This unique hero takes the story to dangerous places, both in England and abroad.
A gay English youth comes of age in the 1960s in Nochtree’s novel.
England, 1961: Mark Martin is a teenager who lives with his mother. Mark’s current situation is summed up thusly: “He hated his life, he hated the flat, he hated this city, he hated his school, he hated his mother. He hated himself.” Mark is attracted to other boys; considering the laws and social norms of the time, he does not exactly go around announcing this. One day, while in town, he learns of a local pub where gay men hang out called The Vault. When Mark is offered a fiver there for sex, he accepts. (Five pounds is a lot of money in his world and he enjoys the sex, so why not?) Mark winds up doing this regularly and becomes attached to one of the patrons, who goes by the name Pip. He also gets a part-time job at the nearby Frank’s Fish’n’Chips. (Frank’s does not pay as much as sex work, but it gives Mark a cover for his newfound income.) Through Frank’s, he meets a boy named Tommy, and Tommy and Mark become secret boyfriends. Eventually, Pip gets Mark a job at the car dealership that he runs. Pip and Mark form their own lasting relationship. As Mark manages to balance school, Tommy, Pip, and the occasional inquiries of his mother, things seem to be going well. But disaster soon strikes: After an incident with another rent boy, Mark sees no other option but to flee the country with Pip.
Mark is hardly the typical hero for a narrative that, in the second half of the book, morphs into something of an adventure story as he ventures far from home with a man who may or may not be trustworthy (though it is established early on that Pip is involved with business somewhere around Indonesia, the nature of this business is kept a secret). The first half of the story is chock-full of inviting tension—most of this comes from Mark’s chosen profession. How long can he keep up the life of a secret sex worker? But as sticky as Mark’s problems are, the story does have its share of dull moments. Mark puts out a fire at Frank’s before it can spread and destroy the whole building; this action is covered extensively and then spoken about again and again by different characters. When one of his schoolmates picks up the local paper, “There on the front page was a large photograph of Mark, smiling uneasily with Mam’s arm round him and a big grin on her face.” While Mark’s actions and the ensuing excitement have their place in the overall narrative, it is not a particularly engaging incident for the reader. Nor are many of the events that follow, such as when Mark receives an award at school for his bravery. (Mark is told of the badge he receives, as if it were not obvious, “It’s awarded for special achievements.”) Still, as Mark’s world constantly changes, readers will be curious to see where he will ultimately wind up.
This unique hero takes the story to dangerous places, both in England and abroad.Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2024
ISBN: 9798333378040
Page Count: 398
Publisher: Self
Review Posted Online: March 4, 2025
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
Fans of Stockett’s bestselling debut will love this engaging follow-up.
Stockett heads to Mississippi for another historical novel about feisty women.
This time, perhaps recalling criticisms of cultural appropriation in The Help (2009), she sticks to feisty white women, with one exception. The setting is Oxford in 1933. For two miserable years, 11-year-old Meg has lived in “the Orphan,” a county asylum for parentless girls. Chairlady Garnett—a villain so one-note she’d twirl a mustache if she had one—makes it her mission to ostracize the older girls she deems unadoptable, stigmatizing them as offspring of the “feebleminded” mothers who abandoned them. She particularly has it in for smart, sassy Meg, who refuses to believe her mother’s mysterious disappearance was deliberate. Elsewhere in Oxford, Birdie Calhoun comes to visit her sister Frances, who married a wealthy banker, to ask for money on behalf of their mother and grandmother back in Footely. Frances isn’t thrilled by this reminder of her impoverished small-town origins. But she’s trying to climb up in Oxford society by volunteering at the Orphan, the asylum’s books need to be done before the state inspector shows up in a few weeks, and Birdie is a bookkeeper. Having neatly arranged to keep Birdie in town and draw these two storylines together, Stockett goes on to spin a compulsively readable yarn with enough plot for a half-dozen novels. Birdie and Meg become friends, Meg is adopted despite Garnett’s best efforts, Meg’s mother turns up at the Orphan demanding to know where her child is—and that’s less than a quarter of the way through a long, winding narrative that keeps piling on more dramatic developments until all loose ends are neatly, if hastily, wrapped up in the final pages. Stockett might be making a point about Southern women facing facts and standing up for themselves, but mostly this is just a satisfyingly twisty tale that should make a great miniseries.
Fans of Stockett’s bestselling debut will love this engaging follow-up.Pub Date: May 5, 2026
ISBN: 9781954118812
Page Count: 656
Publisher: Spiegel & Grau
Review Posted Online: Feb. 2, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2026
BOOK REVIEW
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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