Contemplative and charged; a thought-inducing thriller.
Selgin presents a literary novel about the dark side of sibling rivalry.
When Stewart Detweiler, author and former instructor at the Metropolitan Writing Institute, arrives at a lake house in Georgia, the situation is bleak. Stewart’s twin brother, Gregory, has taken his own life. Does Stewart notify the police? Nope. He dumps the body in the lake and assumes his brother’s identity. While Stewart was scraping together a living at a tenement apartment in the Bronx, his twin enjoyed fame and fortune. Gregory was once a mild-mannered professor in Vermont, but that all changed. A chance encounter on an airplane inspired him to enter the self-help market with a book called Coffee, Black. The premise of Coffee, Black boils down to this: One is free to make changes in one’s own life. The book, published under Gregory’s new persona, “Brock Jones, Ph.D.,” became a runaway bestseller. Gregory became a changed man. This is all much to the chagrin of Stewart, who, though having a few published works under his belt, could never dream of the kind of success of Coffee, Black. If the basis of Brock’s message was that we can be whomever we want to be, why can’t his brother take the place of someone people adore? It seems like a good plan, yet Stewart learns that being Brock isn’t as carefree as he imagined. To add to the drama, this very text, the reader is told, has been hastily written on a series of composition pads.
The premise of a twin’s assuming the identity of his more successful brother sounds comedic. In execution, however, the story takes a more sinister tack. If, for instance, Stewart is going to successfully put his brother’s body at the bottom of the lake, he is going to have to stab it several times so it does not float to the surface. As Stewart points out, his brother is already dead. But does that make it OK? Back at the lake house, Stewart considers an obsession of his father (who was also a professor and also died by suicide) with twins and doppelgängers. Then, to complicate matters, it seems the lake is being dragged for a body. Never mind strange text messages Stewart receives on his brother’s old phone. This all culminates in an atmosphere that is thoughtful, tense, and fascinatingly morbid. By contrast, flashbacks to Stewart’s life are tame. The reader gets more than a few rehashes of what Stewart taught his writing students (e.g., how to write a pitch paragraph) and a clunky disagreement Stewart had with a barista concerning decaf espresso. Such recollections do not exactly leap from the page. Nor do they add much to this clearly troubled protagonist. After all, the reader knows well there is at least one body at the bottom of the lake.
Contemplative and charged; a thought-inducing thriller.Pub Date: Dec. 4, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-947175-43-3
Page Count: 396
Publisher: Serving House Books
Review Posted Online: Feb. 12, 2021
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
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
A warm and winning "When Harry Met Sally…" update that hits all the perfect notes.
A travel writer has one last shot at reconnecting with the best friend she just might be in love with.
Poppy and Alex couldn't be more different. She loves wearing bright colors while he prefers khakis and a T-shirt. She likes just about everything while he’s a bit more discerning. And yet, their opposites-attract friendship works because they love each other…in a totally platonic way. Probably. Even though they have their own separate lives (Poppy lives in New York City and is a travel writer with a popular Instagram account; Alex is a high school teacher in their tiny Ohio hometown), they still manage to get together each summer for one fabulous vacation. They grow closer every year, but Poppy doesn’t let herself linger on her feelings for Alex—she doesn’t want to ruin their friendship or the way she can be fully herself with him. They continue to date other people, even bringing their serious partners on their summer vacations…but then, after a falling-out, they stop speaking. When Poppy finds herself facing a serious bout of ennui, unhappy with her glamorous job and the life she’s been dreaming of forever, she thinks back to the last time she was truly happy: her last vacation with Alex. And so, though they haven’t spoken in two years, she asks him to take another vacation with her. She’s determined to bridge the gap that’s formed between them and become best friends again, but to do that, she’ll have to be honest with Alex—and herself—about her true feelings. In chapters that jump around in time, Henry shows readers the progression (and dissolution) of Poppy and Alex’s friendship. Their slow-burn love story hits on beloved romance tropes (such as there unexpectedly being only one bed on the reconciliation trip Poppy plans) while still feeling entirely fresh. Henry’s biggest strength is in the sparkling, often laugh-out-loud-funny dialogue, particularly the banter-filled conversations between Poppy and Alex. But there’s depth to the story, too—Poppy’s feeling of dissatisfaction with a life that should be making her happy as well as her unresolved feelings toward the difficult parts of her childhood make her a sympathetic and relatable character. The end result is a story that pays homage to classic romantic comedies while having a point of view all its own.
A warm and winning "When Harry Met Sally…" update that hits all the perfect notes.Pub Date: May 11, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-9848-0675-8
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Berkley
Review Posted Online: March 2, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2021
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
PERSPECTIVES
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