A colorful, bighearted novel about a summer of hauling trash.
In Neville’s debut novel, a youth finds his path while working as a garbage collector.
In 1969, 18-year-old Jesse Wheeler is a graduating high school senior looking for a job in the Chicago suburb of Freedom, Illinois. He manages to find work manning a garbage truck at Willard Sanitation Services despite showing up late for the interview and getting his car stuck in the company’s gravel driveway. It’s an appropriate position for a guy whose life has been trashed: Jesse hasn’t gotten into college, his father recently died, his mother is moving away, and his best friend just started sleeping with the girl Jesse’s been pursuing all year. Little does Jesse know he’s just entered a new, dysfunctional family made up of formerly incarcerated garbagemen, including the lisping, mocking foreman Billy Bartkowski; the dead-eyed chain smoker and former car thief Grits; a long-haired convenience store robber called Zeus; and a laconic murderer known as Pickles. This unlikely community—which comes to include Grits’ beautiful niece, Iris—proves to have a lot to teach Jesse, who soon acquires the not-exactly-flattering nickname Tippy Toes. The author has a talent for memorable descriptions, as when the crew enjoys a post-work beer: “Billy, Grits and I stood like dirty scarecrows behind the truck. I took a seat on the steel edge of the trough and Grits sat on the curb, his bony knees extending toward the dimming sky like church steeples. Billy turned his orange carry can upside-down and sat on top of it, squashing it nearly in half with his bulk….” The strange milieu and its stranger characters are so compellingly drawn that the reader quickly grows invested. The narrative occasionally lapses into the clichéd and the sentimental, and its attempts to be heartwarming are not always successful. Even so, the reader can’t help but enjoy the ride, flies and all.
A colorful, bighearted novel about a summer of hauling trash.Pub Date: March 27, 2023
ISBN: 9798985282764
Page Count: 272
Publisher: IFD Publishing
Review Posted Online: March 28, 2023
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
A dark and twisty look at just how far one woman is willing to go to find inspiration.
A struggling writer finds an unexpected muse when a mysterious man shows up at her cabin.
Petra Rose used to pump out a bestselling book every six months, but then the adaptation happened—that is, the disastrous film adaptation of her most famous book. The movie changed the book’s storyline so egregiously that fans couldn’t forgive her, and the ensuing harassment sent Petra into hiding and gave her a serious case of writer’s block. Petra’s one hope is her solo writing retreat at a remote cabin, where she can escape the distractions of real life and focus on her next book, a story about a woman having an affair with a cop. When officer Nathaniel Saint shows up at her cabin door, inspiration comes flooding back. Much like the character from Petra’s book, Saint is married, and he’s willing to be Petra’s muse, helping her get into her characters’ heads. Petra’s book is practically writing itself, but is the game she’s playing a little too dangerous? Does she know when to stop—and, more importantly, is Saint willing to stop? Hoover is no stranger to controversial movie adaptations and internet backlash, but she clarifies in a note to readers that she’s “just a writer writing about a writer” and that no further connections to her own life are contained in these pages—which is a good thing, because the book takes some horrifying twists and turns. Petra finds herself inexplicably attracted to Saint, even as she describes him as “such an asshole,” and her feelings for him veer between love and hate. The novel serves as a meta commentary on the dark romance genre—as Petra puts it, “Even though, as readers, we wouldn’t want to live out some of the fantasies we read about, it doesn’t mean we don’t enjoy reading those things.”
A dark and twisty look at just how far one woman is willing to go to find inspiration.Pub Date: Jan. 13, 2026
ISBN: 9781662539374
Page Count: -
Publisher: Montlake
Review Posted Online: Sept. 27, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2025
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