An affecting novel about the duality of hope and despair.
The intersecting lives of six people living in Jerusalem and in need of organ transplants are chronicled in Wolf’s emotionally charged novel.
Twenty-one-year-old Leah Weiss is one of eight siblings, all of whom grow up in an ultra-Orthodox Jewish community in Jerusalem. She suffers from chronic kidney disease and as a result regularly undergoes dialysis, exhausted and demoralized by her rapidly worsening condition. Her former fiance, Moshe, leaves her to wed Leah’s best friend Bassie. Leah’s mother Hindy obsessively tries to find her a husband, even hiding the fact that she’s “damaged goods” to increase her prospects. Another character, Yael Glassman, suffers from chronic lung disease—as a single mom, she frets anxiously about the future of her young daughter, Tikva. Here, she reflects melancholically on the profound allure of leading a normal life: “How lucky she was to have gotten a double lung transplant nine years ago, and to have lived for a few years magically believing she would always be a healthy person. To have traveled, fallen in love, had a baby. And yet…how cruel it was, to tease her with those years.” Now, she needs yet another transplant, a predicament shared by five other characters whose lives become entangled in various ways despite their diverse backgrounds (some are Jewish, some Muslim, and one, Father Severin McConnell, is a Catholic priest). Israel is a uniquely difficult country in which to obtain a new organ, given the prohibitively strict religious rules against the desecration of the body; these restrictions affect all of the protagonists. In the background of the medical drama is the eruption of extraordinary political violence, which serves to terrify some characters and send others into despair—but it also furnishes a measure of redemptive hope, since the death of some could mean the survival of others waiting for organs. Here and there, Wolf comes perilously close to a lachrymose sentimentality but never fully commits that literary sin, always maintaining an impressive authorial restraint. The result is a deeply poignant narrative.
An affecting novel about the duality of hope and despair.Pub Date: March 11, 2025
ISBN: 9781958762134
Page Count: 244
Publisher: Arbitrary Press
Review Posted Online: Jan. 23, 2025
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
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
SEEN & HEARD
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
