A slim, earnest novel about the ways in which parents can hurt us for life.
A woman attempts to move beyond her anger at her dying father in Bryant’s novel.
Sixteen years ago, Yvette’s mother died. Then her father, a pastor, quickly dropped out of her life to be with his new wife and stepdaughter. Unlike her sister Zoe, Yvette has never fully gotten over either of those losses, even as she’s grown to be a successful woman, wife, and mother. Now Yvette is about to turn 42—the age her mother was when she died—and mortality has been creeping into her thoughts. So have her feelings about her father, which she claims to experience less as pain than as a sort of emptiness. “It somehow bypasses the emotions that accompany caring and instead migrates to not having any feeling at all,” she thinks. “It settles into a level of indifference unmatched by any spite or unwavering ill will.” On a routine trip to her Georgia hometown to visit Zoe, Yvette receives a surprise: Zoe has conspired to arrange a meeting with Vera, the stepdaughter from their father’s second marriage. Though Yvette and Vera are similar in many respects—Vera also has a husband and daughter—they have radically different understandings of their father. To Vera, the Pastor (as she calls him) is a loving, dependable, and loyal man, and she can’t understand why Yvette would shut him out of her life. Yvette feels betrayed by the setup; even after learning that the Pastor has been diagnosed with cancer, she does not want anything to do with him or his new family. When everyone in her life encourages her to make amends, Yvette attempts to let go of her long-held animosity—unsuccessfully, for the most part. But could Vera hold the key to understanding the distance between Yvette and her father, a secret from years ago that, if brought to light, might change Yvette’s understanding of their strained relationship?
Bryant alternates between Yvette’s and Vera’s points of view over the course of the novel, revealing how the Pastor’s decisions have shaped their respective lives. Even for Vera, who enjoyed the love of living and happily married parents, the irregularity of the Pastor’s two estranged daughters forms a painful wrinkle in her understanding of her otherwise-functional family. Here, Bryant allows Vera to share her side of the story, in typically confessional prose: “It was years before I was privy to the whole story, but in short, his wife had died and his daughters had abandoned him. Based on the whispered conversations I’d overheard, I was sure the decision was driven by his daughter Yvette’s selfishness. If only she’d known.” The novel is brief at under 150 pages, but the plot proceeds slowly, providing Yvette and Vera with little to do aside from stewing in their respective fears and resentments. (Both have highly supportive husbands, which mostly keeps their inner pain from manifesting as real-life drama.) Their emotions are certainly understandable, but the story’s attempt to resolve them feels slightly contrived and simplistic. Some readers will no doubt tear up at the final reveal, while others may wish for a bit more messiness.
A slim, earnest novel about the ways in which parents can hurt us for life.Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2024
ISBN: 9781963874204
Page Count: 158
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: March 20, 2025
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
© 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.
