A lively story with an intricate setting but single-note supporting characters.
The world of a talented L.A. painter is upended when a woman buys his artwork.
Virgilio Santos, a self-described “former street artist and small-time savior,” lives on Sixth Street in downtown L.A. In between life at his apartment with his mother, who practices Santeria, and the time he spends painting at the community center, Virgilio hangs out often at his beloved Sixth Street Bridge. Beatrice Schein, an art curator, sees Virgilio’s paintings and buys them all, offering to propel him to stardom in the art world. Beatrice’s privileged worldview and white-savior tendencies, as well as warnings from his loved ones, make him reluctant, but Virgilio accepts her offer. Meanwhile, a construction project has the neighborhood crisscrossed with tunnels that house various illicit activities, from cockfighting to drug rings. Virgilio’s friends Concha and Sexto are caught up in all of it. Virgilio learns that the “King of the Underworld” is actually Beatrice’s father and that he must avoid romantic involvement with his latest art patron; otherwise, Mr. Schein will tear down his apartment and the Sixth Street Bridge. Everything comes to a head when Virgilio is on his art tour with Beatrice in Paris. Ortega-Medina’s book, with its obvious references to Dante’s Inferno, has a lot going on, but in a good way. Virgilio’s tale engages readers throughout, even though his self-perception—particularly regarding his relationships with those around him—is somewhat skewed. The novel’s tunnel world is also fascinating. The secondary characters, however, often seem to be in service to Virgilio and little else. Virgilio’s mother, Celia, worries about Virgilio; Concha, a trans woman, is in love with Virgilio; Sexto, Virgilio’s “oversexed” friend, lusts after Virgilio, etc., etc. Essentially, Virgilio is a respected, talented, and attractive young man, and everyone wants a piece of him, and he must take on the burden of “saving” these people by being there for them, even though what he wants most is to paint. This portrayal of Virgilio as the sun with the other characters orbiting around him grows tiresome, even as the plot surrounding these characters thickens.
A lively story with an intricate setting but single-note supporting characters.Pub Date: Oct. 22, 2020
ISBN: 978-1838045111
Page Count: 230
Publisher: Cloud Lodge Books
Review Posted Online: Feb. 9, 2024
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Hokey plot, good fun.
A business executive becomes an unjustly wanted man.
Walter Nash attends his estranged father Tiberius’ funeral, where Ty’s Army buddy, Shock, rips into him for not being the kind of man the Vietnam vet Ty was. Instead, Nash is the successful head of acquisitions for Sybaritic Investments, where he earns a handsome paycheck that supports his wife, Judith, and his teenage daughter, Maggie. An FBI agent approaches Nash after the funeral and asks him to be a mole in his company, because the feds consider chief executive Rhett Temple “a criminal consorting with some very dangerous people.” It’s “a chance to be a hero,” the agent says, while admitting that Nash’s personal and financial risks are immense. Indeed, readers soon find Temple and a cohort standing over a fresh corpse and wondering what to do with it. Temple is not an especially talented executive, and he frets that his hated father, the chairman of the board, will eventually replace him with Nash. (Father-son relationships are not glorified in this tale.) Temple is cartoonishly rotten. He answers to a mysterious woman in Asia, whom he rightly fears. He kills. He beds various women including Judith, whom he tries to turn against Nash. The story’s dramatic turn follows Maggie’s kidnapping, where Nash is wrongly accused. Believing Nash’s innocence, Shock helps him change completely with intense exercise, bulking up and tattooing his body, and learning how to fight and kill. Eventually he looks nothing like the dweeb who’d once taken up tennis instead of football, much to Ty’s undying disgust. Finding the victim and the kidnappers becomes his sole mission. As a child watching his father hunt, Nash could never have killed a living thing. But with his old life over—now he will kill, and he will take any risks necessary. His transformation is implausible, though at least he’s not green like the Incredible Hulk. Loose ends abound by the end as he ignores a plea to “not get on that damn plane,” so a sequel is a necessity.
Hokey plot, good fun.Pub Date: Nov. 11, 2025
ISBN: 9781538757987
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Review Posted Online: Aug. 29, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 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
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
