyptic things he says.” One could say similar things about the spectral mood and tone pervading Laing’s novel, rife with sensuality, illuminating archival details about the Italian film industry, and disquieting intimations about the growing social and political unrest that in only a few years would grow in terror and bloodshed, forever marking the decade as the country’s Years of Lead. Pasolini’s brutal murder, the climactic tragedy that closes this saga, may well have been the first manifestation of such “lead,” though Laing’s command of suggestion and subtlety allows readers to make their own inferences.
A mesmerizing, contemplative, and haunting work of historical fiction.Pub Date: Nov. 11, 2025
ISBN: 9780374618315
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: Aug. 15, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2025
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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