Pervasive angst and morbidity characterize this dark anthology.
Coloman’s second short story collection, following Roxy’s Not My Girl (2019), includes a dark bouquet of narratives that often focus on women pushed to emotional extremes.
This set of works largely consists of first-person narratives of women in pain, and some are poetic flash-fiction or “contes cruels” of just a few pages in length. The nameless protagonist of the title tale calls herself “born of dirt and dusk” in a singsong refrain as she recalls a terrible father, a troubled mother, and her own downward spiral. A man named Cayce from a stable family is infatuated with her, despite her protestations about being one of the “haywired girls” and who “paid no attention to the fangs I flared at him.” For what she sees as Cayce’s own protection, she distances herself from him and continues on a self-destructive path. Other tales effectively address parental, often maternal, love gone awry, due to worry, neglect, or obsession. In “At the End of the Road,” the stricken mother of an ovarian cancer patient agonizes over whether to remain with her independent-minded daughter or give her some space. A dark tone reigns, even in a tale of a warm, successful relationship, like that of the young married couple in “The Last of Our Kind,” which comes to an apocalyptic conclusion. “Pretending,” in which another damned soul, an adoptee tormented by her birth mother’s abandonment, finds solace in a stranger’s old diary at a garage sale, is about as Chicken Soup for the Soul–ish as Coloman gets. Readers will be surprised that a few tales, with clear stylistic nods to splatterpunk fiction and the work of Hubert Selby Jr., wind up as outright horror or horror-fantasy. In “Rules to Eating a Dog’s Dead Heart,” a daughter gets revenge on her mother, a gruesome social media chef. “The Pepper Tree” finds an aged, childless woman literally bonding with her favorite tree, and “Hands That Make a Man” is a rare piece with a male protagonist in which a boy loses his blackjack-playing, casino-regular father—though not all of him. Overall, this absinthe-tinged assortment will appeal to a rebellious readership.
Pervasive angst and morbidity characterize this dark anthology.Pub Date: Nov. 10, 2025
ISBN: 9798270083182
Page Count: 215
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: Jan. 14, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 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
SEEN & HEARD
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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