Brilliantly weird. Weirdly brilliant.
Three giants on an interstellar spacecraft are rapidly running out of room—and they just keep growing.
As unconventional as the premise of New Zealander Adam’s novel seems, the reality is far stranger. Three giants—Stanley, Alba, and Drew—are seemingly all that remain of the spacecraft Audition’s original crew of 18. They can’t be sure of this, however, as they are totally immobile, crammed into whatever spaces they could find large enough to accommodate them when, already enormous compared to “normal-sized humans” at the outset of the voyage, they grew at an exponential rate, with catastrophic results. These giant crew members, “dangerous and annoying” on Earth, were trained to operate the ship in the classroom—an open-air stadium where they were subjected to a barrage of mind control techniques that have made them docile and stripped them of any memory of their prior lives. The spacecraft Audition operates through the mysterious, almost alchemical, process of turning “[their] noise into speed and steering.” Though the goal of their mission is uncertain, Stanley, Alba, and Drew have been trained to keep up a constant stream of inane conversation to make sure the ship’s functions continue to operate, including the artificial gravity that “keeps humans small.” Why did the crew enact an apparently total “silent rebellion” against Audition itself, the consequences of which are what have Stanley, Alba, and Drew crammed up against the rafters? The novel’s three simultaneous narrators don’t know—their agency almost totally stripped from them by their physical suffering, lingering amnesia, and the need to keep up a constant stream of mind-wiping chatter—but a careful reader can begin to put together the story behind this story as snatches of the lives the giants lived “before the classroom” begin to come into focus. Stunningly inventive, this book is told in three parts that explore the simultaneity of past, present, and future as the three main characters’ voices loop and swell around each other. Though readers may find themselves challenged by this form—akin to Virginia Woolf’s The Waves meeting a 21st century version of Philip K. Dick—the rewards of a sustained read are abundant.
Brilliantly weird. Weirdly brilliant.Pub Date: June 10, 2025
ISBN: 9781566897310
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Coffee House
Review Posted Online: April 19, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
PERSPECTIVES
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 pleasant if not entirely convincing tribute to the power of art.
A French art historian’s English-language fiction debut combines the story of a loving relationship between a grandfather and granddaughter with an enlightening discussion of art.
One day, when 10-year-old Mona removes the necklace given to her by her now-dead grandmother, she experiences a frightening, hour-long bout of blindness. Her parents take her to the doctor, who gives her a variety of tests and also advises that she see a psychiatrist. Her grandfather Henry tells her parents that he will take care of that assignment, but instead, he takes Mona on weekly visits to either the Louvre, the Musée d’Orsay, or the Centre Pompidou, where each week they study a single work of art, gazing at it deeply and then discussing its impact and history and the biography of its maker. For the reader’s benefit, Schlesser also describes each of the works in scrupulous detail. As the year goes on, Mona faces the usual challenges of elementary school life and the experiences of being an only child, and slowly begins to understand the causes of her temporary blindness. Primarily an amble through a few dozen of Schlesser’s favorite works of art—some well known and others less so, from Botticelli and da Vinci through Basquiat and Bourgeois—the novel would probably benefit from being read at a leisurely pace. While the dialogue between Henry and the preternaturally patient and precocious Mona sometimes strains credulity, readers who don’t have easy access to the museums of Paris may enjoy this vicarious trip in the company of a guide who focuses equally on that which can be seen and the context that can’t be. Come for the novel, stay for the introductory art history course.
A pleasant if not entirely convincing tribute to the power of art.Pub Date: Aug. 26, 2025
ISBN: 9798889661115
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Europa Editions
Review Posted Online: June 7, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2025
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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