If only these characters could decide whether “to be or not to be,” but that’s a different tragedy.
A novel about a Memphis theater company envelops onstage classical tragedy within offstage domestic farce.
Like a playbill, the novel opens with a “Cast of Characters,” beginning with “The Three Main Characters” and followed by “And the People Around Them.” The three principals are Thaddeus Deerforth, general manager of the Shakespeare Theater of Memphis; Malcolm Ruark, a recently disgraced local TV news anchor–turned-thespian; and Claudette Bradley, one of the company’s principal actors. Each of them has a troubled marriage—two recently ended, and one looks increasingly shaky. Further complicating their stories, as they prepare for their newly renovated theater's grand relaunch with King Lear, are issues of alcoholism and substance abuse, aged parents with dementia, sexual impulses they find difficult to understand and control. The people around them number a few dozen, and it’s tough to keep them straight even with the cast list, but they include a couple of aging lechers—a visiting director from academe and a lead actor known from a Netflix series—who bring plenty of their own issues and have trouble adjusting to Memphis culture, and a pair of billionaire donors, the “Cosmetics Tycoons,” who are funding this attempt to put Memphis on the map of world-class theater cities. What could go wrong? The romantic entanglements, past and present, can be impossible to predict and tough to keep straight, while the dramatic production itself must please the billionaires, impress the city, and manage to keep people who can’t stand each other working together. Outwardly, some of the plot verges on slapstick, but inwardly, there is quiet desperation. “He began wanting a fight,” Bausch writes of one character at a pivotal juncture. “Something to bring it all to a head, some sort of catharsis. But he wouldn’t act on it.” So the reader also waits for some catharsis, or something to happen, to move this plot and these characters forward.
If only these characters could decide whether “to be or not to be,” but that’s a different tragedy.Pub Date: Feb. 14, 2023
ISBN: 9780451494849
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Dec. 13, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2023
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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.
