Packed with history, intrigue, and social controversy, along with well-crafted action scenes.
Quaver’s fifth volume in his The Ordeals of Elly Robin series brings his irrepressible protagonist to Chicago just before America’s entry into World War I.
It’s 1915, and teen prodigy Elly Robin, 15, has driven her Stanley Steamer motorcar from New Orleans to Chicago to study with piano virtuoso Maestro Vitorio Bellini. During a concert engagement in New Orleans, Bellini discovered Elly while she was the piano player in a bordello he was visiting. Impressed by the young girl’s exceptional skill on the keyboard, and seriously inebriated, he offered to be her mentor should she ever come to Chicago. Bellini’s sister, with whom he lives, arranges for Lillian LaSalle, wife of wealthy clothing manufacturer Franklin LaSalle, to be Elly’s patron. Lillian is to be responsible for instructing the socially awkward Elly in the social graces, necessary if she is to become a world-famous pianist, while Bellini schools her in the musical subtleties of the great classical composers. Elly—orphaned at 6 during the San Francisco earthquake and left to her own devices after fleeing an abusive children’s asylum—enters the LaSalle mansion and finds herself surrounded by unimagined luxury. The LaSalle children, especially Wilhelmina (“Willy”), treat her with hostility. But, as Elly learns, beneath the glittering exterior, the LaSalle family harbors dark secrets, mysteries that our young hero, who always keeps a sheathed stiletto hidden in her bodice, plans to unearth. Elly has her own secrets, a past she must keep hidden if she is to succeed within society. When Lillian hires tutor Carrie Gunther to teach Elly the foreign languages she’ll need for world tours, she unwittingly brings a rebel into the LaSalle household, someone who will expose Elly to the burgeoning labor movement plus a group of Anarchists, an association that puts Elly’s position, and possibly even her life, in danger.
Although followers of the series will know Elly’s backstory, those new to the saga must wait patiently for the details to be revealed gradually, especially when significant characters from her past reappear in the current volume. Quaver, a retired professional pianist, adeptly portrays the power of music to transport both artist and audience. Readers unfamiliar with the classical music references will still feel the intensity of Elly’s performances, although Quaver compromises the impact with too much repetition. As the author cautions in his opening notes, dialogue reflects the linguistics of the period, including offensive racial and ethnic slurs. These choices contribute to a realistic rendering of Chicago’s economic, social, and ethnic diversity and tensions in the early 20th century. The novel seamlessly blends historical figures and fictional characters. For example, Elly’s interactions with an aging and alcoholic Jack London and a fiery Emma Goldman add spice to the narrative. Her romantic liaison with Edwin Friend, aviation enthusiast and one of society’s most eligible bachelors, supplies poignancy and a bit of humor in a tale that culminates with a breathless, page-turning chase through the streets of Chicago, leading Elly straight into the next installment of this continuing saga. Quaver’s black-and-white drawings accompany the text.
Packed with history, intrigue, and social controversy, along with well-crafted action scenes.Pub Date: June 24, 2021
ISBN: 9798526346214
Page Count: 486
Publisher: Self
Review Posted Online: Feb. 23, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2024
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
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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