A novel that brings the Bronx to teeming life with a wry marriage of drama and humor.
A woman returns home to New York City and confronts her past in Dunn’s novel.
Theresa Angela Campanosi, a financially strapped, Italian American activist with a “tough-Bronx-girl vibe,” fled to Los Angeles, consumed with guilt over a fateful night of teenage carelessness that left her brother Jimmy paralyzed. Ten years later, when her mother mails her a one-way ticket home for Jimmy’s last-minute wedding, Angela knows something else is up. Her fears are confirmed when she returns to the Bronx to find Jimmy missing—the first in a string of difficulties that brings Angela in contact with various elements from days gone by: her childhood friend Billy, an artist and recovering addict working for Angela’s family’s exterminating business; her alcoholic father, who’s preoccupied with Jimmy’s childhood acting career; a closetful of plastic saints; and an unsavory man called “Fat Freddy” and his thuggish cronies. As seen through Angela’s eyes, the novel paints a portrait of a Bronx where a progressive anti-war activist still needs a “red slut dress” to do a business transaction with neighborhood muscle. Angela soon reveals herself to be an unreliable narrator, however, whose “bulldozing” manner seems to run in the family: Her mother is the queen in a hive of overbearing personalities, fuzzed by clichés but nevertheless complex in their motivations. The characters’ constant bickering, which sometimes feels more scripted than reflective of real life, brings the novel to a head at Billy’s art show, where “creepy-crawlies” take center stage in more ways than one. Set against the backdrop of America’s 1991 involvement in Kuwait and addressing addictions of all kinds, the novel dabbles in moralism but refuses to sacrifice its fast pace to pause for deep reflection. Ultimately, Dunn’s novel is a primer on the strength of family and the frailty of memory and a reminder that the only way we can truly understand those we love is to stop and listen; after all, Dunn reminds us, “forgiveness can’t happen in silence.”
A novel that brings the Bronx to teeming life with a wry marriage of drama and humor.Pub Date: Nov. 9, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-59954-173-0
Page Count: 286
Publisher: Bordighera Press
Review Posted Online: Dec. 10, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2022
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
An evocative and moving tribute to the death-defying, heart-opening, infinitely redemptive power of storytelling.
A chance meeting in a museum unlocks a long-closed door in a family’s past.
Of a piece with her last three novels—Commonwealth (2016), The Dutch House (2019), and Tom Lake (2023)—Patchett’s latest explores the evolution of families over time, romantic secrets, and step-relationships, again giving these topics the wry and tender treatment that is distinctively hers. As it begins, Daphne Fuller’s attentive husband, Jonathan, notices that a man has been following them through the Metropolitan Museum of Art. At first they chalk it up to the fact that “old guys love [Daphne],” as she told Jonathan decades ago, a notion he has held onto "like a souvenir postcard from another era." But it turns out that, though Daphne doesn’t recognize him, Eddie Triplett is her former stepfather. Like the author herself, as recalled in her 2020 essay “Three Fathers,” Daphne has had three dads. Her biological father, a deep-sea fisherman named Buddy Zabriskie, left the family early; her current stepfather, Lucas Ekker, lives with her mother in retirement in Massachusetts. Ekker is an unprepossessing sort Abby met working as the publicist for his self-help books, Positivity!, Positively Positive!, The Positivity Workbook!, Positive Every Day!, ad infinitum. The man in the museum, Eddie Triplett, was also someone her mother met through her job in publishing, and once Daphne realizes who he is, she remembers that “[their] hearts were forever stitched together.” This is because Daphne and Eddie were in a serious car accident when she was 9 years old, after which her mother immediately divorced him and evicted him from their lives. The details of that accident—among them lies the reason the novel is named after a horse called Whistler—are gradually wheedled out of Daphne by her younger sister, Leda, a clinical psychologist in New York and a reliable source of insight on the narrative’s key issues. “‘You make it sound like I’ve been keeping all this from you, but I’m not,’ [Daphne] said. ‘Who goes through life thinking about what happened when they were nine?’ ‘It’s all people think about,’ Leda said.”
An evocative and moving tribute to the death-defying, heart-opening, infinitely redemptive power of storytelling.Pub Date: June 2, 2026
ISBN: 9780063511637
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: April 6, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2026
PERSPECTIVES
PERSPECTIVES
SEEN & HEARD
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
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