Fun, intriguing, and packed with historical tidbits.
Rosenberg offers a fictionalized take on the life of Lily Bollinger, a real-life champagne magnate who took her family’s business to new heights.
Lily Bollinger was 42 years old in 1941 when her husband of 20 years, Jacques Bollinger, head of the family’s champagne business, died. It was left to her to take over management of the prestigious winery. The novel opens in 1967, with Lily about to make a major announcement about a bold new addition to the Bollinger portfolio: the “Bollinger R.D.,” a daring blend of tradition and creative innovation. But first, she must endure an interview with Cyril Ray, the newly appointed and officious wine critic from The Observer, a man who becomes her major irritant over the following years. (“Trying to explain the brilliance of ‘recently disgorged’ to Cyril Ray feels akin to attempting to teach a cat to waltz.”) For Lily, the past two and a half decades have been defined by grief, determination, courage, and rebellion in the face of the Nazi onslaught and various court battles. It has also been a time filled with the excitement and elegance of spectacular promotional events that included such glamorous figures as race car drivers and a couple of very special movie stars. As she begins to look ahead toward her future retirement, she has one more unique vintage planned—but it will remain a family secret until her 75th birthday celebration, still seven years away. Rosenberg’s novel toggles back and forth through time, beginning with Jacques’ death and proceeding to Lily’s ultimate success. The prose is lively, replete with delightful repartee and a smattering of French phrases. For those whose acquaintance with champagne is limited to the occasional celebratory indulgence, the novel will be an eye-opening cornucopia of complex details—perhaps a bit too many for the casual reader. Still, Rosenberg’s Lily is a vibrant, potent mix of grit and glitz, with her love of the land and her amusing fondness for all things James Bond. A secret multidecade romance adds extra dash to her character.
Fun, intriguing, and packed with historical tidbits.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: -
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: Feb. 10, 2026
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 welcome literary resurrection that deserves a place alongside Wright’s best-known work.
A falsely accused Black man goes into hiding in this masterful novella by Wright (1908-1960), finally published in full.
Written in 1941 and '42, between Wright’s classics Native Son and Black Boy, this short novel concerns Fred Daniels, a modest laborer who’s arrested by police officers and bullied into signing a false confession that he killed the residents of a house near where he was working. In a brief unsupervised moment, he escapes through a manhole and goes into hiding in a sewer. A series of allegorical, surrealistic set pieces ensues as Fred explores the nether reaches of a church, a real estate firm, and a jewelry store. Each stop is an opportunity for Wright to explore themes of hope, greed, and exploitation; the real estate firm, Wright notes, “collected hundreds of thousands of dollars in rent from poor colored folks.” But Fred’s deepening existential crisis and growing distance from society keep the scenes from feeling like potted commentaries. As he wallpapers his underground warren with cash, mocking and invalidating the currency, he registers a surrealistic but engrossing protest against divisive social norms. The novel, rejected by Wright’s publisher, has only appeared as a substantially truncated short story until now, without the opening setup and with a different ending. Wright's take on racial injustice seems to have unsettled his publisher: A note reveals that an editor found reading about Fred’s treatment by the police “unbearable.” That may explain why Wright, in an essay included here, says its focus on race is “rather muted,” emphasizing broader existential themes. Regardless, as an afterword by Wright’s grandson Malcolm attests, the story now serves as an allegory both of Wright (he moved to France, an “exile beyond the reach of Jim Crow and American bigotry”) and American life. Today, it resonates deeply as a story about race and the struggle to envision a different, better world.
A welcome literary resurrection that deserves a place alongside Wright’s best-known work.Pub Date: April 20, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-59853-676-8
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Library of America
Review Posted Online: March 16, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2021
BOOK TO SCREEN
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