A wild ride and an immersive Chicago novel, in which the town threatens to toddle off its axis.
In the wake of the JFK assassination, another death shakes Chicago.
Before “true crime” and “cold case” became cultural bywords, the real-life mystery surrounding Karyn “Cookie” Kupcinet obsessed her hometown. She was the 22-year-old daughter of Irv “Kup” Kupcinet, whose daily newspaper column and late-night TV gabfest had tagged him with the title “Mr. Chicago.” A struggling starlet since moving to LA, Cookie had experienced a series of setbacks—a shoplifting conviction, an abortion, a romantic breakup. When she was found dead in her apartment, was it suicide or murder? Could it have had something to do with the Kennedy assassination? The Kupcinets insisted there was foul play, though no suspects were charged and the case remains officially unresolved. Six decades later, the case is mostly forgotten, but it obsesses the narrator of this novel. Jed Rosenthal is a struggling author, academic, and father. He takes a deep dive into this mystery, at least partly because there’s so little else going on in his life. Plus, it’s personal for him—his grandparents had been best friends with the Kupcinets, until Cookie’s death. Another mystery? It seems that Jed has never forgotten nor forgiven the way the Kupcinets cut the Rosenthals off. Within the novel, literary allusions abound, from Chicago (including Saul Bellow, whose Humboldt’s Gift featured a fictionalized Kup) and beyond (James Ellroy in particular takes a beating). The novel also abounds with names that Chicagoans of a certain age will recognize, the sort of names so often boldfaced in Kup’s column. As Jed muses, “A friend of mine, a novelist, once said that minor characters don’t know they’re minor. Doesn’t this apply to us all?” Because all these characters are pretty minor in the grand scheme of things. Including Jed and Cookie. Even Kup’s luster has dimmed since his death. But in conjuring Chicago as it existed before he was born, Jed attempts to show how everything connects, how the pieces of this puzzle—his family’s and his city’s—might somehow fit together. And maybe even amount to something.
A wild ride and an immersive Chicago novel, in which the town threatens to toddle off its axis.Pub Date: Aug. 12, 2025
ISBN: 9780316224659
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: May 16, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2025
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 debut novel with bright spots, but unbalanced and lacking in finesse.
A high school senior pursues an affair with her teacher.
Seventeen-year-old Waldo, the narrator of McCurdy’s fiction debut, lives in Anchorage, Alaska, with her mother, though she’s long been the parent in their relationship. She heats her own frozen meals and pays the bills on time while her mom chases man after man and makes well-meaning promises she never keeps. Waldo blows her Victoria’s Secret wages on online shopping sprees and binges on junk food, inevitably crashing after the fleeting highs of her indulgences. Mr. Korgy, her creative writing teacher, has “thinning hair and nose pores”; he’s 40 years old and married with a child. Nevertheless—or possibly as a result?—Waldo’s attraction to him is “instant. So sudden it’s alarming. So palpable it’s confusing.” Mr. Korgy professes to want to keep their friendship aboveboard, but after a sexual encounter at the school’s winter formal that she initiates, an affair begins. Will this reckless pursuit be the one that actually satisfies Waldo, and is she as mature as she thinks she is? Waldo is a keen observer of people and provides sharp commentary on the punishing work of female beauty. Readers of McCurdy’s bestselling memoir, I’m Glad My Mom Died (2022), will surely be curious about the tumultuous mother-daughter relationship, and it is one of the novel’s highlights, full of realistic pity and anger and need. (“I want to scream at her. I want her to hug me.”) Unfortunately, the prose is often unwieldy and sometimes downright cringeworthy: When Waldo tells Mr. Korgy she loves him, “The words hang in the air in that constipated way they do when you know that you shouldn’t have said them.” Waldo frequently lists emotions and adjectives in triplicate, and events that could be significant aren’t sufficiently explored or given enough space to breathe before the novel races on to the next thing.
A debut novel with bright spots, but unbalanced and lacking in finesse.Pub Date: Jan. 20, 2026
ISBN: 9780593723739
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: Nov. 22, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2026
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
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