A novel about awkward coming-of-age in a country negotiating the same bewildering passage.
An intelligent debut about how young adults negotiate the intricate politics of race and identity in contemporary South Africa.
Emil, a Creole man in training to be a neurosurgeon, needs a break, and his politically connected father urges him to visit the town of Stadmutter, in the Deep South, to reconnect with his less cosmopolitan cousins. There, Emil finds he’s mostly on his own. His aunt, a widow, is busy at work and pursuing a romance that keeps her away from home. The cousin he expected to bond with, Torrance, who resembles him physically and in ambition, has moved out in part to make room for Emil, leaving Andres, who collects disability and devotes himself mostly to video games with a friend and small-time schemes and drug dealing. Left to his own perilous aimlessness, Emil ventures into a club, and immediately falls under the sway of Bolling, a Haitian German philosopher/gadfly who has both sexual and intellectual designs on him. Emil is befriended, too, by Tamsin, a psychology Ph.D. student who like him is a child of ambivalent privilege, and they get entangled, erotically and otherwise. They soon encounter an enigmatic quasi-protege of Bolling, Braeem Shaka, leader of an upstart Creole political movement that seeks reparations and is viewed as a threat by the governor. Eventually, Shaka becomes a hunted outlaw, and Emil finds that he has been drafted by the absent Bolling into being Shaka’s protector—a role into which he recruits Tamsin. The result is a novel of dreamy indolence and big ideas: When and where will Emil find himself when at last he emerges from the haze of uncertainty, when he decides who and what and where he’s going to be? Novels of passivity and bewilderment are hard to make work, but Terry does a nice job of dramatizing the lives of young intellectuals adrift in a chaos of possibilities.
A novel about awkward coming-of-age in a country negotiating the same bewildering passage.Pub Date: Sept. 9, 2025
ISBN: 9781632063984
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Restless Books
Review Posted Online: July 4, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 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
SEEN & HEARD
A pleasant if not entirely convincing tribute to the power of art.
A French art historian’s English-language fiction debut combines the story of a loving relationship between a grandfather and granddaughter with an enlightening discussion of art.
One day, when 10-year-old Mona removes the necklace given to her by her now-dead grandmother, she experiences a frightening, hour-long bout of blindness. Her parents take her to the doctor, who gives her a variety of tests and also advises that she see a psychiatrist. Her grandfather Henry tells her parents that he will take care of that assignment, but instead, he takes Mona on weekly visits to either the Louvre, the Musée d’Orsay, or the Centre Pompidou, where each week they study a single work of art, gazing at it deeply and then discussing its impact and history and the biography of its maker. For the reader’s benefit, Schlesser also describes each of the works in scrupulous detail. As the year goes on, Mona faces the usual challenges of elementary school life and the experiences of being an only child, and slowly begins to understand the causes of her temporary blindness. Primarily an amble through a few dozen of Schlesser’s favorite works of art—some well known and others less so, from Botticelli and da Vinci through Basquiat and Bourgeois—the novel would probably benefit from being read at a leisurely pace. While the dialogue between Henry and the preternaturally patient and precocious Mona sometimes strains credulity, readers who don’t have easy access to the museums of Paris may enjoy this vicarious trip in the company of a guide who focuses equally on that which can be seen and the context that can’t be. Come for the novel, stay for the introductory art history course.
A pleasant if not entirely convincing tribute to the power of art.Pub Date: Aug. 26, 2025
ISBN: 9798889661115
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Europa Editions
Review Posted Online: June 7, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2025
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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