A well-balanced drama about memorable lovers and their uncomfortable secrets.
Cacoyannis offers a literary novel about love and infidelity in London.
Harry Wood is an English painter with a secret. Every Wednesday, he meets a woman he knows only as Lina at a hotel in Paddington in central London; the two have sex and have no interest in a relationship of any sort. What complicates matters is the fact that Harry is married to Max Steffe, the man who helped launch his successful career as an artist. Max comes from a wealthy family and is known for “wielding influence and enormous power over practically anyone and everyone who wanted to be someone in the Arts.” Harry loves Max, but it hasn’t stopped him from secretly carrying on his weekly affair for almost two years. One of Harry’s most popular paintings is of an unhoused man he knows who calls himself Gregor Horak and has an affinity for the work of Franz Kafka; Harry and Max help to get Gregor back on his feet and to achieve his dream of becoming a famous writer. They also help a friend of Gregor’s, a budding artist who goes by the name Slimboy. Things take a turn, though, when Harry gets jury duty for a murder trial. By chance, Lina is assigned to the same jury, and Harry learns from another juror, musician Jefferson Stone, that Lina is a famous documentary filmmaker. A guilty Harry stops seeing Lina, but he wonders how to break the news of the past affair to Max; to make matters even more complex, he also finds himself starting to have feelings for Jefferson. However, it soon becomes clear that his relationship with Lina may not end as easily as he thought.
Cacoyannis’ narrative focuses on Harry, who narrates the tale as he navigates the strange circumstances in which he finds himself. The story is most compelling when he discovers new facts that throw his assumptions into disarray—such as when he finds out new information from a clerk at the hotel where he has his trysts with Lina, or when it becomes clear that the first time Harry met Lina may not have been an accident. Although the novel has a fairly large cast of characters, the author effectively distinguishes each of them with small details, such as Jefferson’s hand tattoos or Lina’s penchant for the novel Lolita. However, for a narrative that involves so much deception, the novel has a tendency to repeat things that readers already know. For example, when Harry and Lina set up their first rendezvous, she explains that “There’s this hotel I know. Out of the way. Very discreet. I could meet you there next Wednesday afternoon if you like”—although, by this point in the story, readers already have intimate knowledge of every detail of the Wednesday schedule. Nonetheless, readers will find themselves slowly becoming invested in what will happen to these disparate people—who, after all, will wind up with who? Such questions keep the story alive and moving, all the way to its conclusion.
A well-balanced drama about memorable lovers and their uncomfortable secrets.Pub Date: Feb. 10, 2025
ISBN: 9798306638409
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Self
Review Posted Online: Jan. 14, 2025
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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